Hotel California, by the Eagles
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim I had to stop for the night. There she stood in the doorway I heard the mission bell And I was thinking to myself, "This could be Heaven or this could be Hell" Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say . . . Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place Such a lovely face Plenty of room at the Hotel California Any time of year, you can find it here. Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends She's got a lot of pretty pretty boys, that she calls friends How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. Some dance to remember, some dance to forget So I called up the Captain, "Please bring me my wine" He said, "We haven't had that spirit here Since nineteen sixty nine" And still those voices are calling from far away, Wake you up in the middle of the night Just to hear them say . . . |
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place Such a lovely face They’re living it up at the Hotel California What a nice surprise, bring your alibis Mirrors on the ceiling, The pink champagne on ice And she said "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device". And in the master's chambers, They gathered for the feast They stab it with their steely knives But they just can't kill the beast. Last thing I remember, I was Running for the door I had to find the passage back To the place I was before "Relax," said the night man, "We are programmed to receive. You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!" |
Hotel California - A Critical Analysis
Hotel California by the Eagles is a song that many people are familiar with, throughout the world. It is a well-known song, but at the same time very few people really have any idea as to its meaning. Is it about a holiday in California? Is it about drugs? Here we will examine the lyrics of this song in detail, and will spend some time extracting the cultural, social, and psychological themes that lie hidden below the surface. What does this song say about American society? While people tend to think of Hotel California as a somewhat romantic or melancholy song, or simply related to traveling and staying in a nice hotel in California, and others think it is somehow primarily about drugs, they are usually quite surprised to discover that it is actually a scathing social commentary on the materialism and hedonism of contemporary American life. California itself is seen as a metaphor for escapism and the never-ending search for pleasure and fulfillment. It is little wonder that this song became a classic icon for an entire generation.
The song is in six verses, with a refrain repeated with some variation after the second and fourth verses. Among the difficulties in interpreting this song is the fact that some of the lines are rather obscure, there are built-in ambiguities in a number of passages, and puns and double meanings have been consciously utilized in several places. This is probably the most thoroughly discussed and debated song of the Eagles, and even the most dedicated fans do not completely agree about the meaning. So let me add my interpretation, with the understanding that other readings are also possible. Now, let us examine the lyrics line by line.
The first verse gives us the setting.
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair,
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim,
I had to stop for the night.
We can picture the narrator driving across the desert in the US Southwest on his long trip to California. Night has fallen, and the heat of the day has cooled off. His windows are open (or maybe he is driving a convertible with the top down) and the warm desert fragrance comes to him on the air. Here we need to have a little knowledge of US geography. Probably most people throughout the world imagine the cities of LA or San Francisco when they think of California, and they imagine arriving by air. But many Americans travel by car, and the trip to California is a long drive through sparsely populated areas, especially in the American Southwest if driving to southern California, through mountains and deserts, with a few small towns, filling stations and motels along the way to break the monotony. As with many drivers, intent on getting to his destination, our narrator has driven all through the day well into the night, and fatigue has begun to set in. As he sees the welcoming light of some human habitation in the dark and empty distance, perhaps a motel or roadside restaurant, he realizes that he is exhausted and needs to stop for the night.
There is some ambiguity in the second line that has generated a lot of discussion and various interpretations among fans.
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air.
On the surface of it, colitas is sometimes thought of as a night-blooming desert plant of the Southwest, but there is another meaning as well. The Spanish word "cola" means tail of an animal, and with the diminutive ending "-ita" it gives us the word "little tails" which is an obscure Mexican slang word for marijuana. Consequently we can interpret this line to mean that he was smoking pot as he was driving along, especially with reference to its "warm smell ... rising up through the air". But on the true meaning, the Eagles themselves remain silent, they won't say one way or the other.
In the next verse we are introduced to the other significant character of the story:
There she stood in the doorway.
I heard the mission bell.
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell.
In English we usually do not use a personal pronoun until after the individual has been introduced into the discourse. In normal speech we would say, "There was a woman standing in the doorway," and then the subsequent reference would use "she". But to go directly to the pronoun without any preliminary reference is a discourse device that places great emphasis on that individual, as if "she" needed no introduction. And as the tale unfolds we begin to see that she is indeed a looming figure.
The line "I heard the mission bell" introduces several features. On the one hand it gives us a sense of place. The Spanish missions established throughout the region long before any English-speaking settlers set foot in the area are among the characteristic cultural icons of Southern California and the US Southwest. Many of the cities and towns of California grew up around these missions, and were named after them: San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, San Juan Capistrano, and of course Los Angeles, the City of Angels. There is nothing more evocative of the special character of this region than these old mission churches, many of them still standing today. For more details and illustrations, go to "Hotel California - Mission Bells".
A second theme may also be seen in the seemingly extraneous reference to the mission bell, an implication that something spiritual or otherworldly is also involved. Additionally, there is an ambiguous two-sided significance to the Spanish missions bells - they symbolize the call to salvation on the one hand, and they also symbolize the colonization of the region and the suppression of the Native American peoples and cultures. And this leads us directly to the next line where the protagonist thinks to himself, "This could be Heaven or this could be Hell." What would make him suddenly think such a thing? This thought seems to be a triggered by the two-sided implication of the Spanish mission bells as both a call to salvation and the threat of oppression. He has a sudden premonition of things to come, the first hint that all is not what it appears to be.
The next line is an interesting one:
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way.
On the surface of it she seems to be nothing more than someone working at the hotel showing him the way to his room. But why a candle? Where were the electric lights? He doesn't even question her actions. There are a number of implications here. On the one hand, a candle symbolizes a light of guidance, not merely physical guidance down a hallway, but some sort of journey of the mind is implied. If she switched on the lights, or carried a flashlight, it would have an entirely different feeling, wouldn't it?
On the other hand, candles are used to enhance the mood of a place. Can you imagine a romantic intimate dinner by candle light in a quaint little restaurant? Very cozy and beautiful. But if someone suddenly turned on all the overhead lights, or if you were to come back during the bright light of noon, it would be seen as an entirely different place. Now you could see the cockroaches under the tables, the drab concrete walls, the frayed cushions and the stained tablecloths. The nice thing about candlelight is that it protects us from seeing the reality in the shadows. And in the Hotel California, no one really wants to see the glaring reality of the place.
As the song continues, he is being ushered down the hallway.
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here.
These enticing, disembodied voices bring to mind the Sirens encountered by Odysseus on his journey, offering all that men could desire, but leading to their ultimate doom. "Welcome," they whisper. "Such a lovely place." This seems very inviting and attractive. "Such a lovely face," they say. Are they referring to his mysterious guide? She is so beautiful, just follow her, the voices seem to tell him. But "face" also implies a façade, the outward appearance of things, which as we all know can be infinitely deceiving. And there is significant ambiguity in the statement "Any time of year, you can find it here." The word "it" seems so simple and innocuous. It is a small word, but it has a huge implication. There is room here for everyone, anytime, and whatever your desires may be you can fulfill them here. No judgment, no rejection. The voices promise everything. We begin to see that this is more than just some ordinary hotel beside the road.
The next two lines reveal more about "her".
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she’s got the Mercedes bends.
She’s got a lot of pretty pretty boys, that she calls friends.
These two lines say a lot. "Tiffany-twisted" implies that she has a distorted obsession for the luxuries and the superficially beautiful things of life. There is a play on words in the phrase "she's got the Mercedes bends," a clever pun that most people fail to catch. The name of the well-known luxurious automobile, Mercedes-Benz, is here changed to "Mercedes bends", both words being pronounced the same. If you only heard the lyrics, you wouldn't notice this at all. What is the implication of this word change? "The bends" (always plural and with the definite article) is a severe and painful condition caused by rapid decompression of the body, as when a deep-sea diver rises too rapidly to the surface. The implication here is that her taste for elegant and expensive cars is a manifestation of her too rapid (and temporary?) rise in social status. Although she seems confident and self-assured in her position, she is really living above her true state. And as one of the "beautiful people" with seemingly endless resources and appetites, she has attracted an assortment of "pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends." The repetition of the word "pretty" gives it an excessive and repulsive connotation, not pleasant at all. We can easily picture these "pretty, pretty boys", vain, self-absorbed young men, all style and affectation, gathering around whoever provides the most lavish distractions, and at the moment that happens to be her. And as if to emphasize the superficiality of their relationship, we are told that they are those "that she calls friends". But she doesn't mind if they are not "true" friends at all, and might abandon her at a moment's notice. She enjoys the feeling of self-importance they give her, their fawning affection, everyone gaining what they want, momentary pleasure and distraction. They are little more than "eye candy" to her.
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.
This shows us the "scene" (in the pop social sense) at the Hotel California – the frenzied dancing, the smell of sweat. "Sweet summer sweat" is nice poetic alliteration, but the repeated initial "s" also carries a rather erotic connotation. "Some dance to remember, some dance to forget" is one of the more memorable lines from this song. People like to dance for many reasons, the pleasure of sharing time with someone you like, the enjoyment of self-expression through movement with the music. But here the focus is on the emptiness of these people's lives. Some are trying to recapture a bit of something half-remembered they have lost, while others are using the hypnotic frenzy of their dance to momentarily forget the pointlessness of their daily existence. In both cases, this tells us that the dancers here are not happy with who they are, and this reinforces the theme of escapism that runs throughout the song.
So I called up the Captain,
"Please bring me my wine."
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here
Since nineteen sixty nine."
As the protagonist edges into the world of the Hotel California, we can picture him sitting at a table in the shadows, observing the activity going on but not yet participating himself. He calls the wine steward and asks for his wine, assuming it to be "on the house". But the Captain replies, "We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine." This is a very puzzling answer. What could he mean? For one thing, there is surely a pun on the word "spirit" which not only means alcohol, but also refers to the pervasive attitude, mood or zeitgeist. And why 1969? What happened in that year? For one thing it was the year in which man first set foot on the moon, thereby not only expanding the human realm beyond this earth, but also simultaneously demystifying that romantic silver orb in the night sky. But a more likely significance to my mind of the year 1969 is that it marked the end of the 60's, a seminal period of social change, expansive hopes and idealism in American history. With the end of the 60's there came a sort of hardening of the spirit in America, a loss of innocence that has proven impossible to recapture. The spirit of optimism, social activism, and naive idealism is no longer with us. But whatever the Eagles had intended by their reference to 1969, they don't tell us, and it is still open to various interpretations.
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They’re living it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis.
Again he hears the Siren call of those mysterious voices. Are they the other minions of the Hotel California, or are they only within his own head? And we need to understand the idiomatic expression "live it up", again with that puzzling "it". To "live it up" means to enjoy oneself, often extravagantly, with no regard for the cost or the consequences. The voices are telling him (possibly with a sense of irony) that everyone is having a great time in the Hotel California. Earlier, the voices had promised that one's deepest desires could be fulfilled here, now they are telling him, in essence, that "anything goes", that he can do whatever he wants to enjoy himself. No concerns with propriety, no inhibitions, no worry about the consequences of his acts need bother him here. "What a nice surprise," the voices tell him brightly. It's even nicer here than you could have imagined. But "bring your alibis," they advise him. In other words, come prepared to deny any responsibility for your actions. We begin to see that it is not just an isolated group of people in some wayside desert hotel that is being described, but a whole society, an entire generation, with their hedonistic pursuits and denial of personal responsibility.
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice.
And she said, "We are all just prisoners here
of our own device."
The image presented here makes us picture some luxurious but tawdry "love hotel." Where else would you find "mirrors on the ceiling"? And the drink of preference here is "pink champagne on ice". Champagne is an elegant beverage of celebration, but pink champagne has an implication of crassness and over indulgence. If champagne is a symbol of elegance and sophistication, the reasoning seems to go, then PINK champagne must be even more elegant and luxurious. As our narrator gazes on this scene, his hostess (and temptress) admits to him for the first time that they are all "just prisoners here of our own device." Any semblance of freedom is really an illusion, and they have willingly succumbed to their own obsessions, fantasies, compulsions and addictions.
Now we come to the most horrifying vision of the life of the inner circle at the Hotel California. The narrator catches a glimpse of what's going on.
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast.
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast.
Behind the scenes lurks the ominous "master", who never really makes his appearance. Whatever they are feasting on seems unwilling to be subdued. Is it possibly their own inner cravings and animal passions that is the focus of their appetites? They know that their own "beast", their wild, predatory, animalistic nature, is out of control, and they try to subdue it, but they fail. In any case these are the most chilling lines in the entire song, and the deadly image of the "steely knives" is quite disturbing. Notice the difference between "steel knives" and "steely knives" -- a masterful touch. Steel knives are deadly enough, but there is something cold and terrible in the very word "steely". And the powerful rhythm and diction of the line "they just can't kill the beast" give it a special prominence and sense of finality. It is the reference to "the master" and "the beast" here that has caused some fundamentalist Christians to brand the song as a Satanist anthem, but their argument is not convincing. Rather than glorifying the denizens of the Hotel California, the song acts as powerful and effective indictment of their lifestyle.
Repulsed, and with a sense of horror, the narrator flees the scene. He is so overwhelmed that he blocks the final images of that scene from his mind, loses his bearings, and frantically seeks a means of escape.
Last thing I remember,
I was running for the door.
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before.
He eventually finds himself back where he started, but the night clerk at the front desk informs him nonchalantly that there is no escape.
"Relax," said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!"
The terrible irony and finality of these last words make this verse among the most memorable of the whole song. Trapped! Like so many others, he can play at "checking out" but he will never leave. And a final irony is the telling of the story itself. He is telling us his story, and we now know that he is still there in the "Hotel California". But if he is there and he is telling us his story, then where are we?
So, what does all this really mean? Is this a tale of a simple traveler who happens to stop at a desert resort hotel by chance and gets caught up in some local sordid scene? It could be nothing more than that, but I think (and most others think) that this song is a biting commentary on contemporary life in the US. This song helped define a whole generation and touched a chord of recognition within the minds of countless Americans. The Hotel California is a symbol for California as a whole, and California itself is a metaphor for many themes in the American experience: "Go west, young man," the search for new beginnings, the land of opportunity, and the purveyor of tinsel dreams, Hollywood. For generations, California has epitomized the American frontier and all that it represents - both hopes for a new start in life, and an escape from oppressive reality. And ironically the theme of escape has come to overwhelm the theme of new beginnings. In many ways California has come to represent much of the very best in American culture, and at the same time much of the very worst. Of this latter, the obsessions with hedonistic pursuits and materialism, with escapism and the indulgence of bizarre fantasies, with status seeking and the lure of being in the "scene", and the denial of personal responsibility, are all portrayed in a most powerful and succinct way in this song. For these reasons we can see Hotel California as a cautionary tale and an acerbic social satire.
The song is in six verses, with a refrain repeated with some variation after the second and fourth verses. Among the difficulties in interpreting this song is the fact that some of the lines are rather obscure, there are built-in ambiguities in a number of passages, and puns and double meanings have been consciously utilized in several places. This is probably the most thoroughly discussed and debated song of the Eagles, and even the most dedicated fans do not completely agree about the meaning. So let me add my interpretation, with the understanding that other readings are also possible. Now, let us examine the lyrics line by line.
The first verse gives us the setting.
On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair,
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air.
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim,
I had to stop for the night.
We can picture the narrator driving across the desert in the US Southwest on his long trip to California. Night has fallen, and the heat of the day has cooled off. His windows are open (or maybe he is driving a convertible with the top down) and the warm desert fragrance comes to him on the air. Here we need to have a little knowledge of US geography. Probably most people throughout the world imagine the cities of LA or San Francisco when they think of California, and they imagine arriving by air. But many Americans travel by car, and the trip to California is a long drive through sparsely populated areas, especially in the American Southwest if driving to southern California, through mountains and deserts, with a few small towns, filling stations and motels along the way to break the monotony. As with many drivers, intent on getting to his destination, our narrator has driven all through the day well into the night, and fatigue has begun to set in. As he sees the welcoming light of some human habitation in the dark and empty distance, perhaps a motel or roadside restaurant, he realizes that he is exhausted and needs to stop for the night.
There is some ambiguity in the second line that has generated a lot of discussion and various interpretations among fans.
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air.
On the surface of it, colitas is sometimes thought of as a night-blooming desert plant of the Southwest, but there is another meaning as well. The Spanish word "cola" means tail of an animal, and with the diminutive ending "-ita" it gives us the word "little tails" which is an obscure Mexican slang word for marijuana. Consequently we can interpret this line to mean that he was smoking pot as he was driving along, especially with reference to its "warm smell ... rising up through the air". But on the true meaning, the Eagles themselves remain silent, they won't say one way or the other.
In the next verse we are introduced to the other significant character of the story:
There she stood in the doorway.
I heard the mission bell.
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell.
In English we usually do not use a personal pronoun until after the individual has been introduced into the discourse. In normal speech we would say, "There was a woman standing in the doorway," and then the subsequent reference would use "she". But to go directly to the pronoun without any preliminary reference is a discourse device that places great emphasis on that individual, as if "she" needed no introduction. And as the tale unfolds we begin to see that she is indeed a looming figure.
The line "I heard the mission bell" introduces several features. On the one hand it gives us a sense of place. The Spanish missions established throughout the region long before any English-speaking settlers set foot in the area are among the characteristic cultural icons of Southern California and the US Southwest. Many of the cities and towns of California grew up around these missions, and were named after them: San Diego, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Francisco, San Juan Capistrano, and of course Los Angeles, the City of Angels. There is nothing more evocative of the special character of this region than these old mission churches, many of them still standing today. For more details and illustrations, go to "Hotel California - Mission Bells".
A second theme may also be seen in the seemingly extraneous reference to the mission bell, an implication that something spiritual or otherworldly is also involved. Additionally, there is an ambiguous two-sided significance to the Spanish missions bells - they symbolize the call to salvation on the one hand, and they also symbolize the colonization of the region and the suppression of the Native American peoples and cultures. And this leads us directly to the next line where the protagonist thinks to himself, "This could be Heaven or this could be Hell." What would make him suddenly think such a thing? This thought seems to be a triggered by the two-sided implication of the Spanish mission bells as both a call to salvation and the threat of oppression. He has a sudden premonition of things to come, the first hint that all is not what it appears to be.
The next line is an interesting one:
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way.
On the surface of it she seems to be nothing more than someone working at the hotel showing him the way to his room. But why a candle? Where were the electric lights? He doesn't even question her actions. There are a number of implications here. On the one hand, a candle symbolizes a light of guidance, not merely physical guidance down a hallway, but some sort of journey of the mind is implied. If she switched on the lights, or carried a flashlight, it would have an entirely different feeling, wouldn't it?
On the other hand, candles are used to enhance the mood of a place. Can you imagine a romantic intimate dinner by candle light in a quaint little restaurant? Very cozy and beautiful. But if someone suddenly turned on all the overhead lights, or if you were to come back during the bright light of noon, it would be seen as an entirely different place. Now you could see the cockroaches under the tables, the drab concrete walls, the frayed cushions and the stained tablecloths. The nice thing about candlelight is that it protects us from seeing the reality in the shadows. And in the Hotel California, no one really wants to see the glaring reality of the place.
As the song continues, he is being ushered down the hallway.
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here.
These enticing, disembodied voices bring to mind the Sirens encountered by Odysseus on his journey, offering all that men could desire, but leading to their ultimate doom. "Welcome," they whisper. "Such a lovely place." This seems very inviting and attractive. "Such a lovely face," they say. Are they referring to his mysterious guide? She is so beautiful, just follow her, the voices seem to tell him. But "face" also implies a façade, the outward appearance of things, which as we all know can be infinitely deceiving. And there is significant ambiguity in the statement "Any time of year, you can find it here." The word "it" seems so simple and innocuous. It is a small word, but it has a huge implication. There is room here for everyone, anytime, and whatever your desires may be you can fulfill them here. No judgment, no rejection. The voices promise everything. We begin to see that this is more than just some ordinary hotel beside the road.
The next two lines reveal more about "her".
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she’s got the Mercedes bends.
She’s got a lot of pretty pretty boys, that she calls friends.
These two lines say a lot. "Tiffany-twisted" implies that she has a distorted obsession for the luxuries and the superficially beautiful things of life. There is a play on words in the phrase "she's got the Mercedes bends," a clever pun that most people fail to catch. The name of the well-known luxurious automobile, Mercedes-Benz, is here changed to "Mercedes bends", both words being pronounced the same. If you only heard the lyrics, you wouldn't notice this at all. What is the implication of this word change? "The bends" (always plural and with the definite article) is a severe and painful condition caused by rapid decompression of the body, as when a deep-sea diver rises too rapidly to the surface. The implication here is that her taste for elegant and expensive cars is a manifestation of her too rapid (and temporary?) rise in social status. Although she seems confident and self-assured in her position, she is really living above her true state. And as one of the "beautiful people" with seemingly endless resources and appetites, she has attracted an assortment of "pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends." The repetition of the word "pretty" gives it an excessive and repulsive connotation, not pleasant at all. We can easily picture these "pretty, pretty boys", vain, self-absorbed young men, all style and affectation, gathering around whoever provides the most lavish distractions, and at the moment that happens to be her. And as if to emphasize the superficiality of their relationship, we are told that they are those "that she calls friends". But she doesn't mind if they are not "true" friends at all, and might abandon her at a moment's notice. She enjoys the feeling of self-importance they give her, their fawning affection, everyone gaining what they want, momentary pleasure and distraction. They are little more than "eye candy" to her.
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.
This shows us the "scene" (in the pop social sense) at the Hotel California – the frenzied dancing, the smell of sweat. "Sweet summer sweat" is nice poetic alliteration, but the repeated initial "s" also carries a rather erotic connotation. "Some dance to remember, some dance to forget" is one of the more memorable lines from this song. People like to dance for many reasons, the pleasure of sharing time with someone you like, the enjoyment of self-expression through movement with the music. But here the focus is on the emptiness of these people's lives. Some are trying to recapture a bit of something half-remembered they have lost, while others are using the hypnotic frenzy of their dance to momentarily forget the pointlessness of their daily existence. In both cases, this tells us that the dancers here are not happy with who they are, and this reinforces the theme of escapism that runs throughout the song.
So I called up the Captain,
"Please bring me my wine."
He said, "We haven't had that spirit here
Since nineteen sixty nine."
As the protagonist edges into the world of the Hotel California, we can picture him sitting at a table in the shadows, observing the activity going on but not yet participating himself. He calls the wine steward and asks for his wine, assuming it to be "on the house". But the Captain replies, "We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine." This is a very puzzling answer. What could he mean? For one thing, there is surely a pun on the word "spirit" which not only means alcohol, but also refers to the pervasive attitude, mood or zeitgeist. And why 1969? What happened in that year? For one thing it was the year in which man first set foot on the moon, thereby not only expanding the human realm beyond this earth, but also simultaneously demystifying that romantic silver orb in the night sky. But a more likely significance to my mind of the year 1969 is that it marked the end of the 60's, a seminal period of social change, expansive hopes and idealism in American history. With the end of the 60's there came a sort of hardening of the spirit in America, a loss of innocence that has proven impossible to recapture. The spirit of optimism, social activism, and naive idealism is no longer with us. But whatever the Eagles had intended by their reference to 1969, they don't tell us, and it is still open to various interpretations.
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They’re living it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis.
Again he hears the Siren call of those mysterious voices. Are they the other minions of the Hotel California, or are they only within his own head? And we need to understand the idiomatic expression "live it up", again with that puzzling "it". To "live it up" means to enjoy oneself, often extravagantly, with no regard for the cost or the consequences. The voices are telling him (possibly with a sense of irony) that everyone is having a great time in the Hotel California. Earlier, the voices had promised that one's deepest desires could be fulfilled here, now they are telling him, in essence, that "anything goes", that he can do whatever he wants to enjoy himself. No concerns with propriety, no inhibitions, no worry about the consequences of his acts need bother him here. "What a nice surprise," the voices tell him brightly. It's even nicer here than you could have imagined. But "bring your alibis," they advise him. In other words, come prepared to deny any responsibility for your actions. We begin to see that it is not just an isolated group of people in some wayside desert hotel that is being described, but a whole society, an entire generation, with their hedonistic pursuits and denial of personal responsibility.
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice.
And she said, "We are all just prisoners here
of our own device."
The image presented here makes us picture some luxurious but tawdry "love hotel." Where else would you find "mirrors on the ceiling"? And the drink of preference here is "pink champagne on ice". Champagne is an elegant beverage of celebration, but pink champagne has an implication of crassness and over indulgence. If champagne is a symbol of elegance and sophistication, the reasoning seems to go, then PINK champagne must be even more elegant and luxurious. As our narrator gazes on this scene, his hostess (and temptress) admits to him for the first time that they are all "just prisoners here of our own device." Any semblance of freedom is really an illusion, and they have willingly succumbed to their own obsessions, fantasies, compulsions and addictions.
Now we come to the most horrifying vision of the life of the inner circle at the Hotel California. The narrator catches a glimpse of what's going on.
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast.
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast.
Behind the scenes lurks the ominous "master", who never really makes his appearance. Whatever they are feasting on seems unwilling to be subdued. Is it possibly their own inner cravings and animal passions that is the focus of their appetites? They know that their own "beast", their wild, predatory, animalistic nature, is out of control, and they try to subdue it, but they fail. In any case these are the most chilling lines in the entire song, and the deadly image of the "steely knives" is quite disturbing. Notice the difference between "steel knives" and "steely knives" -- a masterful touch. Steel knives are deadly enough, but there is something cold and terrible in the very word "steely". And the powerful rhythm and diction of the line "they just can't kill the beast" give it a special prominence and sense of finality. It is the reference to "the master" and "the beast" here that has caused some fundamentalist Christians to brand the song as a Satanist anthem, but their argument is not convincing. Rather than glorifying the denizens of the Hotel California, the song acts as powerful and effective indictment of their lifestyle.
Repulsed, and with a sense of horror, the narrator flees the scene. He is so overwhelmed that he blocks the final images of that scene from his mind, loses his bearings, and frantically seeks a means of escape.
Last thing I remember,
I was running for the door.
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before.
He eventually finds himself back where he started, but the night clerk at the front desk informs him nonchalantly that there is no escape.
"Relax," said the night man,
"We are programmed to receive.
You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!"
The terrible irony and finality of these last words make this verse among the most memorable of the whole song. Trapped! Like so many others, he can play at "checking out" but he will never leave. And a final irony is the telling of the story itself. He is telling us his story, and we now know that he is still there in the "Hotel California". But if he is there and he is telling us his story, then where are we?
So, what does all this really mean? Is this a tale of a simple traveler who happens to stop at a desert resort hotel by chance and gets caught up in some local sordid scene? It could be nothing more than that, but I think (and most others think) that this song is a biting commentary on contemporary life in the US. This song helped define a whole generation and touched a chord of recognition within the minds of countless Americans. The Hotel California is a symbol for California as a whole, and California itself is a metaphor for many themes in the American experience: "Go west, young man," the search for new beginnings, the land of opportunity, and the purveyor of tinsel dreams, Hollywood. For generations, California has epitomized the American frontier and all that it represents - both hopes for a new start in life, and an escape from oppressive reality. And ironically the theme of escape has come to overwhelm the theme of new beginnings. In many ways California has come to represent much of the very best in American culture, and at the same time much of the very worst. Of this latter, the obsessions with hedonistic pursuits and materialism, with escapism and the indulgence of bizarre fantasies, with status seeking and the lure of being in the "scene", and the denial of personal responsibility, are all portrayed in a most powerful and succinct way in this song. For these reasons we can see Hotel California as a cautionary tale and an acerbic social satire.
Stephen Garrigues, PhD