Hotel California A Glimpse in to Hell (I've got a few of these)

[Cooky]

I'm new to this forum and there are some nice people here. I like to share this online, my theory of Hotel California. The way I see that song and the Album cover is a glimpse into Hell.

Here are the lyrics and I'll explain as I go along:

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.

This is the beginning of the song and this is where the person dies. He is driving through the Desert most like California. Colitas is weed, that's an old Spanish Term for a joint. He is probably drunk to be honest. An oncoming car hits him and he dies on impact not realizing he has died. So, he stops for the night at a Hotel.


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'

This is where the song really reveals itself about the whole thing. He doesn't know he is dead but wherever he is, he could be in Heaven or Hell. What does that say about 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 place)
Such a lovely face.
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here

He is created by the people who know he is dead. They are as much stuck in the Hotel California as he will be. When they say there is plenty of room in the Hotel California that sounds like a response to the Bible verse, "there are many rooms (mansions) in my fathers house." Well, apparently there is also endless space in Hell.


Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She 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

The woman who greets him is termed someone that is Tiffany Twisted. I've looked around for this slang term, but I think it just means she is promiscuous, edgy and superficial. This is the typical person that would run Hell or the Hotel California. Making her, "friends," dance for her for eternity. These friends are more like slaves.

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 place)
Such a lovely face.
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise), bring your alibis

Focus on the alibis, everyone making excuses for their sins and trying to avoid Justice. While the Captain is greeting this hedonist who reminds him of all the people who went to hell in the Summer of 69 (1969 and a reference to another song Bryan Adams – Summer of '69 Lyrics | Genius Lyrics) the narrator is haunted by all the voices who greet him. Is this Heaven or is this Hell?


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

This is where he realizes he is in Hell. All those voices calling to him are people fighting the Beast within, fighting each other, fighting the beast literal and figurative. She sends him to his room, Tiffany Twisted, and he sees there is something completely wrong with this place.

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 check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

Remember the line is, 'you can check out any time you like,' that comes from the expression checking out meaning, dying. But once you go to Hell you can never leave. So, you can die at any time but if you are in Hell you are in Hell.

Here is the Album cover where you can see demons in the shadow in the background. Actually I can't put the picture here but here is an article on it.

feelnumb.com EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Location of the Ghostly Eagles “Hotel California” Lobby Gatefold Photo


I wouldn't go for official interpretations because the Eagles can never explain what the song means. Like a lot of Classic Rock (not all of it but a lot of it) I think it was written by other people and they are just commissioned to play it.

Cheers!

I always thought the song was about drug addiction. When he says: You can check-out anytime you like, but you can never leave", seems like someone ending a drug binge... He's checking out for the time being, but he can never leave because he will be back again, and again, and again.

...wake you up in the middle of the night..? Yep. That's like a cocaine addiction.

...All just prisoners here, of our own device...? Yep. You started using the drug, so it's your devise.

...they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast? Chopping it up with razor blades. The drug is the beast -it's the devil.

...bring your alibis..? Excuses for being an addict.

...Anytime of year, you can find it here..? Yep. Pretty easy to come by in california.

 

[Cooky]

I always thought it was about drug addiction and the difficulties facing recovery.

For sure.

The Eagles: we're lucky to be alive
"Band leader Glenn Frey once described their '70s career as "got crazy, got drunk, got high, had girls, played music and made money".

The craziness included the arrest of drummer, songwriter and vocalist Henley in November 1979 after a naked 16-year-old prostitute suffered a drug overdose during a party at his home in LA. Cocaine, marijuana and quaaludes were seized.

He was subsequently charged for contributing to the delinquency of a minor, fined and put on probation.

The title track of their classic 1976 album, Hotel California, evoked a near-nightmarish decadence"

 

[Cooky]

This is an interesting analysis, although I tend to doubt that the reference to 1969 has anything to do with the Bryan Adams song, since that came out 6 years after "Hotel California."

A lot did happen in 1969, so I suppose it could refer to anything. The last year of the 1960s, so it could mean that the 60s were gone and never coming back.

I thought it was a great song when it first came out, but I think it was a victim of overplay. Another Eagles' song that got played too much was "Life in the Fast Lane." I recall a Rolling Stone compendium of Rock Lists had this song on one of its list of top rated songs, although there was an asterisk next to it which said "Docked 10 slots due to rancid ideology."

Life in the fast lane? That's just the same thing.

 

[Justme1981]

I don't really think it's addiction. Was that even a thing as an awareness when this song was written? Doesn't seem Life in the Fast Lane sees it that way.

To get this song you have to have insight into Hell, which I can write a thread on. Many people who go to Hell don't realize their dead because they play games with you there. I heard the Columbine shooters when they went to Hell thought they survived the suicide only to be cripplingly disabled where they were tormented and taunted by people in Hell. This was until the game was up and the Columbine shooters decided to kill themselves again and get it right. Only to realize they were in Hell and can't die again.

As for not knowing the meaning of the song, I'm sure if Glen Frey knew the meaning he would have at least told Don Henley something about it.

I'll start another thread on Helter Skelter. The songs written by Satanist musicians that I know of include Helter Skelter, In My Life, Stairway to Heaven, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, tons of Franz Ferdinand songs and others. The music industry man, if Quincy Jones can take credit he will take credit doesn't mean he had anything to do with anything.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Here's another look at "haven't had that spirit here since 1969," taken from Hunter S. Thompson's Fear and Loathing in Los Vegas:

Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run… but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant.…


History is hard to know, because of all the hired bull****, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.


My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket… booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)... but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that…


There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda.… You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.…


And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn't need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave.…


So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.

Perhaps "spirit" isn't so much a drink but the spark of a generation?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I don't really think it's addiction.

I think addictions from the lines "stabbing their steely knives" (which can easily be a metaphor for cocaine or heroin) and "you can check out anytime you want but you can never leave" and "some dance to remember, some dance to forget, and this woman who seems to be leading them along into a type of prison.

 

[SomeRandom]

I'm new to this forum and there are some nice people here. I like to share this online, my theory of Hotel California. The way I see that song and the Album cover is a glimpse into Hell.

Here are the lyrics and I'll explain as I go along:

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.

This is the beginning of the song and this is where the person dies. He is driving through the Desert most like California. Colitas is weed, that's an old Spanish Term for a joint. He is probably drunk to be honest. An oncoming car hits him and he dies on impact not realizing he has died. So, he stops for the night at a Hotel.


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'

This is where the song really reveals itself about the whole thing. He doesn't know he is dead but wherever he is, he could be in Heaven or Hell. What does that say about 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 place)
Such a lovely face.
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here

He is created by the people who know he is dead. They are as much stuck in the Hotel California as he will be. When they say there is plenty of room in the Hotel California that sounds like a response to the Bible verse, "there are many rooms (mansions) in my fathers house." Well, apparently there is also endless space in Hell.


Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She 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

The woman who greets him is termed someone that is Tiffany Twisted. I've looked around for this slang term, but I think it just means she is promiscuous, edgy and superficial. This is the typical person that would run Hell or the Hotel California. Making her, "friends," dance for her for eternity. These friends are more like slaves.

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 place)
Such a lovely face.
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise), bring your alibis

Focus on the alibis, everyone making excuses for their sins and trying to avoid Justice. While the Captain is greeting this hedonist who reminds him of all the people who went to hell in the Summer of 69 (1969 and a reference to another song Bryan Adams – Summer of '69 Lyrics | Genius Lyrics) the narrator is haunted by all the voices who greet him. Is this Heaven or is this Hell?


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

This is where he realizes he is in Hell. All those voices calling to him are people fighting the Beast within, fighting each other, fighting the beast literal and figurative. She sends him to his room, Tiffany Twisted, and he sees there is something completely wrong with this place.

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 check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

Remember the line is, 'you can check out any time you like,' that comes from the expression checking out meaning, dying. But once you go to Hell you can never leave. So, you can die at any time but if you are in Hell you are in Hell.

Here is the Album cover where you can see demons in the shadow in the background. Actually I can't put the picture here but here is an article on it.

feelnumb.com EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Location of the Ghostly Eagles “Hotel California” Lobby Gatefold Photo


I wouldn't go for official interpretations because the Eagles can never explain what the song means. Like a lot of Classic Rock (not all of it but a lot of it) I think it was written by other people and they are just commissioned to play it.

Cheers!

Interesting interpretation. I don't know if I buy into the whole, it was commissioned theory though. Ghost writers exist, obviously. But I dunno if it goes much further than that. Perhaps more common during the psychedelic eras with all the come downs though.

 

[david-david]

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air

Are you sure it's colitas and not calyp's gas?

Calypso (mythology) - Wikipedia


Calypso (/kəˈlɪpsoʊ/; Greek: Καλυψώ, translit. Kalypsō) was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where, according to the Odyssey, she detained Odysseus for seven years.


Oh.. another thing... What is a 'nymph' to you? A sexually unsatiable person?


How about these?

Cockroach Nymphs
The life cycle of cockroaches begins with the egg. Cockroach eggs hatch because of the combined pressure of the hatchlings within. Upon emerging from the egg case, or ootheca, this immature form of cockroach is known as a nymph or baby cockroach.

Roaches Nymphs - Facts on Baby Cockroaches

 

[david-david]

I'm new to this forum and there are some nice people here. I like to share this online, my theory of Hotel California. The way I see that song and the Album cover is a glimpse into Hell.

Here are the lyrics and I'll explain as I go along:

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.

This is the beginning of the song and this is where the person dies. He is driving through the Desert most like California. Colitas is weed, that's an old Spanish Term for a joint. He is probably drunk to be honest. An oncoming car hits him and he dies on impact not realizing he has died. So, he stops for the night at a Hotel.


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'

This is where the song really reveals itself about the whole thing. He doesn't know he is dead but wherever he is, he could be in Heaven or Hell. What does that say about 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 place)
Such a lovely face.
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here

He is created by the people who know he is dead. They are as much stuck in the Hotel California as he will be. When they say there is plenty of room in the Hotel California that sounds like a response to the Bible verse, "there are many rooms (mansions) in my fathers house." Well, apparently there is also endless space in Hell.


Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She 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

The woman who greets him is termed someone that is Tiffany Twisted. I've looked around for this slang term, but I think it just means she is promiscuous, edgy and superficial. This is the typical person that would run Hell or the Hotel California. Making her, "friends," dance for her for eternity. These friends are more like slaves.

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 place)
Such a lovely face.
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise), bring your alibis

Focus on the alibis, everyone making excuses for their sins and trying to avoid Justice. While the Captain is greeting this hedonist who reminds him of all the people who went to hell in the Summer of 69 (1969 and a reference to another song Bryan Adams – Summer of '69 Lyrics | Genius Lyrics) the narrator is haunted by all the voices who greet him. Is this Heaven or is this Hell?


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

This is where he realizes he is in Hell. All those voices calling to him are people fighting the Beast within, fighting each other, fighting the beast literal and figurative. She sends him to his room, Tiffany Twisted, and he sees there is something completely wrong with this place.

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 check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

Remember the line is, 'you can check out any time you like,' that comes from the expression checking out meaning, dying. But once you go to Hell you can never leave. So, you can die at any time but if you are in Hell you are in Hell.

Here is the Album cover where you can see demons in the shadow in the background. Actually I can't put the picture here but here is an article on it.

feelnumb.com EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Location of the Ghostly Eagles “Hotel California” Lobby Gatefold Photo


I wouldn't go for official interpretations because the Eagles can never explain what the song means. Like a lot of Classic Rock (not all of it but a lot of it) I think it was written by other people and they are just commissioned to play it.

Cheers!

The Oneida Community was a perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 in Oneida, New York. The community believed that Jesus had already returned in AD 70, making it possible for them to bring about Jesus's millennial kingdom themselves, and be free of sin and perfect in this world, not just in Heaven (a belief called perfectionism).


The Oneida Community practiced communalism (in the sense of communal property and possessions), complex marriage, male sexual continence, and mutual criticism.

Oneida Community - Wikipedia


Group marriage (a form of polyfidelity) is a nonmonogamous marriage-like arrangement between more than two people, where three or more adults live together, all considering themselves partners, sharing finances, children, and household responsibilities. The term does not refer to bigamy as no claim to being married in formal legal terms is made.

Group marriage reentered popular consciousness in 1974 with the publication of Group Marriage: a study of contemporary multilateral marriage by Larry Constantine and Joan Constantine.

Group marriage - Wikipedia



The Oneida community believed strongly in a system of free love (a term Noyes is credited with coining) known as complex marriage,[5] where any member was free to have sex with any other who consented.[6] Possessiveness and exclusive relationships were frowned upon.[7] Unlike 20th-century social movements such as the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, the Oneidans did not seek consequence-free sex for pleasure, but believed that, because the natural outcome of intercourse was pregnancy, raising children should be a communal responsibility. Women over the age of 40 were to act as sexual "mentors" to adolescent boys, as these relationships had minimal chance of conceiving. Furthermore, these women became religious role models for the young men. Likewise, older men often introduced young women to sex. Noyes often used his own judgment in determining the partnerships that would form, and would often encourage relationships between the non-devout and the devout in the community, in the hopes that the attitudes and behaviors of the devout would influence the non-devout.[8]

In 1993, the archives of the community were made available to scholars for the first time. Contained within the archives was the journal of Tirzah Miller,[9] Noyes' niece, who wrote extensively about her romantic and sexual relations with other members of Oneida



The community introduced a program of eugenics, then known as stirpiculture,[18] in 1869.[19][20] It was a selective breeding program designed to create more perfect children.[21] Communitarians, who wished to be parents, would go before a committee to be matched based on their spiritual and moral qualities. 53 women and 38 men participated in this program, which necessitated the construction of a new wing of the Oneida Community Mansion House. The experiment yielded 58 children, nine of whom were fathered by Noyes.

Once children were weaned (usually at around the age of one) they were raised communally in the Children's Wing, or South Wing.[22] Their parents were allowed to visit, but the children's department held jurisdiction over raising the offspring. If the department suspected a parent and child were bonding too closely, the community would enforce a period of separation because the group wanted to stop the affection between parents and children.[23][24]

The Children's department had a male and female supervisor to look after children between ages two and twelve. The surpervisors made sure children followed the routine. Dressing, prayers, breakfast, work, school, lunch, work, playtime, supper, prayers, and study, which were "adjusted according to 'age and ability'

Welcome to the Hotel New York?



The Oneida Community between 1865 and 1875