History
Hotel California was the Eagles' fifth album of original material and became a critical success and a major commercial hit; since its release in late 1976, it has sold over 16 million copies in the U.S. alone. The album was at #1 for eight weeks in early 1977 (non-consecutively), and included two tracks which became #1 hits as singles on the Billboard Hot 100: "New Kid in Town", on February 26, 1977, and "Hotel California" on May 7, 1977.
Hotel California is one of the top 15 best-selling albums of all time in any category..
In 2001 the TV network VH1 named Hotel California #38 on 100 Greatest Albums of all time. Hotel California was ranked 13th in a 2005 survey held by British television's Channel 4 to determine the 100 greatest albums of all time. In 2003, the album was ranked number 37 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
Following its original release on standard LP, cassette and 8-track cartridge formats, the album was slated for Quadraphonic release in early 1977, this idea was ultimately dropped following the demise of the Quadraphonic format. However, 25 years later, this album was released in a Multichannel 5.1 DVD-Audio disc.
A hotel which carries the same name, Hotel California, located in Todos Santos, Mexico is rumored to be the inspiration for the song. However, Don Henley has denied the link.
Themes
Hotel California touched on many themes, including innocence (and the loss thereof), addiction in general (and to drugs), death, the dangers, temptation and transient nature of fame, shallow relationships, divorce and loss of love, the end results of manifest destiny, and the "American Dream."
Members of Eagles have described the
album as a metaphor for the perceived decline of America into materialism and
decadence. In an interview with Dutch magazine ZigZag shortly before the album's
release, Don Henley said:
“ This is a concept album, there's no way to
hide it, but it's not set in the old West, the cowboy thing, you know. It's more
urban this time (. . . ) It's our bicentennial year, you know, the country is
200 years old, so we figured since we are the Eagles and the Eagle is our national
symbol, that we were obliged to make some kind of a little bicentennial statement
using California as a microcosm of the whole United States, or the whole world,
if you will, and to try to wake people up and say 'We've been okay so far, for
200 years, but we're gonna have to change if we're gonna continue to be around.'
”
The album's final track, the epic "The Last Resort", was about the demise of society. Glenn Frey on the Hotel California episode of In the Studio with Redbeard explained about the track:
It was the first time
that Don took it upon himself to write an epic story and we were already starting
to worry about the environment...we're constantly screwing up paradise and that
was the point of the song and that at some point there is going to be no more
new frontiers. I mean we're putting junk, er, garbage into space now. The cover
image is of the Beverly Hills Hotel. It was photographed by David Alexander "Hotel
California" is the title song from the Eagles' album of the same name and
was released as a single in early 1977. It is one of the best-known songs of the
album-oriented rock era. Writing credits for the song are shared by Don Felder,
Don Henley and Glenn Frey. The song topped the Billboard Hot 100 for one week
in May 1977.
History and recognition
"Hotel California" won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978.
The song is rated highly in many rock music lists and polls. Rolling Stone magazine, for example, placed it as the forty-ninth greatest song of all time.[1] It is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. The song's guitar solo is ranked 8th on Guitar Magazine's Top 100 Guitar Solos.
As one of the group's most popular and well-known songs, "Hotel California" has been a concert staple for the band since its release; performances of the song appear on the Eagles' 1980 live album and, in an acoustic version, on the 1994 Hell Freezes Over reunion concert CD and video release. The "Hell Freezes Over" version is performed using eight guitars in total, and has a decidedly Spanish feel to it - with Don Felder playing a flamenco style intro. During the band's Farewell 1 Tour-Live from Melbourne the song was performed in a manner closer to the original album version, but with a trumpet interlude in the beginning.
The song is a playable track on the video game Guitar Hero World Tour
Interpretation
The song's lyrics describe the title establishment as a luxury resort where "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave." On the surface, the song tells the tale of a weary traveler who becomes trapped in a nightmarish hotel that at first appeared inviting and tempting. The song is generally understood to be an allegory about hedonism and self-destruction in the Southern California music industry of the late 1970s; Don Henley called it "our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles" and later reiterated "[i]t's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about."
During a July 17, 2008 appearance on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius Satellite Radio, Don Felder described the origins of the lyrics:
"Don Henley and Glen wrote most of the words. All of us kind of drove into LA at night. Nobody was from California, and if you drive into LA at night... you can just see this glow on the horizon of lights, and the images that start running through your head of Hollywood and all the dreams that you have, and so it was kind of about that... what we started writing the song about. Coming into LA... and from that Life In The Fast Lane came out of it, and Wasted Time and a bunch of other songs."
The abstract nature of the lyrics has led listeners to their own interpretations over the years, including some claims, spread by word of mouth and internet, of Satanic aspects. Other rumors suggested that the "Hotel California" was the Camarillo State Mental Hospital, a real hotel run by cannibals, or a metaphor for cancer. These claims have been consistently refuted by the band.
The term "colitas" in the first stanza of the song is a desert flower, also known as Antelope sage or Colita de Rata Both Don Henley and Don Felder have repeatedly and publicly stated that Colitas are "heady desert flowers." Others assert that "colitas" is a Spanish term for "little tails." This is a reference to the buds of the Cannabis plant.
The use of the word "steely" in the lyric (referring to knives) was a playful nod to band Steely Dan, who had included the lyric "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening" in their song "Everything You Did", according to Glenn Frey's liner notes for The Very Best of Eagles.
Cover versions and parodies
Many cover versions of "Hotel California" have been released:
* A flamenco version
by the Gipsy Kings was released in 1988 and later featured in the film The Big
Lebowski.
* Majek Fashek has also done a reggae cover of the song, which is
often incorrectly credited to Bob Marley.
* Australian band The Cat Empire
recorded a version of the song in French (L'Hotel de Californie), for Triple J's
Like a Version segment and subsequent CD compilation.
* Brixton (England)-based
band Alabama 3 also covered the song on their 2000 album la peste.
* The American
band SkaDaddyZ released a ska version of the song in 1999.
* In 1990 Al B.
Sure! included a version on his album Private Times...and the Whole 9!
* In
1997 The Moog Cookbook included a version on their album Ye Olde Space Bande.
* Romanian band Vama Veche covered the song in Romanian on their debut album,
although the lyrics are entirely different; they deal with the dreadful living
conditions in Romanian student dormitories in the late nineties.
* In 2004,
it was recorded by American Idol reject William Hung.
* Country group Rascal
Flatts performed their own version of the song at the 2007 Grammy Awards.
* A German version was recorded in 1977 by Schlager singer Jürgen Drews.
* Part of the solo is incorporated into the 1995 song "All Of The Damned"
by German Power metal band Gamma Ray.
* K-Pop Group Roo'Ra recorded a version
of the song for their second album.
* NYC female fronted Torch rock band VULGARAS
recorded a version for their album "Heavy Handed Heart" released in
2008.
Parodies include:
* Country music parodist Cledus T. Judd parodied
the song as "Motel Californie" on his 1995 debut album Cledus T. Judd
(No Relation).
* In 1983 the band Big Daddy recorded a comedic cover version,
mixing the original lyrics with the music of Del Shannon song "Runaway".
* Australian parody artist Steven Cavanagh parodied the song as Hotel of the Emperor,
telling the climactic scenes of Return of the Jedi.
* Christian parody band
Apologetix Redid this song called "Hotel Can't Afford Ya."
* "Hotel
In California", an ethnically Jewish-specific parody by Gershon Veroba.
As of September 2008, Hotel California has been named an Official Selection of the Boston Film Festival, the New York International Latino Film Festival presented by HBO, the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, and the Kansas International Film Festival.
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