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The True Meaning of Hotel California
- admin on June 17, 2022
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Honestly i just think its about many things not just a singular thing, but what brings it together is the topic of feeling trapped and it just branches over the many ways you feel that sensation.
Interesting interpretation. Occam’s Razor suggests the the easiest interpretation is probably the truth. The entertainment industry is enticing and is just waiting for you to commit your first sin. So it can lead you to the next sin and steal your soul. Metaphorically.
In 1978 I was high school and had an English class called "Poetry in Folk & Rock" We would all gather and listen to a song (this song was #1) and write down the lyrics. Then we would all split into groups and "discuss" what the lyrics meant to us. Our group decided it was a song of the rise to stardom and the eventual insane asylum that it would be become. Mirrors on the ceiling was an operating theatre, pink champagne on ice is the blood plasma.
JC…it's "Fry", not "Fray"
Why in the fuck does this guy draw out the the last word of every sentence like that? Like “waterrrrrrrr”. I literally had to turn this shit off it’s maddening.
If you didn't grow up in the chaos of the 70s and 80s, you'll probably never understand the dark undertones of this song.
cool.. while today's music talks about money.. butts…more butts..
Don Henley said it meant none of that. He said it's about a young man going from innocence to having experience. No satanic overtones. No drug use. Just what he and Glenn Frey (as the writers) said. So. There is, in fact, a way to sat what a song is about.
What a load of crap. See Danielle's post
when the narrator can't pronounce one of the founding Eagles' last name I tune out
Glenn Fray?
So i called up the captain.. Please bring me my wine.. We haven't had that spirit here since 1969.. This happens to be the same year Anton Levay produced the satanic bible and many famous celebrities dabbling in the dark arts start frequenting his residence to participate in Occult rituals… This residence called the black church resides on California street.. Jesus Christ is the spirit that hasn't been around since satan took over control in 1969.. I don't know if this is the true meaning or not but anyone who thinks this is far fetched and couldn't be true is very naive of the sinister behind the scenes reality achieving fame.. Who do you suppose the Beatles were referring to as Sargent Pepper?? Alistair Crowley..
Born in 1974 and this to me is one of the best songs of all time!
Love this song. I enjoyed the take on this video!!! I always wondered about this song and this video just added to my imagination….
Your not even close its about the rock era back in the 70s people were flocking to LA in hopes of making it big the eagle dubed la as a hotel that's how the song started
It could mean whatever it’s supposed to mean to each person
"No one can tell the true meaning"
What about the person who wrote it?!
Having worked in restaurants for years classic rock radio is always on so enevitibly this song is in heavy rotation so yeah I've heard this way too much
"Vaguery is the primary tool of songwriters." That's exactly it. Music is an art form, and art is subjective. Even if the artist says exactly what a piece means to them, it is going to resonate differently with everyone.
I never liked the EAGLES wimpy Cali soft rock. But Hotel California is one of my all time favorite songs. Go figure. Somebody in High School said it was about Viet Nam War. It just haunts the fuck out of me.
To claim to know so much about the song and then pronounce Glen Frey's name as "Fray" kinda kills it for me
Yo nigga give Charlie his props foo
The character you are using to represent a lower-case "k" is in fact a ligature of a lower-case "t" with a lower-case "z". So you have a "dartz" highway, "pintz" champagne and the useless ability to "chectz" out.
U said at the beginning and said that u was going to tell the true meaning. And then turn right around and say that u don't know! And that there's many meanings to the song. So which is it? Do u know or not?
The song is about a place talked about by Ted Gunderson. A place called Satans Castle in Crestline California with underground tunnels where Satanism and missing children were said to have been.
Hotel California speaks of the same stuff so many other huge songs sing about. To me it’s filled with occult symbology of finding the light in the darkness and being drawn in. They almost all speak of a women who guides them in some way. The light could be fame, money, power, wisdom or all of the above. Ultimately it leaves you empty when weighed against the sacrifice needed including innocence lost. Some bands like Led Zeppelin embrace it and others apparently don’t.
My co-worker was singing along to this song today at work.
It's odd how I got recommended this video.
The world really does work in mysterious ways, or YouTube at least!
Great insight, thoughts, and explanation! BUT your voice is annoying and distracting.
The song is nothing special nor good. It's filled with evil sublimely misusages.
It's about an actual hotel in California that contains a portal to hell. If you play the song backwards it tells you how to open it
We figured it out 🤣 straight into the pit to hell.
The only contribution Don Felder made was the melody that defined Hotel California.
I always thought the protagonist died and he or she was trying to figure out where they were and how they could get out. Lots of analogies like they stab it with their steely knives etc which denotes that ghosts are never satisfied etc… its an afterlife story I reckon….
Hotel California is where they sold their soul, you do not want to know the things that they did at Hotel California. you would be disgusted and furious
Hotel California is one of a handful of rock songs that if I ever have to hear it again it’ll be too soon. Stairway to Heaven and Freebird are two others. 😂
Kinda reminds me of The Shining, like a dystopian and creepy sense of not being able to escape
It does get a bit airy while you karaoke through California
I once went south in the mid eighties to Los Angeles to stay with a friend who lived at an apartment building north of Hollywood Blvd called "the Lido" close to Mann's Chinese Theater. Standing with him on the main floor in the lobby, he pointed out that this was the picture taken on the inside of the album "Hotel California". I looked up and around and sure enough it was that familiar photo. The elevator was out of order. The pots that once held plants were still there but the plants were missing. The run down Lido however had seen much better days since that photo was taken. The building really seemed to be about the Hotel California album, lyrics, members of the Eagles who had moved on for many reasons, the frustrated pursuit of the American dream, drug use and or the need to escape, physical and moral decay, and so many other parallels as noted well by everyone here. That decaying enigmatic apartment building seemed to be about everything I was ever able to read into the Hotel California's lyrics and musical stylings.
it’s just a song. there is no meaning. you buzzards need to grow up. 👉🙈🙉
Hotel Calafornia, to me, serves as the end of an era. Rest in Peace, Dayshift at Freddy's.
honestly hotels are maybe the scariest type of liminal space to me? other liminal spaces like train stations or bus stops are at least a bit more open (and thus appear easier to escape) but a hotel is so much harder to navigate and has less entrances/exits
Nice video. Who put together. Frey is pronounced Like French fry.
Let’s be honest, the Eagles DON’T even know what the song is about, or they would tell us.
🎼🎵🎶🤷🏻♂️🤷🤷🏻♂️🤷🤔
You do know hotel California is in baja California
The Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Linda Rondstat and a few other bands and musicians were the pioneers of Southern CA country rock in the early 70s. There's a 1971 or 1972 video here on YouTube of Linda saying exactly that. She called it the new Southern CA sound. So for a time in the mid 70s, country Rock was a fad. I remember Sundown being played on the radio frequently in 1974. The Eagles were so embedded in Southern CA culture that they knew it very well. Drugs were already a big part of the culture in the mid 70s. I remember an older next-door neighbor kid talking to another guy and telling him that there were many kids in our elementary school ODing. I was around 9 or 10 (1975-1976) when I first heard that word. That was the nomenclature back then up until the very early 80s. People would say OD like it was an acceptable, given practice. And recreational drugs was also a very common phrase like drinking beer. So I believe The Eagles were indeed referring to drugs when they make references to the beast and that you can never leave. The knife could be related to cutting cocain with a knife too.
@Polyphonic in the beginning of your video for the Title Card, what's the name of the "song" guitar riff that's playing? It's smooth
Not mysterious at all. At least not to anyone who moved there from anywhere "normal" and made it truly their home. The trappings of California draw you in and keep you there. So much so that even after you leave, as I did a couple years ago, it's forever embedded in your soul. For both better and worse. Cali is the land of extremes. For both better and worse.
False label. Shame on you!