PDA

View Full Version : Author Misses Point of Hotel California...what do you think?



NoNottheFootballTeam
06-28-2018, 06:43 PM
I ran across this article in another, non-Eagle forum this morning:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/hotel_california_and_americas_decomposing_values_c omments.html#disqus_thread


I believe the author gets the meaning of this song wrong. What do you other Eagles fans think?

YoungEaglesFan
06-28-2018, 06:52 PM
I ran across this article in another, non-Eagle forum this morning:

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/06/hotel_california_and_americas_decomposing_values_c omments.html#disqus_thread


I believe the author gets the meaning of this song wrong. What do you other Eagles fans think?

I think some of what he says is right about what they are criticizing is correct but his conclusions are definitely wrong. The band was made up of some fairly strong liberals. I assume the writer was a conservative and was making some conservative points that I don’t think the band would necessarily agree with

NoNottheFootballTeam
06-28-2018, 07:15 PM
I agree with you. In Henley's own words, it's a song about the under belly of the American dream.

I formulated my question incorrectly and should have asked (as you pointed out) if the author's conclusions were correct.

Thanks for your input.

Freypower
06-28-2018, 07:19 PM
Hotel California is really a conservative song. It paints a picture of a society run amok with hyper-individualism and selfishness that is the end result of a secular (i.e., godless) consumer culture that's rejected the spiritual and conservative values of restraint, tradition, and obligation.

Interesting. I though hyper-indvidualism was beloved by conservatives. I also don't think that restraint, tradtion & obligation are the sole virtue of conservatives.

People might remember the yuppies iin the 80s in the UK, with their lavish lifestyles & excessive spending. Most of those people voted Conservative (for Margaret Thatcher). It is true that was after HC was written.

However I would rather not get into a political discussion. I am not touching the 'godless' stuff.

YoungEaglesFan
06-28-2018, 07:30 PM
Hotel California is really a conservative song. It paints a picture of a society run amok with hyper-individualism and selfishness that is the end result of a secular (i.e., godless) consumer culture that's rejected the spiritual and conservative values of restraint, tradition, and obligation.

Interesting. I though hyper-indvidualism was beloved by conservatives. I also don't think that restraint, tradtion & obligation are the sole virtue of conservatives.

People might remember the yuppies iin the 80s in the UK, with their lavish lifestyles & excessive spending. Most of those people voted Conservative (for Margaret Thatcher).

However I would rather not get into a political discussion. I am not touching the 'godless' stuff.

Well I think it just boils down to certain people being conservative for different reasons I guess.

Freypower
06-28-2018, 07:55 PM
Well I think it just boils down to certain people being conservative for different reasons I guess.


My objection was that the writer, as a presumed conservative, was attributing what he considers the weaknesses in society which the song portrays entirely to 'liberals'. It is a sweeping judgment.

YoungEaglesFan
06-28-2018, 08:34 PM
My objection was that the writer, as a presumed conservative, was attributing what he considers the weaknesses in society which the song portrays entirely to 'liberals'. It is a sweeping judgment.

On that part you’re right. I was just talking about your comment about the yuppies. But this writer is definitely too broad and makes some strong assumptions

Kim S
06-28-2018, 09:22 PM
Were all of the Eagles liberals? I know Don is, but am just curious. Thanks.

Freypower
06-28-2018, 09:59 PM
Were all of the Eagles liberals? I know Don is, but am just curious. Thanks.


The majority of them were. However Don Felder objected to them doing the Alan Cranston benefit & a couple of other political things, I believe. In recent years Don Felder played at a Republican national convention.

YoungEaglesFan
06-28-2018, 10:08 PM
The majority of them were. However Don Felder objected to them doing the Alan Cranston benefit & a couple of other political things, I believe. In recent years Don Felder played at a Republican national convention.

I didn’t know Felder played at a Republican national convention. Interesting. It’s funny I know In the book I know he says he was against the benefit and political events they were involved with but there were times where he called himself a hippie and was concerned about global issues. I don’t have the exact quote on me but I believe he complains about the lack of fire about what was going on at the time with someone. I’ll have to find it

Kim S
06-28-2018, 10:39 PM
The majority of them were. However Don Felder objected to them doing the Alan Cranston benefit & a couple of other political things, I believe. In recent years Don Felder played at a Republican national convention.

Oh yes, I remember that!

peneumbra
06-29-2018, 01:17 AM
A few words about the song "Hotel California."

The song is a lament - a biting and angry lament, at times - about finding out that your dreams are only that - dreams.

"I came out here, like a million other young people from all over the country, and I had this vision of what California was like," Henley once said. "It was the music, and the beaches, and the girls, and the idea that… (L.A.) was the center of the world, culturally and spiritually. And I wanted to be part of that. It was bigger than real life."

Frey's expectations were similar.

"I came out here from Detroit, which isn't the greatest place to live in the winter, and… you get out here, it's 80 degrees and the sun is shining and people are eating outside and it's, like, mid-January. And then, coming here as a musician - I used to tell people back home that it was like being in heaven and getting away with all the sin you could stand. It was almost TOO cool to be real."

But it was real. The beaches were there for anyone to lie on, and you could barbecue the family's Christmas dinner in the back yard if you wished. I had a girlfriend who never wore shoes, except when she absolutely had to. No big deal - it was SoCal.

But then, things changed, as things will. Back in the early '70s, you could rent a place in a cool neighborhood for a couple hundred bucks a month. I lived in an amazing redwood house in Topanga Canyon, just a half-mile from Bernie Leadon's place and a few hundred feet from Woody Guthrie's old domain, for the princely sum of $245; the landlord was always concerned that he was charging too much and that Karma would come around to bite him in the ass.

And, lo, it came to pass that everything (almost) became centered around money, particularly in the "entertainment business." Part of it had to do with the astronomical earnings of musicians and managers and record company owners; part of it had to do with the arrival of people from Asia and Europe and New York who were astute enough to recognize that real estate values in sleepy L.A. - no high-rises because, by law, nothing could be taller than 16-story City Hall - were about to explode with a capital BANG! And part of it had to do with cocaine, a very expensive refreshment. If you wanted to be part of the In Crowd, you had to entertain your friends and yourself with small mountains of blow. Having your septum rebuilt soon became the most popular surgery one could get, at least in some zip codes.

A lot of folks who'd come out here looking for the Dream had serious attacks of reality. It didn't help that California natives, like Eve Babbitz and, well, me, keep pissing and bitching about how great it was back in the old days. Evie, who was just an amazing woman with a finger in every aspect of the L.A. scene, probably contributed to Henley and Frey's writing "Hotel California" as much as anyone.

I apologize if I'm beating this L.A. thing into the ground, BUT many of the band's song were about life in this corner of the world. (There are references to places that only people who lived in L.A. would get.) I think it's unlikely, to put it mildly, that anyone would write "The Last Resort" about Des Moines, or "Long Road Out Of Eden" as a tribute to Providence, R.I. Those places have their own stories and their own mythos, but The Eagles mythos was, like the "June Gloom," layered over The City Of Angels, waiting for the sun to clear everything up.8-)

Dawn
06-29-2018, 05:45 AM
A few words about the song "Hotel California."

The song is a lament - a biting and angry lament, at times - about finding out that your dreams are only that - dreams.

"I came out here, like a million other young people from all over the country, and I had this vision of what California was like," Henley once said. "It was the music, and the beaches, and the girls, and the idea that… (L.A.) was the center of the world, culturally and spiritually. And I wanted to be part of that. It was bigger than real life."

Frey's expectations were similar.

"I came out here from Detroit, which isn't the greatest place to live in the winter, and… you get out here, it's 80 degrees and the sun is shining and people are eating outside and it's, like, mid-January. And then, coming here as a musician - I used to tell people back home that it was like being in heaven nd getting away with all the sin you could stand. It was almost TOO cool to be real."

But it was real. The beaches were there for anyone to lie on, and you could barbecue the family's Christmas dinner in the back yard if you wished. I had a girlfriend who never wore shoes, except when she absolutely had to. No big deal - it was SoCal.

But then, things changed, as things will. Back in the early '70s, you could rent a place in a cool neighborhood for a couple hundred bucks a month. I lived in an amazing redwood house in Topanga Canyon, just a half-mile from Bernie Leadon's place and a few hundred feet from Woody Guthrie's old domain, for the princely sum of $245; the landlord was always concerned that he was charging too much and that Karma would come around to bite him in the ass.

And, lo, it came to pass that everything (almost) became centered around money, particularly in the "entertainment business." Part of it had to do with the astronomical earnings of musicians and managers and record company owners; part of it had to do with the arrival of people from Asia and Europe and New York who were astute enough to recognize that real estate values in sleepy L.A. - no high-rises because, by law, nothing could be taller than 16-story City Hall - were about to explode with a capital BANG! And part of it had to do with cocaine, a very expensive refreshment. If you wanted to be part of the In Crowd, you had to entertain your friends and yourself with small mountains of blow. Having your septum rebuilt soon became the most popular surgery one could get, at least in some zip codes.

A lot of folks who'd come out here looking for the Dream had serious attacks of reality. It didn't help that California natives, like Eve Babbitz and, well, me, keep pissing and bitching about how great it was back in the old days. Evie, who was just an amazing woman with a finger in every aspect of the L.A. scene, probably contributed to Henley and Frey's writing "Hotel California" as much as anyone.

I apologize if I'm beating this L.A. thing into the ground, BUT many of the band's song were about life in this corner of the world. (There are references to places that only people who lived in L.A. would get.) I think it's unlikely, to put it mildly, that anyone would write "The Last Resort" about Des Moines, or "Long Road Out Of Eden" as a tribute to Providence, R.I. Those places have their own stories and their own mythos, but The Eagles mythos was, like the "June Gloom," layered over The City Of Angels, waiting for the sun to clear everything up.8-)

Hotel California isn't a place but rather a state of mind or being.

Excellent post. So glad you are here to help recall the 60's and 70's in LA and through your own experience shine a spotlight into the corners of that world.

"Stop, hey what's that sound .."

chaim
06-29-2018, 06:25 AM
When Glenn heard Felder's demo and he saw a guy driving a car on a highway with a light in the distance, I wonder if he was thinking of all kinds of metaphors and allegories or if it was just a guy driving a car. I've always had this feeling that - although aware of the meanings behind them - for Glenn the lyric was more about fascinating imagery and for Don more about deeper meanings, but I don't know if I'm right or wrong. Having said that, I think it's also been reported that Glenn said "I think this could be about....." (whatever it was)