Hotel California

I've been listening to the song 'Hotel California' by The Eagles on repeat for god knows how long. A few of the lines in the song got me thinking. For example, some of the lines in the song are "Some dance to remember. Some dance to forget" and "And she said, 'We are all prisoners here, of our own device." and "We are programmed to receive. You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave." The last line is the one that makes me think most.

This song really got me wondering. I wanted to know what the band's initial meaning for the lyrics are, so I looked up the song on Wikipedia.com. This says that "This song is generally understood to be an allegory about hedonism and self-destruction in the Southern California music industry of the late 1970's; Don Henley called it 'Our interpretation of the high life in Lost Angeles'". Learning this, I was a little disappointed. When I heard the lyrics, I thought of much deeper things.

However, I quickly remembered that music can be interpreted by people any way they wish. What the song means for the band doesn't necessarily have to be what it means to you. The following things are a couple ways that I've interpreted this song.

The first thing I thought when I heard this song is that it was all a metaphor for terminal illnesses. The main reason I thought that was the last line (You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave). I think it's quite understandable how I came upon the terminal illness interpretation. I thought immediately of my grandmother. She died about a year and a half ago of lung cancer. When she got sick I couldn't stand the thought that there was nothing she or we ("we" being me and the rest of her family) could do to make her escape her pain before her death. When I listen to this song I realize how true it was that she could "checkout but never leave". Even if she accepted the fact that she had cancer, and she did, it wouldn't make the fact that it was going to take her life change. So in a way, the fear of dying "checked out", but the fact that she was going to die never left. Even when she passed, and didn't have to suffer anymore, she "checked out" as a victim of cancer. That fact would never leave. It would always be a part of her memory.

The second thing I thought of when I heard this song is that it could be signifying drug addiction. Once again, this wasn't just a random thought. Many people close to me in my life have battled drug addictions. The main one was my mother. She was addicted to Cocaine for many years, and even after she didn't do it so much, she became addicted to narcotics. After about 10 years of being addicted and screwing up many aspects of her life, she knew she had to change. Be that as it may, she will always be known as an addict. It will NEVER stop being a part of her. Even now, she still does an occasional line of coke, just for the hell of it. She is by no means still hooked on it, but she still has the occasional craving, and that's understandable. Many, many, MANY lines in this song made me think of addiction. A few are "This could be heaven, or this could be hell." "Some dance to remember. Some dance to forget." "And still those voices are calling from far away." "We are all just prisoners here of our own device" "They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast." "Running for the door, I had to find the passage back to the place I was before." There are even more than just those, but I thought those were more than enough to show my point. The dance line is one of the ones that made me think of it most. The way that addicts have different reasons for doing drugs. Some do it to alter the way they think about things. Some do it just to feel good. Some do it just because they can't stop. Some do it to make them forget the things they think are bad in their lives. Even if you're a recovered addict, it's something you can never escape. You'll always be tagged as an addict. Just like the traveler in the song couldn't escape Hotel California, addicts can't escape their addiction.

Eek, I just realized how long this blog is getting o_o; I'll just name a couple other things I thought of when listening to this song, but I won't go into detail like I did with the past two. Hopefully you can figure out my reasoning. One is that Hotel California was a symbol for an insane asylum. Another is that it was Hotel California is a symbol for suffering. The last was that Hotel California is signifying Hell.

Well, those are just my opinions. I always wonder how other people interpret this song, and I wonder if anyone will agree with any of my interpretations... And yes, I know I used the word "interpret" too many times. So sue me =P haha.

Well that's it, I suppose. Hope I got ya thinkin'.

As always, DFTBA,
Kay.