What Is The Explanation Of The Song 'Hotel California'
“Hotel California”
“Hotel California”, released in 1977, is a very famous and awarded song by the Eagles from the album with the same name. Band members, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner and Don Felder, were interviewed several times in order to enlighten the mysteries surrounding the lyrics of the song. Most conjectures coincide on the fact that Hotel California refers to the American Dream, its darkest side, excess, materialism and the loss of innocence, among others.
We can go in depth into some parts of the song to deduce what the writers decided to imply. In the first verse, there is a description about the setting, which shows the narrator driving through the desert accompanied by a particular scent in the air described as coming from “colitas”. The Spanish word portrays a slang used in Mexico to refer to marijuana. This assumption may be supported by the following explanation of how the traveller feels: “My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night” stated as a symptom related to the use of that drug. However, a different version advocates that the word from the neighbouring country makes allusion to a kind of plant that flowers …show more content…
“This could be heaven or this could be Hell” states the outsider, anticipating that the American Dream is not always synonym of prosperity, success and opportunities, but excess, drug addiction and corruption. Glenn Frey commented on this aspect saying: “Lyrically, the song deals with traditional or classical themes of conflict: darkness and light, good and evil, youth and age, the spiritual versus the secular. I guess you could say it's a song about loss of innocence.” In that way, it can be said that the woman is presented as the point of entry to that destructive world, where people’s actions and choices always seek fortune and
“Hotel California”, released in 1977, is a very famous and awarded song by the Eagles from the album with the same name. Band members, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Bernie Leadon, Randy Meisner and Don Felder, were interviewed several times in order to enlighten the mysteries surrounding the lyrics of the song. Most conjectures coincide on the fact that Hotel California refers to the American Dream, its darkest side, excess, materialism and the loss of innocence, among others.
We can go in depth into some parts of the song to deduce what the writers decided to imply. In the first verse, there is a description about the setting, which shows the narrator driving through the desert accompanied by a particular scent in the air described as coming from “colitas”. The Spanish word portrays a slang used in Mexico to refer to marijuana. This assumption may be supported by the following explanation of how the traveller feels: “My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim, I had to stop for the night” stated as a symptom related to the use of that drug. However, a different version advocates that the word from the neighbouring country makes allusion to a kind of plant that flowers …show more content…
“This could be heaven or this could be Hell” states the outsider, anticipating that the American Dream is not always synonym of prosperity, success and opportunities, but excess, drug addiction and corruption. Glenn Frey commented on this aspect saying: “Lyrically, the song deals with traditional or classical themes of conflict: darkness and light, good and evil, youth and age, the spiritual versus the secular. I guess you could say it's a song about loss of innocence.” In that way, it can be said that the woman is presented as the point of entry to that destructive world, where people’s actions and choices always seek fortune and