OK, I know at my age I should already know this, but somehow in my evolution I have completely missed out on this.
Would someone please explain to me the lyrics to Hotel California.
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Compassion is the sometimes fatal capacity for feeling what it is like inside somebody else's skin. It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy finally for you too. - Frederick Buechner
If society prospers at the expense of the intangibles, how can it be called progress?
Isn't it about the over indulgence that comes with fame? Alcoholism, addiction to drugs, etc.
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Caw
"I am a Canadian by birth, but I am a Highlander by blood and feel under an obligation to do all I can for the sake of the Highlanders and their literature.... I have never yet spoken a word of English to any of my children. They can speak as much English as they like to others, but when they talk to me they have to talk in Gaelic."
-Alexander Maclean Sinclair of Goshen (protector of Gaelic Culture)
I thought it was about a vacation that Glen Fry intended to take at Disney Land and accidently ended up at King's Island near Cincinatti,OH. I think the reference to stabbing with steely knives but you just can't kill the beast makes this obvious to a blind man.
The steely knives is a blatent jab at cutting down Steely Dan.
Where it says you can check out any time you like but you can never leave shows that the service was very bad at the hotel and that at check out he had to stand in the lobby a long time with his luggage waiting to pay the bill.
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim to much to drink in the beer garden during the fireworks show
So I called up the Captain, 'Please bring me my wine' He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine' And still those voices are calling from far away, Refering to the drunken party that ensued the night of the original planning session for the theme park
I hope this helps Elspeth
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He is no fool who gives up that which he can not keep to gain that which he cannot loose
I just did some snooping and found there are many theories on what the song means.
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(1) The Hotel California is a real hotel located in (pick one) Baja California on the coastal highway between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz or else near Santa Barbara. In other words, the song is a hard look at the modern hospitality industry, which is plagued by guests who "check out any time [they] like" but then "never leave."
(2) The Hotel California is a mental hospital. I see one guy on the Web has identified it as "Camarillo State Hospital in Ventura County between LA and Santa Barbara."
(3) It's about satanism. Isn't everything?
(4) Hotel California is a metaphor for cocaine addiction. See "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave." This comes from the published comments of Glenn Frey, one of the coauthors.
(5) It's about the pitfalls of living in southern California in the 1970s, my interpretation since first listen. Makes perfect sense, and goddammit, who you going to believe, some ignorant rock star or me?
(6) My fave, posted to the Usenet by Thomas Dzubin of Vancouver, British Columbia: "There was this fireworks factory just three blocks from the Hotel California . . . and it blew up! Big tragedy. One of the workers was named Wurn Snell and he was from the town of Colitas in Greece. One of the workers who escaped the explosion talked to another guy . . . I think it was probably Don Henley . . . and Don asked what the guy saw. The worker said, "Wurn Snell of Colitas . . . rising up through the air."
He's also got this bit about "on a dark dessert highway, Cool Whip in my hair." Well, I thought it was funny.
-Cecil Adams
I'd have to go with the one that actually came form the songwriter. #4. But six is hillarious.
so that quote really creeped me out. My name is Cecily Adams and I was like...ummm I didn't write those theories. Does it ever creep someone out when someone else has their name? One day I typed in my web browser cecilyadams.com and it went to a sight about a woman who had passed away. I thought it was creepy. Back to the main topic though, I always thought the song was about drugs and alcohol...and in case anyone cares my younger brother can play the song perfectly on his guitar. haha!
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There's a dear little plant that grows in our Isle Twas St . Patrick himself, sure, that set it; And the sun of his labour with pleasure did smile, And with dew from his eye often wet it. It grows through the bog, through the brake, through the Mireland, and they call it the dear little shamrock of Ireland.
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I guess everyone has their interpritation. I see a statement about the human condition, and the condition of today's society. Trapping ourselves in memories long gone that we can't escape.
so that quote really creeped me out. My name is Cecily Adams and I was like...ummm I didn't write those theories. Does it ever creep someone out when someone else has their name? One day I typed in my web browser cecilyadams.com and it went to a sight about a woman who had passed away. I thought it was creepy. Back to the main topic though, I always thought the song was about drugs and alcohol...and in case anyone cares my younger brother can play the song perfectly on his guitar. haha!
The song is about drug use, loss of free will, and socks The hotel on the cover is a real hotel on Sunset Blvd. and canon Drive in Beverly Hills Strangely enough it is called the Bevely Hills Hotel. Also the Sundet Grill they sing about (not sure what album) is, you guessed it, The Sunset Grill about three miles east of the hotel on Sunset. It is next to the Hollywood Guitar Center. It is a little hole in the wall.
I can't offer anything new here as to the meaning of the song Hotel California. I've also heard it was about drug abuse, particularly cocaine. But one thing that strikes me as peculiar is the presence of Anton LaVey on the back of the album cover. He is a known Satanist, and for the life of me I've never been able to understand the Eagles agreeing to that. But then again, blatant devilish evil seemed to rule the rock and roll world for many years, and was probably a selling point for many artists. That in mind, the photo of LaVey, and the meaning of Hotel California was a lite brush in that direction.
Oh yea, there was Witchy Woman too.
OOOOH, Scary!!!
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The peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error. ~John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859
Education: that which reveals to the wise, and conceals from the stupid, the vast limits of their knowledge. ~Mark Twain
Lets not go overboard here. You can make lyrics twist into anything you want. When Shirley Temple sang On the Good Ship Lollipop was she singing about a childs fantasy world or giving oral sex. (You'll awake with a tummy ache) To make statements like "blatant devilish evil seemed to rule the rock and roll world for many years" is unfair, and with out documentation, unfounded.
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