Hotel California

[h2o]

This is playing on our office radio right now.......
i remember our classmate singing it for our school talent quest in the early eighties and being told off by a teacher
so was it a reference to satanism?
see some comments.......

"[Collected via e-mail, 2003]
There's a rumor that's been around for some time concerning the Eagles' song "Hotel California". The basic premise is that the song is about a Christian church that was abandoned (or otherwise vacated) in 1969, and was taken over by an occultic group (usually Satan worshippers). For some unknown reason, it became known as the "Hotel of California". Further rumors have it that the Eagles are Satan worshippers, and that Satan appears in the window on the "Hotel California" album jacket."

only for casual discussion, don't get too uptight pls

[h2o]

[Collected via e-mail, 2001]

I remember hearing as a kid that the Eagle's megaplatinum song "Hotel California" was about Aleister Crowley's mansion near Loch Ness, and the weird goings-on that supposedly happened there; including such "clues" as the line "...they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill The Beast" (Crowley's nickname). It's even been said that if you look on the album cover, you can see Satanic High Preist Anton LeVey in one of the windows. I've looked, and though it is fuzzy... damned if it doesn't look like him.

[h2o]

[Collected via e-mail, 2000]

My fellow high schoolmates and I (class of '85) were warned of the "evils" of certain types of music and were not allowed to play anything that was not approved by the nuns, at our school dances. Music by the Eagles was not allowed due to the "fact" that the song Hotel California was about a Satanic Cult organized in California in the year 1969. Reference was made to the lyric, "we haven't had that spirit here since 1969," as meaning the Spirit of Christ had not been present since 1969 upon organization of the cult. The mentioned lyric is a reply to a request for wine, in the song. According to my very protective, but wonderful teachers, this was yet "more proof" that the song was about a Satanic cult. Wine is an important symbol of the blood of Christ for Catholics and many Christian denominations.

[Voon Chan]

I love that song!
I don't know if it is evil

[euj]

the 'hotel california' myth aboud the song and the eagles being about satan is just that i reckon - a myth...poeple seem to love conspiracy theories...

[CaLz]

interesting... naymore story behind that song?

[singteck]

Lots of other songs have these kind of stories as well. "Stairway to Heaven" comes to mind. Play part of the song backward and hear something else.

Google is your best friend

[alfred98]

THis song maybe about satanic worshipper or what....Just how U interpret it that's all....For me is about care free life of hippies and smoke grass.........Ophs!! Another bad thing......Anyway I love this song.....My phone ringing tone Hotel California....:)

[Dino]

Controversy sells.....and i love it!!!
Hotel California is one of my fav. songs of all times.

[Voon Chan]

Hotel California – The Eagles
On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell
Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (background)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year
Any time of year (background)
You can find it here
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She's got the Mercedes bends
She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain
Please bring me my wine
He said
We haven't had that spirit here since 1969
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (background)
Such a lovely face
They're livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise
What a nice surprise (background)
Bring your alibies

Mirrors on the ceiling
Pink champagne on ice
And she said
We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax said the nightman
We are programed to recieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave

[Big Chief]

I don't know about the hidden messages, but I actually loved this song. Actually, our band sang this song back in the late 70's at the Famous ACS Hall on Teacher's Day. Got a lot of cheers though...

[Dino]

I don't know about the hidden messages, but I actually loved this song. Actually, our band sang this song back in the late 70's at the Famous ACS Hall on Teacher's Day. Got a lot of cheers though...

I actully like the new version they had better(Hell Freezes Over).
The bass and drums are fantastic!!!

[Big Chief]

I actully like the new version they had better(Hell Freezes Over).
The bass and drums are fantastic!!!
The intro is also preety cool:cool:

[h2o]

Controversy sells.....and i love it!!!
Hotel California is one of my fav. songs of all times.
the guitar bit b4 the lyrics start is really :cool:
I don't know about the hidden messages, but I actually loved this song. Actually, our band sang this song back in the late 70's at the Famous ACS Hall on Teacher's Day. Got a lot of cheers though...
you know you guys weren't the only ones .........
my classmate did that too (on stage)

[Dino]

The intro is also preety cool:cool:

I have the DVD for that and listening to that track on DTS Surround is fantastic.
Gives your sound system a good workout!!!

[Dino]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug-it7tMhPQ&search=hotel%20california

[h2o]

Hotel California – The Eagles
On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell
Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (background)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year
Any time of year (background)
You can find it here
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She's got the Mercedes bends
She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain
Please bring me my wine
He said
We haven't had that spirit here since 1969
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (background)
Such a lovely face
They're livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise
What a nice surprise (background)
Bring your alibies

Mirrors on the ceiling
Pink champagne on ice
And she said
We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax said the nightman
We are programed to recieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave
i guess the conservative can be forgiven for their suspicions :D
those lyrics were certainly hard to stomach back then

[Dino]

i guess the conservative can be forgiven for their suspicions :D
those lyrics were certainly hard to stomach back then

Just like Harry Potter books......

[h2o]

The Eagles' 1976 album "Hotel California" has sold more than 16 million copies, spawned a best-record Grammy, and is regarded by numerous rock critics as one of the best albums ever. Its title track, the haunting "Hotel California" continues to entrance listeners even though during its heydey the song was on the charts for only nineteen weeks and in the number one spot for only one.

Because its lyrics contain an ominous undercurrent, many have appeased their sense of disquiet by finding in the words literal and figurative meanings that just aren't there. Theories abound as to what the song means. Some see the devil in the lyrics. Others see a madhouse.

Some believe the song was written about a real inn bearing that name. Though there is a Hotel California in Todos Santos, a town on Mexico's Baja California peninsula, its relation to the song begins and ends with the coincidence of a shared name. None of the Eagles stayed there, let alone wrote music there. Nor did they have this building in mind when they set down the lyrics to this popular song.

Those who persist in believing the song must be named after an actual building have been known to assert "Hotel California" was the nickname of the Camarillo State Hospital, a state-run psychiatric hospital near Los Angeles which housed thousands of patients across its sixty-year history before closing in 1997. To them, the lyrics seem to fit what a mentally disturbed person would experience upon incarceration in a long-term care facility. The imagery of the song is explained as that person's hallucinations juxtaposed against moments of startling clarity as he realizes where he is.

However, by far the most common theme to surface in Hotel California rumors is one that links the song to devil worship. The lyrics (which speak of trying to "kill the Beast" and not having had "that spirit here since 1969") form the bedrock of the various Satan-related theories, but the belief is also fed by the album design. The inner cover is a photograph of people in a courtyard of a Spanish-looking inn. In a balcony above them looms a shadowy figure with arms spread. Many who look at that photo see Anton LaVey, leader of the Church of Satan, and interpret the spread arms as his welcoming the populace below into Satan's trap. That the people in the picture seem unaware of the gleefully evil figure standing above them only adds to the implicit horror of the scene — the innocents below are oblivious to their having wandered into the house of the Devil.

[h2o]

"It's wonderful imagery. But it doesn't hold up. The shadowy figure was a woman hired for the photo shoot.

When it comes to finding Satan in this song, over the years we've heard the following:

The song is a tribute to the place where the Satanic Bible was written.

Devil worshippers bought an old church and rechristened "the Hotel California."

Some or all of the Eagles were either heavily involved with the occult or were disciples of LaVey.

All the album photographs were taken in and around a building that used to be Anton LaVey's headquarters for his Church of Satan. (Which wasn't the case — the album cover was shot at the Beverly Hills Hotel.)

In California the 'Church of Satan' is registered under the name 'Hotel California.'
Another oddly persistent set of rumors centers on the photos used for the album. On the cover was the image of the approach to a Spanish mission-style hotel at sunset. Inside was the courtyard scene described above, and on its back was a photo of a black man leaning on a mop in the hotel's lobby. Besides the "Anton LaVey standing on the balcony" whisper, the presence of certain figures in some photos but not in others is attributed to their being ghosts whose spirits were accidentally captured on film, with the presumption being these were guests of the hotel who expired there. Also, the janitor leaning on a mop in the lobby photo has been rumored to be the propped-up corpse of a dead man (shades of Elmer McCurdy, that). In a particularly creepy extension of that rumor, he was murdered by LaVey as a human sacrifice or by the band members.
[Collected via e-mail, 2000]
On the cover of The Eagles album Hotel California, there is a picture of an abandoned hotel with someone in the doorway. When they took the picture there was noone in the hotel, and when they developed the picture it seemed as if there was noone there. But on the album cover there appeared someone in the doorway and the belief is that a person died (in some form or another...ranging from overdose to murder) in the hotel before it became abandoned and then appeared in the photo. Another variation I've heard is that they went back & took the picture twice and both times someone appeared in the doorway. I've also been told that the person is only visible on the album cover & not the tape or cd."

[h2o]

"Besides the four primary rumors (real hotel, mental hospital, devil worship, ghostly images), we've also picked up some unusual ones:

The Hotel California was the name of an inn run by cannibals who were in the habit of taking in guests only to serve them up for dinner. The song's closing line ("You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave") seems to have sparked that one.

"They stab it with their steely knives" was a swipe at Steely Dan, with whom, according to rumor, the Eagles were having an ongoing feud.

"Warm smell of colitas rising through the air" line — which does refer to the scent of burning marijuana — was seen as a sign the song was about drug addiction. Others have interpreted 'Hotel California' as a code name for cocaine and thus saw both the album and the song itself as a description of a journey into addiction.

The song was about cancer. (We've no idea what prompted that thought.)"

[Voon Chan]

h2o, you want to be like the next Dan Brown is it?

[h2o]

h2o, you want to be like the next Dan Brown is it?
nolah :o
why? dan brown interested in the eagles meh? :p

[Voon Chan]

He will find something new to write so eagles can be interestingnolah :o
why? dan brown interested in the eagles meh? :p

[h2o]

He will find something new to write so eagles can be interesting
why, u think they were satanists meh?

[Voon Chan]

I think it is more of drug addicts:) why, u think they were satanists meh?

[lynnee]

I think it is more of drug addicts:)

i think at one point in time, the singers/bands/artists/ must have tried drugs sometime in their lives. not really unusual.

but i still like don henley from the eagles.

[Voon Chan]

Drug can help them to release stress(that is what was running in their head) & allow them to relax while playing and singing

[Big Chief]

I like Timothy best. I love his song 'Love Will Keep Us Alive'. Can play it over and over, and..... until my son tells me it's boring.