Hotel California

There was a time in my life that I had a small curiosity, to learn almost everything that happened in the year that I was born, 1977. One of those things was the release of the single Hotel California by The Eagles.

 

 

I will never forget the first time that I listened to this song. I was only 14 and our teacher in the English lessons wanted to test us on the lyrics of a song. The rest of the students were older than me, almost 18, but the teacher hesitated to give the song a go. I still remember her words : "I'm not sure wether little Ilias should listen to this song at the moment" As if I was hit by an electric shock I told her : "Gimme a break, I'm old enough, I can beat a couple of these guys  "

 

Everybody laughed and agreed that we should listen to the song and try to fill in the missing words in it. Nightmare !!! What on earth are "colitas" ???? And a mind "tiffany-twisted" ??? And since when wine is a "spirit" ??? So many questions I had but nobody would answer to me. Some of the kids said it's a satanist song. No way Mr. , the teacher would never force us to listen such as song.

 

 

I instantly loved the song back then, mainly because I couldn't explained it. There was so much mystery in it and believe me, I'm closing 32 fast and still there are things unaswered to me about the song.

 

The band themselves explained some things over the years. Officialy, Don Felder described the origins of the lyrics :

 

Don Henley and Glen wrote most of the words. All of us kind of drove into LA at night. Nobody was from California, and if you drive into LA at night. You can just see this glow on the horizon of lights, and the images that start running through your head of Hollywood and all the dreams that you have, and so it was kind of about that. What we started writing the song about.

 

The song is part of my 1000 best songs ever created, in a very strict list that lies into my PC. It is also included in Guitar Hero World Tour which I've been very addicted to since its release. Not  a very impressive score, but I have managed to get a score of 206,262 on expert difficulty , with a 140 note streak.

 

The years have passed and one thing I'm sure  it's true about this song, a small line into its lyrics: "We are all just prisoners here, of our own device"

 

Song of the week : The Eagles - Hotel California