Hotel California, what were the lyrics about?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45274174Michael Jackson's Thriller has been overtaken as the all-time best-selling album in the US by the Eagles' greatest hits, and that band's album Hotel California is at number three. What is the spooky title track all about, asks Alan Connor.

Rock stars of the 1970s were not kind to hotels.

In Life's Been Good, sometime Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh describes the process bluntly. "I live in hotels, tear out the walls," he confesses: "I have accountants pay for it all."

"It all" being a small fortune. In the official history of the band, Walsh recalls a single night at Chicago's Astor Towers in which he and Blues Brothers star John Belushi managed a $28,000 ( £22,000) damage bill.

Among other bands, misuse of the hospitality industry was part of the legend - think of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham roaring down the corridors of Los Angeles' Continental Hyatt on a Harley Davidson he'd got for his birthday, or The Who's drummer Keith Moon, on his own birthday, ploughing a Lincoln Continental into the swimming pool of Flint Michigan's Holiday Inn.

But the Eagles? The laid-back, cleanly-coiffed band who urged America: "We oughta take it easy"?

---------- Post added 23-08-2018 at 21:37 ----------

Sounds a little like the UK series 'The Prisoner'

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45274174Michael Jackson's Thriller has been overtaken as the all-time best-selling album in the US by the Eagles' greatest hits, and that band's album Hotel California is at number three. What is the spooky title track all about, asks Alan Connor.

 

Rock stars of the 1970s were not kind to hotels.

 

In Life's Been Good, sometime Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh describes the process bluntly. "I live in hotels, tear out the walls," he confesses: "I have accountants pay for it all."

 

"It all" being a small fortune. In the official history of the band, Walsh recalls a single night at Chicago's Astor Towers in which he and Blues Brothers star John Belushi managed a $28,000 ( £22,000) damage bill.

 

Among other bands, misuse of the hospitality industry was part of the legend - think of Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham roaring down the corridors of Los Angeles' Continental Hyatt on a Harley Davidson he'd got for his birthday, or The Who's drummer Keith Moon, on his own birthday, ploughing a Lincoln Continental into the swimming pool of Flint Michigan's Holiday Inn.

 

 

 

 

But the Eagles? The laid-back, cleanly-coiffed band who urged America: "We oughta take it easy"?

 

---------- Post added 23-08-2018 at 21:37 ----------

 

Sounds a little like the UK series 'The Prisoner'

Perhaps Keith Moon had liking for that sort of thing. At his Surrey mansion he drove his own Rolls Royce into the swimming pool. When the house came up for sale, the eventual buyer said it was still embedded front first in the shallow end wall. The new occupier being 10cc drummer Kevin Godley.

Eric Stewart (or Young) from 10cc came to my mother's house with Wayne Fontana (lives in Glossop)

The whole album was a big metaphorical smack at the excesses of Calfornia, especially the title track and the last track, The Last Resort. The latter is, by far, the most cutting song I have ever heard about the white man's disgusting treatment of Native people whilst stealing their lands, in the drive West.

Other tracks on the same theme are New Kid In Town, Life In The Fast Lane, Pretty Maids All in A Row etc. All songs about spoiled rich kids and celebrity high jinks in California, particularly the LA 'burbs of Malibu, Hollywood, Beverly Hills etc.

Eric Stewart (or Young) from 10cc came to my mother's house with Wayne Fontana (lives in Glossop)

Right first time, it's Eric Stewart.