It may be just me but I felt that it was a part of mormon culture to not pay any attention to song lyrics. Even when I did I found it difficult to understand what they meant.

For example, the meaning behind the Eagles song "Hotel California" remained a mystery to me for at least 20 years. I am willing to entertain the idea that I may be a bit slow but I feel like I'm not the only one. All of my TBM friends did not know what that song was about either. I first heard the song when I was around 8 years old and I didn't understand what the song meant until I was 36!

When I was younger I would say that the Eagles were spawn of satan and the reference to the "beast" in the song was clearly about how they served satan.

How many years did you go after you left the church before you understood what that song meant? Did you figure out what the song means while still a cult member?

"You can check out anytime you want....
But you can never leave."

I lived in that culture, through those years, and I have always thought that "Hotel California" was a deeply poignant, and spot on accurate, metaphoric expression of life at that time, as it existed in my little corner of the world.

One of the things which always puzzled me back then was that so many of those around me, people I interacted with and knew personally, seemed to have no understanding of, or even any dim apprehension of, what was SURE to happen when the lights, inevitably, went dark.

It isn't that "Hotel California" is a "favorite" song of mine because when I hear it I hurt--but it is, and has since proved to be, dead (sometimes literally) on true for so many highly gifted people who, back then, just didn't have even a smidgen of a clue.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/16/2019 02:27PM by Tevai.

praydude Wrote:
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> Did you figure out what the song means while
> still a cult member?

Yes, as a teen. It made it a fav for me back then.

You were fortunate to figure out the lyrics early. I remember I was on my mission to the Philippines and lots of Filipino companions asked me about that song and I didn't know what to tell them.

Yes, I always knew. When I was a TBM, I thought the song was about the California "Hollywood lifestyle" that we were living. You had to be in it, but it was very corrupt and surreal, and it was the downfall of my Mormon nieces and nephews, who all ended up on drugs, and divorced. Three committed suicide, including the Mormon family patriarch--my father-in-law.

I escaped that lifestyle with my children, when I discovered that my TBM ex-husband had been cheating on my for our entire marriage. I would play that song, in celebration of our escape.

After we resigned from the cult, I interpreted the song to be about the Mormon cult, specifically.

I also love "Already Gone" by the Eagles--another escape song.

Sorry for your losses, Exminion. Glad you and your family we able to leave.

"We are all just prisoners here, of our own device."

Also, my ex husband's cousin (we all lived in the same fancy neighborhood) committed suicide when her was 24. I will never get over these horrible deaths. They were beautiful-looking people, with money and real estate and BYU educations, and everything to live for, but it was all on the surface.

I have not been back there, since we made our escape. I've been to Northern Cal, where I was born and raised, but never to the L.A. area.

"Such a lovely place."

Such a lovely face(s.)

My wife and I just left Marin and moved to North Idaho. Much less snobbery up there...

The real question is what does "Hotel California" mean to you?

To me, the obvious explanation of what the song means is that it is about addiction. This makes the most sense with the lyrics, especially when you "stab it with your steely knife but you just can't kill the beast". Also the line "you check out any time you like but you can't ever leave" makes sense when you think about it in terms of being an addict.

It is a great story song that follows the journey of the fancy life that ends up with addictions to either drugs or alcohol or both.

I did see Don Henley in an interview who described the song in more broad terms: it is about loosing one's innocence. So there's that.

I always thought it was about a creepy or haunted hotel, like the shining.

Yes! THIS! It's just a song about a creepy hotel. Sure, you can always look for and assign deeper meanings in order to personalize it for you. But why? Enjoy the song as-is. Like my college poetry professor always asked, "but what do you think the author REALLY means?" I don't care.

Does anybody really care? Besides, just what is American Pie?

Does anyone really know what time it is?

Does anybody really care?

Nailed it, LW. ;)

:-)

I thought Losing my Religion was about losing faith and I stopped listening to it as a mormon. Turns out it’s actually a beautiful song about unrequited love. This is an example how as a mormon I would instantly sweep things away, out of mind and out of sight, if I thought they threatened my faith. Ridiculous and you miss out on so much.

There were also a lot of music that we couldn’t play at dances. Movies too, I missed ( and didn’t care) a lot of good movies that were only R rated because of one word. I never even saw Dirty Dancing until a few years ago.Its now one of my favourite movies.

I finally was able to get some satisfaction.

What the hell does it mean?

...for quite a few of my younger years, I would dutifully sing about Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, but never really understanding why the end of the song had him "...go down and kiss Doreen."

Didn’t the Flintstones go down in history also?

Had you bought the vinyl record you would know all the words...
But eve the two members of the eagles that composed the song are not even sure what it is about. They wanted something dark and strange and a trip in the desert of California helped inspire them.

Don Henley wrote a couple lines for them but Frey and Felder are the the primary composers. Felder eventually left the band over bad feelings with Henley/Frey.If I recall correctly Felder won most of the rights to the song. Don Henley wanted to be boss of everything and then tragically his closest friend/fellow band mate Glenn Frey died.
Hotel California is the Eagles' biggest hit and so there was an acrimonious law suit over the song after the breakup. Glen Frey's son is replacing his dad and Vince Gill is also a band member.
They recently announced their last big Tour named "Hotel California".---Sadly without Glenn Frey or Don Felder.

The most expensive VIP seat is around $7,000 the cheapest low-oxygen seats are about $200.00.

If anyone goes we need a report back.

https://www.ticketssales.co/tickets/4222269/the-eagles-tickets-fri-apr-17-2020-the-forum-los-angeles#open

The warm smell Calitas is a marijuana reference but I always thought it referred to colitis the inflammation of the colon and its associated fecal flatulent odors . Speaking of bad odors thats what Frey did after the Eagles

The story - urban legend/myth - was that they all got mixed up in occultism. A lot of seventies rock musicians actually did do so.

The cryptic lyrics of the song don't help. For examppe about not serving that "spirit" "wine" since 1969, and "kill the beast" etc. I don't know if I buy the story that Anton LaVey is in the cover art (there is a guy with a beard, but who knows)

The obvious interpretation is about all the people who head west to go to California and end up stuck there. Some go for freedoms, and fame in Hollywood, but a lot end up burned out.

The outro on that song is fantastic. There are few rock songs that rival it, apart from Layla, whose second half is better than the first (even if it is stolen!). It is by far the Eagles' best song, although I like a few others. Whether that comes from Satanic inspiration, well I'll leave that to you to decide.

Anon god in embryo Wrote:
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> The obvious interpretation is about all the people
> who head west to go to California and end up stuck
> there. Some go for freedoms, and fame in
> Hollywood, but a lot end up burned out.

"Hotel California" was released on December 8, 1976. It continued the same zeitgeist as the earlier (1972) "It Never Rains in Southern California," by Albert Hammond (who was from Gibraltar, and was writing about his own experiences, if I am remembering correctly).

"It Never Rains in Southern California" was a lot easier to understand, and far more upbeat....while "Hotel California," four years later, was a darker take on the same theme (in line with what was happening/evolving in the recording industry at that time).

The underlying problem, at that general time, and with a whole lot of people who were actually charting, was that either no one ever sat them down and told them the recording industry Home Facts of Life--or else someone (a record producer, an agent, a manager, a p.r. rep) HAD done this, and the "facts" provided had been disregarded.

It was tough. It was tough then (in the 1970s), it got tougher (most especially if a recording star was not doing the "right" and sensible things), and a whole lot of people lost their balance and fell.

Some of them didn't know any better (they never asked, or never listened), some of them did know better and disregarded the down home advice which would have seen them through--and if it didn't happen to them, it most certainly happened to people around them who they knew.