You have surely already pushed the doors of this hotel to the smells of American west coast many times: "Hotel California", title of the Eagles, is one of the biggest tubes in the history. A cult title from the eponymous album released in 1976, which will sell 32 million copies. But few non-English speaking people suspect that the place portrayed in this 6-minute song is not a glamorous and luxurious hotel, where everything is possible.
Of course, the refrain welcomes listeners / visitors with the heady "welcome to Hotel California, what a delicious place" with "lots of rooms" and a "beautiful facade". But the place described by the Eagles looks more ... like a rehab center.
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The addictions very present in the song
In this hotel, as we hear in a verse, there are mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on the ice, but above all there are two ambiguous sentences. First: "We are all just prisoners here on our own initiative." The other verse is as follows: "I said 'bring me my wine, please', he replied 'we haven't had this alcohol since 1969', and always those voices calling me from afar that wakes you up in the middle of the night. " These "voices" are addictions.
Don Henley, the founding member of the Eagles, was rather discreet about the meaning of these words. He ended up saying in an interview that "this song perfectly reflects the spirit of the time, which was a period of great excess in California and in the world of music". And the song ends in a disastrous way: at the California hotel, "you can pay the bill whenever you want, but you can never leave".