The Eagles – Hotel California – We Are All Just Prisoners Here Of Our Own Device
“Hotel California” lyrics by “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
Thought I heard them say
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year
You can find it here
Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty pretty boys
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 face
Their livin’ it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise
Bring your alibis
Mirrors on the ceiling
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, “We are all just prisoners here of our own device”
And in their 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 night man
We are programmed to receive
You can checkout any time you like
But you can never leave
© All rights reserved by The Eagles.
- – - -
Commentary: Hotel California is about the seemingly inescapable environments we knowingly and unknowingly may be complicit in creating for ourselves. The song is an admission of circumstances we can find ourselves in, not always knowing how we became so entangled and confined.
Wikipedia suggests: “The song tells the tale of a weary traveler who becomes trapped in a nightmarish hotel that at first appeared inviting and tempting. The song is generally understood to be an allegory about hedonism and self-destruction in the Southern California music industry of the late 1970s; Don Henley called it “our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles.”
The song has many more very good interpretations.
The song is about mirages. It is about facades and false riches. It’s about what is tempting and what is true. It’s about how there are almost as many ways to become caught up in things as there are things. It’s about trying to reconcile (or trying to avoid) our pasts, presents, and futures.
The song is about choices we’ve made that lead us to feeling or believing we cannot undo what we have begun. The song examines if we can undo what we have done to ourselves. The song is in part an illustration of cycles of depressive thinking.
Although many have suggested the song is an allegory for Hell, the song is not a traditional metaphor for Christian Hell - where the consequences of a life’s decisions are exacted upon us in an after life. The song is more about the consequences we experience in this lifetime for the choices we’ve made. “We are all just prisoners here of our own device.” The song is not interested in how an all-seeing and all-powerful God might reward or punish humans; rather, the song is about how our actions can cause their own sufficiently dramatic rewarding or punishing consequences in this lifetime.
I’m not sure of all of the reasons why I find the song nevertheless hopeful. A plain reading of the lyrics alone might suggest a fairly pessimistic interpretation. But like old fairy tales, I think the song shines as a cautionary tale, not about a specific set of circumstances, but rather about circumstances we have all found ourselves in to some degree. It can be uplifting to hear and know we are not alone in these types of feelings. It can be uplifting to listen to the laments in a good blues or rock n’ roll song.
It also doesn’t hurt that the song ends with a longer-than-normal terrific electric guitar duet – two guitars playing the melodic lines at times in unison, other times at different octaves, and other times in harmony, responding to each other and playing together against the cycles of the night. There’s something in that guitar duet that suggests to me, like many AC/DC songs, that if we are in the worst of places, there is something noble in playing loud and fighting on.
- – - -
Most Recent Artworks All the Artists’ Artworks Index my43things
i’m inlove with thiis music…! :*
I have to say, i am doing alot of research on this song…I have to do an essay in my college english class about this song…I have read so many differnt interpration about this song….I think i am kinda confused about the song now..but I guess every one has a differ meaning of the song…
You have made a great interpretation of this immortal song! yes, it’s true we are all trapped in our own cages! great review! Long Live The Eagles! Soar even higher!
- – - -
OneMoreOption: Thank you for the kind feedback.
I think this is the best song in the world! I’m Mexican and I love this song, I sing it in my school an I’m a boy that loves 70′s, 80′s and 90′s.
i’m from tunisia i love this song so much ,i listen alawys u never get boring it make me feel good and looking to fin love …
am mohamad from syria and am a gituar player .pleas someone tell me how to find this songs written on a musichen book.
very insightful.
- – - -
omo: thx
HIII!!! I LOVE YOU!!!!!!
I LOVE YOU !!!!!!!!!!!!
I’M last 50hrs listening Your
WONDERFAAAAAULT MUSIC, VOICES,LYRICS etc,,,,,,,,,,
so anywhere, i’m writing for You from another side ( NOT OF THE MOON}, of the EATH.
LITHUANIA JOSEPH
And the Hotel California might also itself constitute a metaphor for life in this world. If one views this world as a gilded cage, then death is the only escape. “We are all just prisoners here … .”
- – - -
OneMoreOption: Interesting speculation. However, your theory, as stated, may conflict with the lyric: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Hi everyone!
“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” might mean you can use temporary pleasure, fun, drinking or whatever action we do to mask the feelings we have inside. We know (yes all of us) that this life is not enough, some more than others; but we all know we cannot be fulfilled with things of this world but we still chase them to cover the emptiness/loneliness in us. In my opinion it doesn’t conflict with the theory.
Then again that’s just my opinion and thought
i think the song is about a man who is driving through the desert and its getting late and hes stumbles upon a brothel… pink champagne, mirrors on the ceiling, you can check out but you can never leave (STD), called the captain for wine and hadnt had that kind of spirit here since 69, the beast they cant kill could be an unborn child… its a man romancing a prostitute probably because hes alone and wants to feel love and realizes what hes done, whether it be getting her pregnant or getting an STD, and he wants to leave but he can’s because… he is a prisoner of his own device
I consider it a metaphor for California as The Last Place, where people go to find their dreams, only to find that in the end, they can’t really escape themselves, that they have gone to the end of the earth, metaphorically, to find what they were looking for, and now there is no place left to go. They can physically leave, ie check out, but their hopes, dreams, their soul, are left in purgatory.
- – - -
omo: Interesting
…and probably more on point as to the intent of the song; “House of the Rising Sun” was obviously a brothel. “Hotel California” was more nuanced and may have worked on a couple levels…Artistes don’t like to ‘splain themselves…
For me, the better pop/rock song of the history.
hotel california la peor cancion del mundo ya la escuche y es orribleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
Not to take away from your posting, but the lyrics actually refer to the woman’s “Mercedes bends” – Henley’s pun that alludes to a sexy, affluent California girl. Just one more small detail to contemplate…
- – - -
OneMoreOption: Thank you for the correction.
Eloquent, beautiful writing
this song has an occult message. Seriously. Read It, and thimk deeply about every single verse of this insaine song. then research the events in cali in 1969. GBU!
It’s also clearly a 70s version of Presley’s Heartbreak Hotel, using the metaphor of a building to stand for one’s life and how one lives it. The loss of a real love and its replacement by desire. Sure it’s about the world of rich, drug-taking rockers in LA in the 70s. That is the prison we make when we give up truth or meaning for ego and fame. Mae Axton was clear on this in 1955. The version of “Heartbreak Hotel” that clearly inspires this song was done by John Cale, live in 1974 and appears on the island record June 1, 1974, along with some songs by Nico and Brian Eno.
- – -
OneMoreOption: Interesting.
You’ve a lovely knack for writing and interpretation. Kudos.
- -
Mark: Thank you
Mercedes bends?
It’s about heroin in part. Can never leave: addicted. Lit up a candle ( heat it ). Stab it with their steely knives: draw the heroin into a syringe or inject it.