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 drives a Mercedes-Benz
She got a lot of pretty pretty boys
That 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 the 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.

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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.

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