Week Eight Blog Post

 Week Eight

Bradley Nelsen

        Hotel California

     The Eagles


            California is one of America's most popular and populated areas across the nation. Often California is seen as this flawless place with friendly locals, local shops, and crafts with endless beaches with parties on every block on every weekend. But The Eagle's song "Hotel California" gives kind of a different tone to this supposed lovely place. "Hotel California" sings about the "excess in America" and how the California that was sung about by the beach boys in the 1960s isn't what it used to be. As I previously mentioned, California has been portrayed as this wonderful region, but in all reality, it's pretty... overrated. In the song, Don Felder asks the captain 'please bring me my wine' but the captain turns him down saying 'we haven't had that spirit since nineteen sixty-nine' meaning that California ain't what it used to be or all that it's cracked up to be. America is the land of the free, where people can come to live out their dreams. But what is often not portrayed is the amount of work and rules that are in play here in America. Rules like no public intoxication, are shown by this song. This song properly shows the hardship that goes into our country alongside all the good that comes out of it.



Comments

  1. haileeMarch 14, 2022 at 6:21 PM

    I like how you talked about how "Hotel California" describes California in a different way and talks about how it's not the same California it was when the Beach Boys sang about it in the 60's. I grew up listening to this song a ton with my family, but this is the first time I've ever really considered what the lyrics meant so thank you!

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  2. Bryan HuletMarch 21, 2022 at 1:40 PM

    I also think that it’s really interesting the way that you portrayed California in reference to this song. I’ve never thought about it that way before. I think another reason that they might use California in the song, is because that part of the US is very well known to the world, and I feel like often people of other nations might assume that the rest of the country is just like how California is.

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  3. Angela BentleyMay 19, 2022 at 6:15 PM

    This is definitely a dark song about what is often perceived of joyful California. I think the most disturbing are in the final verse, "We are programmed to receive. You can check out at any time , but you can never leave." You can feel the urgency and dark realization of the depth behind, "You can never leave."

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