The Eagles 'Hotel California' In Historical And Cinematic Context

An Analysis of The Eagles “Hotel California” in Historical and Cinematic Context." Throughout the history of humanity, few things have been able to transcend time truly. As new information or discoveries are made, those specific period relics become outdated, leaving them behind. However, the artifacts that can avoid becoming archaic become enshrined as an icon of culture. When looking back on the culturally iconic artifacts of the 1970s, one cannot ignore the significance and timelessness of “Hotel California” by The Eagles. Released on December 8th, 1976, The Eagles 5th album “Hotel California” saw the band skyrocket to stardom, with two number-one hits, “Hotel California” and “New Kid In Town.” However, the significance of the former still

Attempts were made to create film adaptations of the song, but all fell through. However, more recently, an interpretation of the true meaning of the lyrics has been shown in the Fox television show "American Horror Story." The show, which debuted in 2011, 35 years after the song's release, quickly became a well-liked show for many Americans. As a result, “Hotel California” was included in the fifth season, called 'Hotel.' This season was "viewed by 5.8 million Americans overall," most of these viewers within the eighteen to forty-nine-year-old range ( Hurley 3). Including the Eagles' most famous song next to a show that includes actors such as "Lady Gaga as a blood-sucking fashionista" and Evan Peters helped expose a new generation to “Hotel California” (Hurley 4). The song is featured at the end of the season within a recap of the events of that

The song, which sold over 42 million copies, consists of over half of those sales from countries outside the United States. The song's impact in countries such as Nicaragua, Vietnam, and Mexico, to name a few has seen some real "Hotel Californias" come to real life. Does the song take on a different meaning to people not from the United States? According to the article "Hotel California: Around the World on a Dark Desert Highway," Wasserstrom claims the song's meaning globally takes on different interpretations than it does in the United States. "The song tends to convey sunshine rather than noir" to people worldwide, which has inspired the creation of these hotels (8). The global interpretation views "Hotel California" as everything California wants to be, a place of prosperity, warmth, and happiness. Wasserstrom also claims that when he talks about "Hotel California" to people from China, they act as "if he was lucky to be from such a wonderful place" ( Wasserstrom 8). Would these hotels still exist if these people knew the lyrics were genuinely criticizing what California has come to stand for? The imagery sparked from the lyrics of "Hotel California" certainly does not conjure images of a happy place, as described by the people interviewed above. When Don Henley and Glenn Frey wrote the lyrics, they were