So I called up the captain, please bring me my wine Some dance to remember, some dance to forget How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat. She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way “This could be Heaven or this could be Hell” Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair Based on knowing and socializing with Anton LaVey, here’s what I hear when I hear the song. Whatever the case, the song DOES seem to contain references to LaVey that are obvious to anyone who knew him and visited his home. While he never said that any of the band members were Satanists, he DID suggest that the song WAS about him, but then LaVey was always prone to self-promotion. We remained in contact until his death in 1997. I was a close friend of Anton LaVey, the founder and High Priest of the Church of Satan, from 1978 until around 1990. I have direct, personal experience that leads me to believe that the song refers to the actual, physical location of the Church of Satan and its occupants, Diane & Anton LaVey.
Hotel california album cover full#
There are also full websites concluding that Paul McCartney has been dead since 1966 and Elvis is still alive.īased on personal experience, I think that there IS a connection between the lyrics to “Hotel California” and the Church of Satan, but this has nothing to do with “Satanic messages” or what is or isn’t on the cover of the album. ‘Hotel California’ is a metaphor for the 70’s, the music industry and the “accidental” prison freely entered only to realize the trap.īut if you go on the internet there are still those out there that are convinced that this is a “devil” song. Though they definitely enjoyed it all, they decided to pour their sense of unease into the record. Drugs, money and women were thrown to them with their fame. Especially in the music business.īy the time the record came out the Eagles were riding high. The song (as well as the album) is allegory about hedonism and greed in Southern California in the 70’s. – In California the ‘church of satan is registered under the name ‘Hotel California’.īut the truth is, the person in the balcony was a woman hired for the photo shoot. All of the album photographs were taken in and around the building that used to be Lavay’s headquarters for his church of satan (which wan’t the case…the album cover was shot at he Beverly Hills Hilton). Some or all of the Eagles were either heavily involved with the occult or disciples of LaVay. Devil worshipers bought an old church and named it “The Hotel California”. The song is a tribute to where the satanic bible was written. There are those that say it is Anton LaVay, leader of the church of satan, and he is welcoming all the innocents below to the trap. On the inner album (gatefold) cover there is a photograph where some see a shadowy figure on a balcony with his arms spread. The lyrics of “just can’t kill the beast” and not having “that spirit here since 1969” which is supposedly when California’s church of Satan began. If you are insane yourself…Īnd let’s not even mention, “just can’t kill the beast”.īecause the far more common legend to surface about the song is one that links it to devil worship.
![hotel california album cover hotel california album cover](https://ih1.redbubble.net/image.2106077990.1834/mp,504x498,matte,f8f8f8,t-pad,600x600,f8f8f8.jpg)
And of course the “stab it with their steely knives” line made the place run by cannibals.
![hotel california album cover hotel california album cover](https://images.genius.com/f1e2e99b2ef87f9dbaa6c94cc705c864.945x924x1.jpg)
The imagery of the song is explained as that person’s hallucinations with moments of the startling clarity of knowing where he is. To them the lyrics seem to fit what a “mentally disturbed” person would experience incarcerated in a long-term care “madhouse”. Some persist the song must be written about an actual building (there WAS no ‘Hotel California’) so they assert it was a nickname for the Camarillo State Hospital, a state-run psychiatric hospital near Los Angeles which housed thousands of patients during its sixty year span before closing in 1997. The popular 1970’s song tells the story of a weary traveler who checks into a luxurious, upscale hotel only to discover all may not be as it appearsīut because the lyrics to the song contain kind of ominous undercurrent, many have gone to the trouble to find figurative and literal meanings that just aren’t there. The lyrics and album cover photo of the Eagles’ signature tune “Hotel California” are some of these. You can’t kill some myths although they’ve been disproved time and again. The song was written about either the devil or a madhouse.