Hotel California / Satanism

by **heyjt** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 3:43 pm

Since the CAlifornia Satanic thread is off our main page I went ahead and posted this here. I was watching an old Eagles concert the other night and really listened to the lyrics of the song again.Has anyone already linked this song in a thread on the California murders? Years ago Lanny Sinkin, an attorney for the Christic Institute at the time, told me he was absolutely convinced about Satanic groups involved in murder in California. "Warm smell of colitas" = Ahh, that smell of good bud "She got the Mercedes bends" Was that an accident in the transcript? Of course, the last verse is the "killer verse" Here's the text from reallyrics.com: Hotel California 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 I thought I heard them say Welcome to the Hotel California Such a lovely place Such a lovely place (background) Such a lovely face Plenty of room at the Hotel California Any time of year Any time of year (background) You can find it here You can find it here Her mind is Tiffany twisted She's got the Mercedes bends She's 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 Place (background) Such a lovely face They're livin' it up at the Hotel California What a nice surprise What a nice surprise (background) Bring your alibies Mirrors on the ceiling 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 nightman We are programed to recieve You can check out any time you like But you can never leave

by **Biggie** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 8:44 pm

I had always interpreted that song as being about drug addiction

by **slimmouse** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 9:35 pm

Posted about Robbie a while back. Any reflections on these for lyrics ? First they ignore you Then laugh at you and hate you Then they fight you - then you win When the truth dies Very bad things happen They’re being heartless again I know it’s coming There’s going to be violence I’ve taken as much As i’m willing to take Why do you think We should suffer in silence When a heart is broken There’s nothing to break You’ve been mixing With some very heavy faces The boys have done a bit of bird They don’t kill their own And they all love their mothers But you’re out of your depth son Have a word I know it’s coming There’s going to be violence I’ve taken as much As i’m willing to take Why do you think We should suffer in silence The heart is broken There’s nothing to break All is wonderful in past lives Dreaming of the sun she warms You should see me in the afterlife Picking up the sons of dust When you think we're lost We're exploring What you think is worthless I'm adoring You don’t want the truth Truth is boring I got this fever need to Leave the house leave the car Leave the bad men where they are Leave a few shells in my gun Stop me staring at the sun I know it’s coming There’s going to be violence I’ve taken as much As i’m willing to take Why do you say We should suffer in silence My heart is broken There’s nothing to break Robbie Williams - Trippin. "Evil" newagism no doubt to some <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/roll.gif ALT=":rollin"> Get the idea of this "new age thinking is fascism " meme yet ? You go Robbie.

by **robertdreed** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 10:51 pm

"She got the Mercedes bends" Was that an accident in the transcript? That's the original lyric. Don Henley is very fond of double entendre, as well as cryptic allusions. I'm of the opinion that Henley's a lot deeper lyricist than people give him credit for. The lyrics to his songs are often amenable to more than just one interpretation. I lived in California when that record came out. It nailed the Zeitgeist quite neatly, in a lot of ways. I don't think that Henley is involved in any evil cults- at least, I've encountered no evidence of this. I think he's more like Jeff Wells. He peers under some bizarrely patterned rugs from time to time. For another "RI-resonant" lyric of Henley's, go search out the lyrics to "Building The Perfect Beast", the title track to the record of the same name. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 12/18/05 5:08 am

by **NewKid** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:10 pm

About 20 years ago, I remember hearing a tape of a fundamentalist preacher named Jacob Aranza on a radio show about backwards masking on rock albums. One of the things he said was that the Hotel California was itself the actual physical location of the Church of Satan at one time. The other interesting thing I remember is that when they backwards masked the song Hotel California, it said something like, "Yeah Satan, oh, he organized, he organized his own religion." Some friends of mine actually did this with their own album and confirmed this. He also mentioned that the lyric "we haven't had that spirit here since 1969" had to do with the Satanic Bible being released by LaVey in 1969. I always thought that stuff was pretty silly and just a publicity stunt to sell albums and look cool, but there may have been more going on with that song than met the eye.

by **robertdreed** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:16 pm

yeah, whatever. Don Henley doesn't require backward masking to generate symbolic complexity, including shadowings of malaise and foreboding, with his words. I've heard people cracking on Henley as a lightweight for 25 or so years, now. His critics should only hope to write one lyric as good as his best efforts. I'm not the world's biggest Eagles fan, really- for one thing, every note of their live performances is pre-rehearsed, an approach I find sort of pointless. But I like a lot of their songs. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 12/17/05 8:23 pm

by **NewKid** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 11:45 pm

FWIW, here's what Snopes has to say. <a href="http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/hotel.htm" target="top">www.snopes.com/music/songs/hotel.htm</a>

by **Iroquois** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 1:03 am

My thought is that snopes has is mostly right, that Hotel California is about the rock-n-roll lifestyle that the Eagles were involved in at the time they wrote it. But, I think they are a bit disingenuous in saying that the song isn't about Satanism. Maybe it's not "about" Satanism, but it is one of the themes along with drugs and materialism that is conveyed. It was a common element in a lot of the heavy rock from the time, and I don't doubt that the Eagles saw a lot of it regardless of their own level of involvement.

by **banned** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:12 am

...just about everyone I knew took for granted that "Hotel California" was about Satanism, which doesn't mean it was, only that it was widely believed. Looking back on the oeuvre of the Eagles, I suppose you could say it was in the same vein as "Life In the Fast Lane" (Henley/Felder/Frey) and "The End of Innocence" (Henley): From "Fast Lane" "Life in the fast lane Surely make you lose your mind Life in the fast lane, everything all the time Life in the fast lane, uh huh Blowin' and burnin', blinded by thirst They didn't see the stop sign, took a turn for the worse..." From "Innocence" "O' beautiful, for spacious skies But now those skies are threatening They're beating plowshares into swords For this tired old man that we elected king Armchair warriors often fail And we've been poisoned by these fairy tales The lawyers clean up all the details Since daddy had to lie" Sure, songs are full of symbolism, but it still strikes me as odd that they would use what sounds to anyone with any experience at all with Satanism as a description of a Satanic ritual to describe the experience of living in a materialistic California (which many people HAVE left, especially since the dotcom boom collapsed). A metaphor for drug addiction makes more sense, but the drug references in their songs are, well, clearly drug references (colitas, the "little buds", in "HC"; "she drove herself to madness with a silver spoon" in "Witchy Woman", "They took all the right pills" and "There were lines on the mirror" in "Fast Lane.") So I'm with Iroquois, I still have to wonder about the choice to use Satanic imagery in "Hotel California" if that's not what it was about. As we know, what the author(s) of the song say isn't necessarily conclusive, since what people who have been in cults know, or think they know, happened isn't necessarily the same as what actually happened. Personally, what's always puzzled me about the song is, why haven't they had any wine since 1969? Is that just a nice rhyme?

by **Col Quisp** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:31 am

That was the year of the Tate-LaBianca murders. Maybe that's what the Eagles were talking about. Stabbing with their steely knives, etc.

by **robertdreed** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 6:09 am

That's what they're getting at, Col. Quisp. 1969 was also the year of Altamont. It was also the last year of the "fabled '60s." A vintage that had been drunk dry...perhaps due to limited supplies and an excess of popular demand. Or perhaps the manse in question just failed to keep any in stock... The allusions to "stele knives" and the failure to "kill the beast" refer, I think, to the same grim malaise that hovers around a lot of Jeff's posts- with the added irony that those trying to do "the beast" in seem to have resorted to Egyptian ritual implements- "stele knives", to do it. And stele knives are also of course "steely knives"- cutters, shanks, deadly weapons. A whole other thing going on than "come on people now, smile on your brother..." And the party palace is apparently a former mission. Neat touch. Not to make too much of it, but it's also more of a Southern California song than a Northern California song- the whiff of material status is more powerful. The status allusions to toxic wealth- "Tiffany twisted", "Mercedes bends", the festival held in "the masters chambers"- bespeak values of gaudiness, conspicuous consumption and sinister underground elites, and while the San Francisco Bay Area isn't exactly devoid of that action, it's Southern California, especially Los Angeles, that is the world of Hollywood Babylon, Mulholland Drive, Sunset Boulevard, Robert Altman's Chinatown....Disneyland, the Playboy Mansion. Cielo Drive. The Spahn Ranch. Jack Parsons. The Spiral Staircase House. The Starwood. Wonderland Avenue. And, like Bob Seger's "Hollywood Nights", "Hotel California" also alludes to the can't-go-home-again phenomenon- the loss of innocence to desire, dope, the fast lane, decadence- the stuff of the Video Fantasy Future, looming on the horizon... <a href="http://www.tmtm.com/sam/burnett/proof/sixties.html">www.tmtm.com/sam/burnett/...xties.html</a> <a href="http://www.tmtm.com/sam/lyrics/tbone.html">www.tmtm.com/sam/lyrics/tbone.html</a> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 12/18/05 4:35 am

by **rothbardian** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 7:33 am

Patti (Reagan) Davis hung out with the Eagles and supposedly co-wrote one of their songs. You wonder how much she knew or passed along to Henley et al about Vice-President Hannibal Lechter (as Jeff has referred to him) and any other creepy goings-on.

by **robertdreed** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 7:42 am

I think Patti Davis was the boyfriend of an Eagle for a while. Not Don Henley- I think it was Don Felder, another member of the band. They co-wrote a song called "I Wish You Peace", which ended up on one of their last records- The Long Run, I think it was. I don't recall what it sounds like. I remember reading that either Henley or Glen Frey slagged it, and wrote a mocking parody entitled "I Wish You Peas." Personally, I don't find either Patti or Ron Jr. to be sinister characters. From what I know of them, their stories remind me of a lot of friends of mine. They love their parents despite the fact that they don't share their conservative-reactionary attitudes, and they stay close enough to them that they maintain respect and friendly contact, even though neither of them are exactly chips off the old block. I don't think that the Reagan kids have much access to dirt on the Bush Dynasty- the Reagans and the Bushes came from very different circumstances and social circles. And Ron Sr. and George Sr. have drastically different personalities. I feel I understand Ronald Reagan as a human being- part of that has to do with what I've observed about how his kids turned out, in fact. George Bush is a much more remote personality to me. A lot more of a locked safe. This is simply my personal rigorous intuition talking... I don't think Don Henley needed to know any specific inside dirt about the Reagan White House to apply his own rigorous intuition to the shadow of the Reagan-Bush Era. Henley spent his childhood and adolescence in the Texas Bible Belt...like T-Bone Burnett, in point of fact, some of whose lyrics I linked in my previous message, from a record he put out in 1983. Proof Through The Night. The performances on that record are great, too. His delivery on "The Sixties" is truly classic. It's well worth a listen. Here's a link to an article with some great interview snippets from Burnett, sounding just like many of the people who post on this board- in 1992: <a href="http://www.tmtm.com/sam/burnett/articles/amen.html">www.tmtm.com/sam/burnett/.../amen.html</a> "...At the Railway Club show, the political state of his nation fuelled some biting between-song comments on George Bush and Dan Quayle, whom he views as "incredibly evil." But, he says, they're just symptomatic of a bigger problem. "What I view as an incredible evil is the lack of willingness to deal with who we are in the United States," he states. "The lack of willingness to admit who we are, where we come from, what we've done. "The United States needs to go through a total and utter re-evaluation of our position in the world. Until we do that, I don't think it matters who's elected. The government doesn't matter at all as long as the whole country is in this incredible state of denial. But it's frustrating to be in the middle of it and hear all the nonsense, the propaganda, lies and nonsense, and see how ordinary people are moved by it."..." Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=robertdreed>robertdreed</A> at: 12/18/05 5:48 am

by **heyjt** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:38 pm

- What a nice suprise Bring your alibies... "life in the fast lane" is about drug addiction and the gaudy shallow lifestyle of California. Hotel California is about Satanism, ritual sacrifice, and the suggestion that once initiated the cult will never let you leave... (Kind of like Scientology?) As always, good analysis by Robertdreed

by **slimmouse** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:49 pm

A post I read a while back elsewhere, where someone was explaining how the final track on the HC album ( The last resort ), had something to do with Iran and American machinations there from the Shah through to IC. I'll have to see if I can get more info.

Hotel California / Satanism

Hotel California / Satanism

Re: Hotel California / Satanism

A "pop" stars lyrics.

Hotel California

Re: Hotel California / Satanism

Re: Hotel California / Satanism

Re: Hotel California / Satanism

Re: Hotel California / Satanism

As a Californian in the '80s...

1969

Hotel California lyrics

The Eagles/Reagan connection

Re: The Eagles/Reagan connection

Not convinced by Snoopes

I read a post a while back elsewhere

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