Anywhere you go in the world, you’ll hear it, that wry, wispy voice. It is a familiar siren’s song, both warning of and celebrating the excess of decadence, a voice that plots the rocks as it draws you toward them. It is the light at the end of the tunnel. It is Don Henley singing “Hotel California.”
What is it about this Eagles song that has captured the hearts and minds of foreigners around the globe? You can be in the most remote city in Asia, Africa or South America and before two days are up the melodramatic Spanish guitar intro will greet you over a loudspeaker. Heads begin to bob on cue. Dah-dunk-dunk-dunk. “On a dark desert highway . . .”
Mind you, it could have been worse. The world could have chosen Rick Derringer’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Hootchie Koo (Lawdy Mama light my fuse)” or something from Grand Funk Railroad as the international anthem of low-budget travel. We should consider ourselves lucky. At least they picked a song with halfway clever bad double entendres.
In the U.S., the song has become a token of nostalgia, the swan song of a ’70s dino band that enrolled in one too many art classes. Author Jeff Greenwald, who has heard it in Nepal, Mali, Italy and elsewhere while writing “The Size of the World,” calls it “the lowest common musical denominator.”
Christopher Kenneally, a Boston-based writer, was chased by a teenager for several hours in Fez, Morocco, who kept singing it. “We’d go into cafes, and he’d sit down next to us (singing) `Living it up at de Hotel California.’ I don’t know if it was his way of impressing us or what. He could not be shaken with insults in either English or French,” Kenneally reported. To make it worse, “I think he only knew that one line. `Living it up at de Hotel California.’ That was the only part he sang.”
In Korea, it is the favorite karaoke song for honeymooners, reports San Francisco musician Dave Almeter. “They think it’s a love song. The background video shows couples walking on the beach.”
“I heard it recently in the Hungarian Sausage Factory,” said Todd Nemet, a software engineer. The Sausage Factory, he pointed out, is in San Francisco, but the balalaika player had just moved from Budapest. “It was his request.”
The first time I heard the song overseas it was blaring on three of four speakers competing for room on a Bali street corner. Five years later, I stayed at the Hotel California, a bungalow cluster in Kovalum, India.
There’s nearly a certain chance that some waiter has sung it to Don Henley himself. Unfortunately, he won’t admit it. “Don is unavailable right now, but if he’s interested he’ll let you know,” said the assistant to his agent. Red Cloud Records, which owns some of the rights, was no help either.
The popularity of “Hotel California” can partially be pinned down to history. Released in 1977, “Hotel California” actually stayed at No. 1 for only one week, according to Billboard’s archives. Still, the song sold extremely well over time and went on to nab a number of Grammys for the band. By coincidence, adventure travel took off in earnest in the late ’70s, a movement that took the popular music of the time overseas.
The lurid reputation of the Golden State no doubt helps as well. California comes across as the capital of sex, depravity and excess. There’s a Mercedes in it, too, along with enough mumbled words in a quartet scheme (“Did he say `Coming up from Goleta’ or `The smell of Colitis’?”) that open it to numerous interpretations.
California, though, is also the home of empowerment theories, active senior living and trained killer whales. Despite its dark overtones, the song is really about being nice, regardless of the circumstances, which is what life in California is all about. “Hotel California” takes place at a dinner party, after all, and the hero doesn’t excuse himself until people start using knives. It is a State Department memo sung by a waiter. No wonder they love it.
“The song’s able to invoke the dark side without being nasty. It’s kind of sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll without the edge,” said Kenneally. “I mean, Don Henley is the least threatening guy on Earth.”
Will it last forever? “In Nias, an island off Sumatra, there are a bunch of long-haired local surfing guys with nothing better to do all day than surf and play the guitar,” said John Bartkowiak, a painter from Chicago. On his first visit to a cafe, the owner asked if he could play a song for him, and Bartkowiak expected the usual.
“And he played `Easily Amused’ by Nirvana. It’s (from) their favorite album.”
