English 102
Section 69s
Critical Response
Hotel California I powered on my Nintendo Wii to get a quick game of guitar hero’s world tour, as I was sitting at home alone and bored. I flicked through the available tracks, and came across Hotel California by the Eagles; a song I had never heard before by a group I had no knowledge of. Since I had never heard the song before, I decided to go for it. I choose that track to play on the easy level being that it was my first time hearing the song, and besides I wanted to become familiar with it. And when I decide to play again on a more complex level, I would be able to land a decent score. I found myself becoming very in-tune with the song; loving the reggae and rock and roll sound it had. Unbeknownst to me I would be introduced to the song a second time in English class. I had never actually thought about the meaning of the song. We had discussed some opinions, in class about the actual meaning of the song and mostly everyone had a different idea of what the song really meant.
I did some research and had come to find out that on November 25, 2007 Henley appeared on the TV news show 60 Minutes, where he announced that the song is about “the dark underbelly of the American dream, and about excess in America.” I also learned that Hotel California topped the billboard hottest 100 singles for a week in May of 1977; and it had also won the Eagles the Grammy of the Year at the 20th annual Grammy awards in 1978. The song is highly rated in many rock music lists and polls. I understand that the song interpretations are always up for discussion; wherefore everyone has a different opinion based on their viewpoint to the lyrics of the song; and why it was written. It has been said that the song is about a patient in a psychiatric ward, a patient participating in a drug rehab but struggling to stay sober, about the struggles to living up to the American dream and, without sabotaging your life.
In the time the song