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Voices Down the Corridor: An Artist's Statement on "Hotel California"
What follows is an essay I composed in conjunction with the "Hotel California" drawing series. This originally appeared in the form of a final project for my Web Design course. Each drawing is available for purchase as a print through the DeviantArt Shop: clicking the image will show you its respective purchase options.
Part I: Checking In
Part II: Enjoying Your Stay?
Part III: No Way Out
The Process
Recommended Listening
Links
Introduction
What's it all about, Alfie?
During my Spring 2007 semester at UW-Milwaukee - my graduating semester - for my Advanced Drawing course I began a series of drawings inspired by the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles. The purpose of the series was to explore the inner meanings of the song's lyrics, referencing fan interpretations as well as my own. Each drawing would be focused on a specific verse of the song, and the imagery would mirror both the surface image of the words and the concept they represent.
Who are these Eagles you speak of?
The Eagles are an American rock band that first formed in the early 1970s, beginning as a backup band to Linda Ronstadt and eventually forming their own group. Their music over the years has ranged from rock to country to blues and jazz, and the band has survived the replacement of multiple members, and even a 14-year breakup from 1980 to 1994. They were inducted into a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, and they were named #75 on Rolling Stone's 2004 edition of "100 Greatest Artists of All Time". Don Henley and Glenn Frey are the only founding members still with the band today.
Why "Hotel California"?
In recent years, my taste in music has leaned more and more towards classic rock. A bit odd, perhaps, that an 80s-born college student would have tastes leaning that way, but it's largely thanks to my parents, who grew up with this kind of music; Dad especially is glad that my musical preferences extend beyond the 1980s (which is just about when he stopped listening). "Hotel California" is also the kind of song, along with more than a few others in the Eagles' discography, that you might hear while growing up and enjoy the melody to, but you don't appreciate it completely until you've heard it again years down the line, and you experience that "Oh my God, they did that!?" feeling.
I also consider "Hotel California" one of the best examples of musical storytelling ever written. Sure, you could argue that case for any number of music selections that don't even have words, but solely on a level of personal appeal, and given my predisposition to draw on popular culture for inspiration, "Hotel California" was a prime choice for artistic exploration.
What is it about popular culture that's so inspirational?
Popular culture isn't just a wasteland of dying brain cells, but a vast resource of tribute and ridicule for artists of all kinds. You know how they say that all the best ideas have already been thought of? Assuming that's the case, there's no harm in drawing on what's been done before and putting some kind of unexpected spin on it. Well, movie remakes aside, of course.
What is "Hotel California" about, anyway?
On the surface, it tells the story of a weary traveller who finds a lonesome hotel in the middle of the desert, encounters bizarre sights and sounds, and with the ominous closing lyrics eventually finds himself trapped there. The underlying message, however, is about indulgence - drug addiction, materialism, greed; about living the high life in California, and becoming forever changed by it.
Would you like to check in?
Part I: Checking In
Pot, Girls, and Jesus...in any order you like
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
Here, I've started off with what appears to be a pretty straightforward translation of the lyrics; the "desert highway" setting, the shimmering light, even a reflection of the driver's drooping eyelid in the rearview mirror. It's this attachment to the ordinary, to the recognizable, that acts as the lure before the surrealism kicks in and starts dry-humping your brain.
A frequent point of argument is the word colitas in the second line. The common misconception is that "colitas" is some sort of rare desert flower; understandable, as the words "warm smell" can evoke the thought of flora. Really though, the Spanish word "colitas" literally translates into "little buds". In other words, marijuana. One of the active chemicals in cannabis is Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which coincides with the chorus' insistence on referring to the locale as The Hotel California. In light of this, I've given colitas a visual counterpart; the driver has a collection of the fictional flowers gathered (or growing?) on his dashboard. And upon closer inspection, the stem of each flower resembles a rolled joint.
The titular hotel in the background is modeled after the building that appears on the Eagles' original "Hotel California" album cover. It's never been especially clear if that building even exists, or where the "real" Hotel California actually is; there are a number of theories and wild claims to this end.
The bizarre rock formation behind the hotel is designed to resemble a giant hand. The extended index finger not only draws the eye to the silhouetted hotel, but also plucks the strings of a horizon-length guitar, the strings of which form the lines of the highway our narrator travels on. This is done in order to reference the musical aspects of the story; a simple memento of where all this is coming from.
There she stood in the doorway, I heard the mission bell
I was thinkin' to myself, this could be Heaven or this could be Hell
The composition of this drawing is inspired by the panel-within-panel designs of American painter Mary Connelly. We're introduced here to the song's female lead, a nameless entity that I've identified as the embodiment of temptation, the force that draws the narrator into the hotel. C'mon, we didn't really believe he stopped in just because he was tired, did we?
It seems despite my best efforts, I really did learn something in my Art History classes. The sculpture shown above the open doorway, detailed in the upper right panel, is a crude representation of the Last Judgement - the time in which the virtuous are the rewarded while the sinful are...well, y'know. Typical of Last Judgement imagery is the depiction of Jesus in the center, with the blessed on his right and the damned to his left. Blue and red/orange are used to highlight good and evil figures, respectively.
The Last Judgement is referenced for several reasons; first, it seemed a great way to represent the lyrics "this could be Heaven or this could be Hell", with Christ in the middle being the deciding factor; second, the lyrics mention a "mission bell", indicating a nearby church. The Hotel California of my mind, however, isn't near a church, but built on the ruins of one. A breeding ground for decadence and addiction over the remnants of holy ground? Indeed, this could be Heaven, or this could be Hell.
Note also that the damned are on Jesus' left, the same side on which the narrator takes hold of the temptress' hand.
Then she lit up a candle, and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor, thought I heard them say...
Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place), such a lovely face
There's plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year), you can find it here
This one's pretty straightforward; nothing especially deep about it. The temptress has led the narrator to someplace...a little more romantic? Use your imagination. There is some hidden imagery, however; the black shapes drawn into the temptress' hair are meant to resemble ghostly, shrieking faces - the "voices down the corridor". The shapes are continued in the foreground candle, in the blown-out flame and the trailing smoke.
So why devote an entire drawing to just those last two lines in the first verse? Originally this was to be in the lower right section of Drawing #2, but I decided it had the potential to be a striking image all on its own. Indeed it was; the black-and-white candles in the background are some of my favorite turnouts from his project.
Part II: Enjoying Your Stay?
All that glitters, blah blah blah...
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she hot the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty pretty boys that she calls friends
While the song is typically regarded as a metaphor for drug addiction, it also tackles the themes of materialism and greed, and does so largely in the second verse. Again we meet the temptress, her body collaged upon the page from various photos of diamonds while her clothing is designed by Mercedes. The first line of the verse is a clever play on words; most people hear "Mercedes-Benz", but the actual word is "bends", in coordination with the line "Tiffany-twisted". Her "twisted" nature is depicted by the multiple arms stemming off her body as she engages in this hallucinatory dance; the multiple arms are also a reference to Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
By constructing the temptress out of images of expensive possessions, she has become on object of desire (for more than the obvious reasons) for the "pretty pretty boys", represented on the right as tuxedo-clad suitors. Rich, smiling, faceless nobodies who think they're James Bond. They're all the same to her; all after her for the same thing.
The glowing red area is in keeping with the use of color in Drawing #2; blue for good, red for evil. While the diamonds appear perfect, shiny, and blue (they are a girl's best friend, after all), deep inside, under the glittering surface, beats a heart of evil.
This one is a bit of a disappointment for me, because I might have been aiming a little too high. The diamonds idea was the right way to go, but I think the temptress' body over the diamond-starburst background makes things way too busy. As well, something about the black-and-white contrast just hasn't sat right with me. Although while scanning the image, I did find that inverting the values yielded an interesting result.
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
Continuing with the warnings about materialism, the "dance" is a metaphor for the never-ending quest for possessions. I tried to give the figures poses' equal parts mosh pit and mad dash, while their highly-abstracted faces evoke vapid self-satisfaction or drug-induced euphoria. "Some dance to remember" refers to a object that reminds one of a pleasant memory, while "some dance to forget" indicates one's desire to forget something troublesome.
Originally this was to be the background for the previous drawing, but the picture space got so busy that I decided it was working well enough on its own. I started by googling for pictures of various "toys", namely childhood toys to bring back preadolescent bliss, and expensive toys to fill the quota for "crap no one really needs". The pictures I wound up using included a stuffed animal, a rocking horse, and a fuzzy bowling-pin set matched against a yacht, a mechanized motion simulator, and what appeared to be some kind of robot skeleton. I took the images into Photoshop and dulled them, printed them, cut them into strips and collaged them to the paper, then drew the figures over them.
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), such a lovely face
There's plenty of room at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise), bring your alibis...
In my research, I hadn't found any concrete theories as to who or what "the Captain" represents. "1969", however, is typically interpreted as a reference to Woodstock, the summer of love and freedom from possessions. Given the Woodstock concert took place at the height of the worldwide anti-war movement (Vietnam was still in full swing), I believe the Captain is a military presence that counteracts everything that Woodstock stands for. So when the narrator asks for a drink to forget what he's learned about the greed of the high life, the Captain states that freedom from possessions hasn't been in style since Woodstock.
The wine label - dated 1969, of course - is decorated with caricatures of Jimi Hendrix and Roger Daltrey of The Who, a pair of central faces associated with the concert (which is not to slight the multitude of visiting stars such as Janis Joplin, Grateful Dead, Joe Cocker, The Band, and more); Hendrix's electric-guitar rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" is the stuff of legend, as is The Who's encounter with activist Abby Hoffman, who stormed the stage during their set to protest the jailing of White Panther Party leader John Sinclair, only to (supposedly) get hit with Pete Townshend's guitar. (1969 may also be a reference to the year the song "We Used to Know" by Jethro Tull was released; the Tull song has been cited as a possible influence on "Hotel California".)
The Captain, recognizable by his tidy uniform and front-brimmed hat, tips the bottle and drains from it the feelings of love, peace, and freedom; the liquor shapes within the escaping vapors take the shape of hearts (cheesy, I know). The floating stream in the lower right features a return by the Hotel California's mysterious voices - bubbly shapes forming sad eyes and shrieking mouths - albeit in a far less visually obvious fashion. The likeness of Jimi Hendrix is based on a photo of him at the event; Roger Daltrey wasn't as easy to find, so I used the first decent photo of him singing that I could find.
Part III: No Way Out
Your straightjacket is ready, sir
Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice
And she said, we are all just prisoners here of our own device
And in the master's chambers, they've gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast
The picture space has been split into equal sections; the champagne bottle on the left is mirrored by the bottle containing the Beast in the upper right. The mirror, of course, is a means of looking at one's self, and the placement of the mirror on the ceiling, I believe, is a metaphor for seeing one's self as they really are and not as they wish to be seen - namely, the people upstairs, the higher powers. A "mirror on the ceiling" reflects how Heaven perceives you, and odds are they don't like what they see any more than you do.
Meanwhile, the juxtaposition of the word "champagne" with the mention of prison has been turned into a metaphor for alcoholism. The champage bottle in the foreground is placed directly in front of our view of the narrator, who we find sulking away at the bar, drink in hand. The narrator has literally become trapped inside the bottle. And just to hammer in the point about he and the temptress being "prisoners", a row of jail cell bars lines the background behind the woman.
The "steely knives" is an intentional reference to the group Steely Dan, who wrote the words "Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening" in their song "Everything You Did" from their 1976 album "The Royal Scam". In the reflections of the knife blades poking at the trapped Beast, I've worked in highly abstracted likenesses of Steely Dan's core members, Walter Becker and Donald Fagen.
And finally, we have the Beast, who has inspired some of the most heated debates over the song's meaning. The first image that comes to mind is that of Satan; this isn't hard to imagine given the religious interpretations provided so far. Fans have pointed out references to Satanism and black magic, and many believe the Hotel California itself is really the Church of Satan, whose followers practice from The Satanic Bible, which was written by Anton Szandor LaVey in...c'mon, guess what year? 1969. Despite the eyebrow-raising circumstances, the official word is that this is but a startling (albeit unlikely) coincidence, as the Eagles themselves have repeatedly denied any connection to Satanism.
What, then, is the Beast? In my view, the monster one makes of themselves by recklessly indulging in drugs and booze. Try as one might, the addiction is hard, sometimes impossible to break, and is even so by the will of the addict himself. "Prisoners of our own device" refers to the conscious choices of the addict; it is his choice to start taking drugs, his choice to keep taking them, and, biological conditions of addiction aside, his choice to stop.
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 night man, we are programmed to receive
You can check out any time you you like, but you can never leave!
Ah, my favorite verse of the song. There's just something incredibly haunting about it, especially the final line. For me, it's always had this "Twilight Zone" feeling to it, and it's with that in mind that I designed this panel, as the "night man" is portrayed as a stiff, Rod Serling-type figure who cuts off the narrator's path of escape. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to base the night man's facial features on Rod Serling himself, but the pose on the right of the page is spot-on, I think.
I used the broken glass image as a sign of the broken illusion of the "good life" that the narrator has sought out; it is as well a sign of the life he's left behind, the life he's ruined through indulgence and addiction. Meaning, even if you "check out", even if you manage to break the addiction, you'll never quite be the same person you were before you began.
The final drawings in the series are attempting to give visual narrative to the incredible dueling-guitar solo that concludes the song. Even without lyrics, the howling guitar strings seem to have their own story to tell. The coda begins a segment played by one guitar (originally Don Felder), followed by a segment played by a second guitar (Joe Walsh); the guitarists trade rhythms as if arguing how the story ends. The wraiths chasing the narrator across the page represent his demons, and the crisscrossing sound waves of Felder and Walsh's guitars. The broken glass motif is carried over from the previous panel, signaling the continuing collapse of the decadent dream world. On the opposite side of the page is the looming silhouette of the temptress, and his running from her depicts his attempted refusal and escape from temptation.
At last we bid farewell to the Hotel California as the sun sets on the land and the song fades off into silence. The last shards of the illusion are scattered to the wind as the narrator descends into despair and insanity. Felder and Walsh's guitars have met each other halfway in their musical duel, matching notes in a duet variation on the song's opening theme. The zig-zags across the sky leading to the hotel represent those matching soundwaves, but also resemble the light reflecting off the grooves of a vinyl record.
NEXT: The Drawing Process, Recommended Listening, Links...
