[Collected via e-mail, 2003]
There's a rumor that's been around for some time concerning the
Eagles' song "Hotel California". The basic premise is that the song
is about a Christian church that was abandoned (or otherwise
vacated) in 1969, and was taken over by an occultic group (usually
Satan worshippers). For some unknown reason, it became known as the
"Hotel of California". Further rumors have it that the Eagles are
Satan worshippers, and that Satan appears in the window on the
"Hotel California" album jacket.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Collected via e-mail, 2001]
I remember hearing as a kid that the Eagle's megaplatinum song
"Hotel California" was about Aleister Crowley's mansion near Loch
Ness, and the weird goings-on that supposedly happened there;
including such "clues" as the line "...they stab it with their
steely knives, but they just can't kill The Beast" (Crowley's
nickname). It's even been said that if you look on the album cover,
you can see Satanic High Preist Anton LeVey in one of the windows.
I've looked, and though it is fuzzy... damned if it doesn't look
like him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Collected via e-mail, 2000]
My fellow high schoolmates and I (class of '85) were warned of the
"evils" of certain types of music and were not allowed to play
anything that was not approved by the nuns, at our school dances.
Music by the Eagles was not allowed due to the "fact" that the song
Hotel California was about a Satanic Cult organized in California
in the year 1969. Reference was made to the lyric, "we haven't had
that spirit here since 1969," as meaning the Spirit of Christ had
not been present since 1969 upon organization of the cult. The
mentioned lyric is a reply to a request for wine, in the song.
According to my very protective, but wonderful teachers, this was
yet "more proof" that the song was about a Satanic cult. Wine is an
important symbol of the blood of Christ for Catholics and many
Christian denominations.
Origins: The
Eagles' 1976 album "Hotel California" has sold more than 16 million
copies, spawned a best-record Grammy, and is regarded by numerous
rock critics as one of the best albums ever. Its title track, the
haunting "Hotel California" continues to entrance listeners even
though during its heydey the song was on the charts for only
nineteen weeks and in the number one spot for only one.
Because its lyrics contain an ominous undercurrent, many have
appeased their sense of disquiet by finding in the words literal
and figurative meanings that just aren't there. Theories abound as
to what the song means. Some see the devil in the lyrics. Others
see a madhouse.
Some believe the song was written about a real inn bearing that
name. Though there is a Hotel California in Todos Santos, a town on
Mexico's Baja California peninsula, its relation to the song begins
and ends with the coincidence of a shared name. None of the Eagles
stayed there, let alone wrote music there. Nor did they have this
building in mind when they set down the lyrics to this popular
song.
Those who persist in believing the song must be named after an
actual building have been known to assert "Hotel California" was
the nickname of the Camarillo State Hospital, a state-run
psychiatric hospital near Los Angeles which housed thousands of
patients across its sixty-year history before closing in 1997. To
them, the lyrics seem to fit what a mentally disturbed person would
experience upon incarceration in a long-term care facility. The
imagery of the song is explained as that person's hallucinations
juxtaposed against moments of startling clarity as he realizes
where he is.
However, by far the most common theme to surface in Hotel
California rumors is one that links the song to devil worship. The
lyrics (which speak of trying to "kill the Beast" and not having
had "that spirit here since 1969") form the bedrock of the various
Satan-related theories, but the belief is also fed by the album
design. The inner cover is a photograph of people in a courtyard of
a Spanish-looking inn. In a balcony above them looms a shadowy
figure with arms spread. Many who look at that photo see Anton
LaVey, leader of the Church of Satan, and interpret the spread arms
as his welcoming the populace below into Satan's trap. That the
people in the picture seem unaware of the gleefully evil figure
standing above them only adds to the implicit horror of the scene
the innocents below are oblivious to their having wandered into the
house of the Devil.
It's wonderful imagery. But it doesn't hold up. The shadowy figure
was a woman hired for the photo shoot.
When it comes to finding Satan in this song, over the years we've
heard the following:
The song is a tribute to the place where the Satanic Bible was
written.
Devil worshippers bought an old church and rechristened "the Hotel
California."
Some or all of the Eagles were either heavily involved with the
occult or were disciples of LaVey.
All the album photographs were taken in and around a building that
used by Anton LaVey's headquarters for his Church of Satan.
In California the 'Church of Satan' is registered under the name
'Hotel California.'
Another oddly persistent set of rumors centers on the photos used
for the album. On the cover was the image of the approach to a
Spanish mission-style hotel at sunset. Inside was the courtyard
scene described above, and on its back was a photo of a black man
leaning on a mop in the hotel's lobby. Besides the "Anton LaVey
standing on the balcony" whisper, the presence of certain figures
in some photos but not in others is attributed to their being
ghosts whose spirits were accidentally captured on film, with the
presumption being these were guests of the hotel who expired there.
Also, the janitor leaning on a mop in the lobby photo has been
rumored to be the propped-up corpse of a dead man (shades of Elmer
McCurdy, that). In a particularly creepy extension of that rumor,
he was murdered by LaVey as a human sacrifice or by the band
members.
[Collected via e-mail, 2000]
On the cover of The Eagles album Hotel California, there is a
picture of an abandoned hotel with someone in the doorway. When
they took the picture there was noone in the hotel, and when they
developed the picture it seemed as if there was noone there. But on
the album cover there appeared someone in the doorway and the
belief is that a person died (in some form or another...ranging
from overdose to murder) in the hotel before it became abandoned
and then appeared in the photo. Another variation I've heard is
that they went back & took the picture twice and both times
someone appeared in the doorway. I've also been told that the
person is only visible on the album cover & not the tape or
cd.
