Eagles, "Hotel California"

Ken loves the smell of warm colitas

Mitch Blum

CJ Kaplan

, and

Ken Warshaw

May 11, 2022

Ken’s Pitch:

“This aggression will not stand, man.” - The Dude

When I was a kid in the late ‘70s and throughout the ‘80s, the Eagles were one of America’s most beloved bands. Their first greatest hits record was on every kid’s shelf and we all knew the words to at least five or six of their most popular songs. Even in my college years, no road trip was complete without including “Take It Easy” on the playlist. And then came Jeff Bridges and The Dude.

The Big Lebowski is my favorite Coen brothers movie and you’d have to waterboard me at Guantanamo before I’d ever say anything bad about Jeff Bridges, so I don’t fault the man, but I think the hatred of the Eagles is quite possibly The Dude’s biggest fault.

Hotel California is one of the most profound and meaningful concept albums of all time, a forty-three minute warning that the American Dream is a lie. A meandering river of anecdotes telling us that California isn’t a utopia or an escape from late-stage American industrialism. The character of The Dude is actually the quintessential product of virtually everything the album cautions us about, a loser that has presumably lost his way, unable or unwilling to compete in the dog-eat-dog world that has infiltrated his beloved SoCal.

With intricate music, prophetic lyrics and a wonderful job in production, songs like “New Kid In Town”, “Try and Love Again”and “Victim of Love” play as important a role in telling the story as the title track and the other huge hits.

I’d like to extend a Lebowski-Eagles olive branch and see if we might be able to make these two coexist peacefully. You know what I mean, man?

“Yeah, well, you know, that’s just, like, your opinion, man.”

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I think if you really give Hotel California a listen there are only a couple of things you can fault, neither of which has any impact on the quality of the songs, the playing, the engineering, or the production. First, Don Henley is kind of an asshole. He was mean to his bandmates, he’s a capitalist’s capitalist who flies private jets and owns mansions, yet he constantly rails about the environment and hurt feelings. Secondly, all the hits were way overplayed back in the days of radio, which causes us to lose some fascination when listening to them again. But throw on “The Last Resort” and tell me you aren’t moved.

“That rug really tied the room together”

Maybe we should call this the tying-it-all-together award, because it absolutely goes to the man who was the biggest difference-maker on Hotel California, Mr. Joe Walsh. Every beautiful track stands on its own, but Walsh’s iconic guitar sound along with his writing contribution, “Pretty Maids All in a Row” elevate the entire album.

“Forget It, Donny, you’re out of your element!”

Henley made one grave error on this album and it has to be called out before my esteemed colleagues at EONS do it for me. The reprise of “Wasted Time” is nothing more than an orchestral outtake designed specifically to satisfy Don Henley’s massive ego. Know your audience, Donny. “Wasted Time” is arguably the most gorgeous song on the album, you should have just left it at that.

“You want a toe? I can get you a toe.”

“Life In the Fast Lane” paints a vivid picture of a young couple and some additional unsavory characters in the throes of a drug-bender. They’ll do anything to get what they need, and I would guess, that would include getting someone a toe if that would help their cause. The Walter Sobchak character and the couple in the song are cut from the same filthy cloth.

“No, you’re not wrong Walter, you’re just an asshole.”

Don Henley and Glenn Frey famously wanted to take the Eagles from playing theaters to selling out stadiums in order to grab the Hollywood spotlight, and the financial gains that come with it. They succeeded, and without them there’s no way Hotel California comes to fruition. On the other hand, they alienated and essentially “broke” a couple of bandmates (Bernie Leadon, Don Felder, Randy Meisner) along the way. They weren’t wrong about the fame and fortune. The Eagles are one of the biggest acts of all time because of the vision Henley and Frey had. But they were most certainly and unnecessarily assholes too.

In the end, the message that Hotel California sends is that there is no way to get away from what has become of America. That no matter what you do or how hard you try, the “tune in, turn on, drop out” fantasies of people like Timothy Leary don’t exist. Because as they say, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

Mitch’s Response:

The best part of the best music documentary ever made (“The History of the Eagles”) is when one of the second-tier Eagles (probably Don Felder) wants to sing a lead vocal and one of the top-tier Eagles (probably Glenn Frey) says: “yeah, but why would you sing when Don Henley is sitting right over there?”

At the time I thought that made total sense. Why would you let a mediocre vocalist sing when you have one of the best rock singers of all-time in your band?

And then I spent a week listening to Hotel California on repeat.

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The real lesson of Hotel California isn’t about the death of the American dream, or burgeoning boomer hypocrisy, or Don Felder’s relative importance to the Eagles’ success as a rock band.

The real lesson of Hotel California is that a little Don Henley goes a long way.

###

Glenn Frey always struck me as a replacement-level choogle rocker straight out of the Bob Seger factory (loved him on Miami Vice, though), so I always assumed that “Life in the Fast Lane” - the worst song on Hotel California - was his. It turns out that Joe Walsh had a hand in writing that monstrosity, so it’s a good thing that Walsh balanced the scales with his fantastic “Pretty Maids All in a Row.”

Walsh’s real contribution to Hotel California was his guitar-playing. The Eagles wanted to be a rock band so they fired up the old three-guitar line-up like a prep school version of Lynyrd Skynyrd, which makes sense, because I always considered “Hotel California” to be the prep school version of “Freebird”.

The best songs on Hotel California are secretly written by secret Eagle J.D. Souther, with the rocker “Victim of Love” and the harmony-filled “New Kid in Town'' out-pacing the overplayed hits. Randy Meisner’s “Try and Love Again” is also solid, even if I always thought it was another Walsh tune.

Which brings us back to Don Henley. “Wasted Time” is as sentimental as “The Last Resort” is sanctimonious, and I’d much rather hear Henley cry about his love life than suffer through his endless virtue signaling, which is still better than the preposterous ego-stroke that is “Wasted Time (reprise)”.

Hotel California is a legendary album precisely because it captures the diversity and unique perspective of all of the Eagles, something that Don Henley could never do on his own. Band chemistry is a special thing, but that’s a lesson that people suffering from LSD (lead singer disease) often forget.

Maybe they should have let Felder sing after all.

Pitch Successful (Don’t really let Felder sing)

CJ’s Response:

Back around the turn of the century (the current one, not the 20th) a salacious scandal rocked the advertising world. Seems that a high-ranking executive at one of the country’s most prestigious firms had used client funds to rent a private jet so that he and his mistress could attend an Eagles concert in France.

In the moment, it was a shocking sequence of events. Not that this dumbass had used his client’s money to finance his own personal sex-capade. After all, the ad biz is as rife with greed, hubris and stupidity as any other industry. No, the thing that baffled us all was that this guy had risked it all—his marriage, his career and his reputation—to go to a fucking Eagles concert!

I remember my Creative Director at the time reading the news in one of the trades and declaring, “I wouldn’t go to an Eagles concert if they were playing in my backyard.”

Now, to be fair, this was at a time when the Eagles were doing everything they could to make themselves the most hated band on earth. They had recently become the first act to crack the $100 mark for a basic concert ticket (a number that seems quaint today). Glenn Frey had inexplicably developed an unhealthy addiction to bodybuilding. And Don Henley was so insufferable in his views on the environment that climate change deniers didn’t even bother to refute him, figuring he’d do more damage to the cause than they ever could.

Side Note: Don Henley may be the most loathsome rock star of all time. An incredible feat in a universe also inhabited by Ted Nugent.

But, let’s be adults and put all that aside so we can focus on an album that came out long before the Eagles had to fly with all that excess baggage. Because even if the band remains a late-night punchline for the rest of time, Hotel California will always be a serious success.

I have personally sung the title track in karaoke bars, as part of a busking duo on the streets of London and on the steps of Sacre Coeur in Paris with a half-dozen non-English speaking backup singers. And why not? It’s one of the few songs I reliably know all the words to. And so do you.

But even if you’ve had your fill of Tiffany-twisted minds and steely knives, there’s still plenty to enjoy. “Wasted Time”, reprise or no, is a first-rate sob story. Well-written, well-played and well-produced. “New Kid in Town” is a song that I didn’t appreciate until I heard it on the live album a few times. Great harmonies with a dash of California-infused country. And even though many here among us don’t care for “Life in the Fast Lane”, I’m a Joe Walsh fan from his James Gang days so I always took a shine to it. Besides, “terminally pretty” is one of the most descriptive two-word phrases ever sung.

My favorite track, though, is the craggy “Victim of Love”. It’s got that “One of These Nights” vibe to it where the band perfectly captures the ‘70s-era rock parable. It’s all the words you wish you’d said to a certain someone when you had the chance.

It’s easy to trash the Eagles in the cold, cruel light of 2022. But in the hazy glow of 1976, Hotel California was a five-star experience.

Pitch Successful (My parents saw Don Felder open for Styx a few years back. Except my dad called him “Ben Feldman”. The moral of the story is: My parents saw Styx!)

Ken’s pitch was successful and the Eagles’ Hotel California will be opening a new branch on Newbury St.

Sure, we’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling, but one of these nights we’ll need you to take it easy, take it to the limit, and take the fast lane to the comments section and tell us why you love the Eagles’ Hotel California or if it gives you a little heartache tonight.

Exile on Newbury St.

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