Comments on: The Pink Champagne on Ice.

The Pink Champagne on Ice.

the cydonian — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 02:30:11 -0800

Por el camino del desierto, cool wind in my hair. Sube el aroma de colitas, rising up through the air. As I logged into Bloomberg, j'ai vu une lumière toute petite. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim; I had to stop for the night. There she stood in the doorway; I heard the mission bell, and I was thinking to myself, "This could be Heaven, or this is Hell". Then he lit up a petromax, muttering "No power today". There were voices down the corridor. I thought I heard them say,

Welcome to the Hotel California.

By: the cydonian

the cydonian — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 02:47:42 -0800

_{[With due apologies to Belle Perez and Krzysztof Piasecki for not including them in, but I couldn't find their lyrics on the web. :-) ]}

By: Wolof

Wolof — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:14:22 -0800

You sick bastard.

By: chuckdarwin

chuckdarwin — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:23:16 -0800

Thanks for showing me what "Colitas" are.

By: melissa may

melissa may — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 03:34:07 -0800

You sick, beautiful bastard. The best response to "Hotel California" I ever personally saw was by Zeek Sheck. She was alone and dressed head to toe in bloody bandages and bruises like she'd just walked to the club from the hospital. For that song, a recording of some epic feedback and a phone rang over and over while she yelled, "Hello? Hello?," beat some drums, then sang, "Welcome to the Hotel California" over and over in a tuneless monotone. I am sad to say that as far as I know, her performance went unrecorded, but to get a general sense of the mood see here. NSIYAT.* *not safe if you are tripping

By: greenskpr

greenskpr — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:18:31 -0800

...nary an amateur white band that can play reggae...sinful, awful...so white. ...this was a morning brightener. Thanks.

By: caddis

caddis — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:59:18 -0800

You can checkout any time you like, But you can never leave

By: MtDewd

MtDewd — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:33:05 -0800

If anybody's still looking for the Krzysztof Piasecki lyrics- aż ktoś przywiózł hotel kalifornia, i jakbyś ujrzał świt (i jakbyś ujrzał świt), a mrok ze wschodu znikł, kiedy słuchałeś hotelu kalifornia, wchodziłeś w taki stan, jakbyś był z nimi tam... They're here (halfway down)

By: psmealey

psmealey — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 05:57:04 -0800

Very nice post! Much as I want to hate the Eagles for being the archetype of the boring-ass pompous middle of the road 70s rock band, I cannot. I got my first turntable for my 9th birthday (1976), and among the handful of albums my mom got me was the Eagles' Hotel California. The guitar work on the record (particularly the two part guitar solo on the title track) is excellent. Don't get me started on Kansas or Styx, however. They suck ass.

By: maudlin

maudlin — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:05:11 -0800

I'm with you, psmealey. I don't care much for the Eagles and most non-punk, non-soul of the 70s*, but I adore this song in almost all its incarnations even more than I love Toxic in all its incarnations. Fuck cred. Some songs are just great pop songs, no matter what. And yes, the guitar on this is awesome. * Summer of 1976. Recovering from surgery at Sick Kids in a ward with other teens. The good: a repeat of David Bowie on Dinah Shore on tv. The bad: Afternoon Delight OVER and OVER and OVER again on CHUM. I believe some jello may have been flung.

By: Mister_A

Mister_A — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:26:48 -0800

[Da na na na naaaaa] Welcome to the 'otel California!

By: 40 Watt

40 Watt — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:31:40 -0800

Come on, man. I had a rough night and I hate the fuckin' Eagles, man!

By: thanotopsis

thanotopsis — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:37:18 -0800

The Gypsy Kings did what I think is a fabulous version of Hotel California. Knowing the meaning of the song, it's even more poignant performed in Spanish, what with our immigration issues these days.

By: GrammarMoses

GrammarMoses — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 06:50:06 -0800

That Bloomberg link was pretty damn funny. Thanks for this.

By: ethnomethodologist

ethnomethodologist — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 08:57:21 -0800

Isn't the "Hotel California" in Baja- you know, Mexico?

By: buggzzee23

buggzzee23 — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:10:23 -0800

Colitas = marijuana buds Anyone who smoked it in the 70s knows that.

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:13:21 -0800

I hate the Eagles enough for psmealey, maudlin, and anyone else on the planet*, but this post is really great. Thanks so much. *Hearing the song reminds me of being a little kid in the '70s, riding in my parents' van in the summer without air conditioning and the windows wide open past cattle lots in western Kansas. Why were we in western Kansas? I have no idea, but there's nothing like this song to remind me of heaps of cow shit.

By: TheOnlyCoolTim

TheOnlyCoolTim — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:41:47 -0800

The Eagles just came out with a new studio album for some reason. They decided to join the recent trend of bypassing the record labels. So they made an exclusive distribution deal with Wal-Mart.

By: jquinby

jquinby — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 10:43:38 -0800

...but there's nothing like this song to remind me of heaps of cow shit. Luxury. For us it was Neil Diamond, Anne Murray and The Four Seasons. On 8-track. It's taken me nearly 30 years to be able to cross wide open spaces without breaking into "Forever in Blue Jeans". In the years since, I've come to grudgingly give Diamond his props as a writer. But that's all.

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 11:39:17 -0800

jquinby, ours was on 8-track as well. If I remember correctly, it switches in the middle of "Victim of Love," but man, that was a long time ago and my brain isn't working so well today. Early Neil Diamond rules!

By: psmealey

psmealey — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:28:54 -0800

For us it was Neil Diamond, Anne Murray and The Four Seasons. Aw dude... I know this pain. In 1977, my family piled in our trusty red 1975 Toyota Corolla and headed to the Lancaster Country, PA (Amish Country) for a family getaway. With only an AM radio for six hours, we were bombarded with repeat plays of David ("Don't throw up on us baby") Soul, Manfred Mann doing Springsteen's "Blinded by the Light", and the piece de resistance: Debby Boone's "You Light up my Life". I would have killed for the Eagles.

By: jquinby

jquinby — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:37:06 -0800

Let me set the stage for you: cross country drive from Chicago to Seattle. Then again from Atlanta....to Seattle. AM radio at least offered the occasional Paul Harvey bit. The rest of the time...well...see above.

By: sleepy pete

sleepy pete — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:42:23 -0800

I would have killed for the Eagles. I'd kill some for the right amount. [HENLEYIST]

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 02:46:05 -0800

I knew what a kola was, never heard this 'colitas' term, except for the song. Thanks much for the colitas explanation from Cecil. But the take-home gut laugh was "The girl with colitis goes by". Damn near crapped my pants on that. Not Eagles fan. I am a fan of America, and originally saw the Eagles as imitation America. Don't hate the Eagles, either.

By: the cydonian

the cydonian — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 05:30:36 -0800

Goofyy, when I wrote the post, I was more taken by the point that the lead article was making; that the song made California as a form of Shangri-La, if you will, even though the reality was much much more mundane. Went on to explore that thesis through all those different versions of the song. In the spirit of the post, I downloaded all the 28 covers of the song and listened to all of them on my commute home. I can say with certainity that I'm now firmly in the anti-Eagles camp. I'M NOT AN EAGLES FAN AND I WILL SCREAM IF SOMEONE PLAYS THE SONG ANYMORE.

By: litlnemo

litlnemo — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 06:33:41 -0800

My favorite version: the "Taco Bell Burrito." On a dark desert highway Cool wind in my hair Warm smell of burritos Rising up through the air Up ahead in the distance I saw a bright yellow light My head grew heavy and my mind grew dim I had to stop for a bite... ...Welcome to the Taco Bell Burrito! Such a lovely place! Stuff to feed your face! Plenty of food in the Taco Bell Burrito! Mild or hot with spice - tacos, beans and rice! I saw this on Usenet more than a decade ago and I've never been able to get it out of my mind since. I always hear "Taco Bell Burrito" in place of the words "Hotel California" now. It is a curse.

By: jonp72

jonp72 — Sat, 03 Nov 2007 08:42:06 -0800

If you do it just right, you can sing the Brady Bunch theme song to the tune of Hotel California.

By: Goofyy

Goofyy — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 06:01:09 -0800

the cydonian: I can see where such a long history of the California image, combined with the Eagles song, could easily make people envision a Shangra La place, the song to me always meant a paradise fraught with dangers--More or less exactly the way I have always thought of the place. Experience found the paradise part missing. Talking to natives older than myself brought me to understand how different it was, 50 years ago, when 'paradise' was a reasonable description.