Introduction
The seventies are mostly remembered for negative things, bell-bottoms, pet rocks, disco, and platform shoes. However, the decade is also remembered for the progressive style of music that emerged. While many consider the songs to be overplayed and overrated, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zepplin and Hotel California by the Eagles defined the seventies, and still remain popular and relevant. Both songs were released within five years of each other, and reflect a common idea among the hippies of the decade: spirituality. More importantly, both songs express the need for a spiritual basis in life, but do it differently. Stairway to Heaven provides the solution on how to be spiritually perfect, while Hotel California gives a warning not …show more content…
The song opens with the line on a dark desert highway, suggesting that the man in the song is already beginning to go down a dark path in his life, where he arrives at the twisted and darkly sinister Hotel California. He is lured in by a beautiful woman in the doorway, who lit up a candle and showed [him] the way into the Hotel. The candle the woman holds represents the only light and familiarity the man knows, and he is helpless to follow it. Inside the hotel, voices tell him that the Hotel California has such a lovely face, suggesting that problems lie underneath façade of beauty. In the Hotel California, there are mirrors on the ceiling, so wherever one turns they always see themselves and inevitably they can escape their worst enemy, themselves. All the people who live in the hotel are all just prisoners here, of [their] own device. The hotel is not a real place, it is a metaphor for people who stray from the path of spirituality and get lost in their own hedonistic pleasures, whether it be drug addiction, materialism, or anything in between. No matter how hard they try to kill the beast, their own personal torments, they cannot do it. The last lines of the song give the sense of urgency to get back on the spiritual path before it is too late. Once one enters the hotel [they] can check-out any time [they] like, but [they] can never
The seventies are mostly remembered for negative things, bell-bottoms, pet rocks, disco, and platform shoes. However, the decade is also remembered for the progressive style of music that emerged. While many consider the songs to be overplayed and overrated, Stairway to Heaven by Led Zepplin and Hotel California by the Eagles defined the seventies, and still remain popular and relevant. Both songs were released within five years of each other, and reflect a common idea among the hippies of the decade: spirituality. More importantly, both songs express the need for a spiritual basis in life, but do it differently. Stairway to Heaven provides the solution on how to be spiritually perfect, while Hotel California gives a warning not …show more content…
The song opens with the line on a dark desert highway, suggesting that the man in the song is already beginning to go down a dark path in his life, where he arrives at the twisted and darkly sinister Hotel California. He is lured in by a beautiful woman in the doorway, who lit up a candle and showed [him] the way into the Hotel. The candle the woman holds represents the only light and familiarity the man knows, and he is helpless to follow it. Inside the hotel, voices tell him that the Hotel California has such a lovely face, suggesting that problems lie underneath façade of beauty. In the Hotel California, there are mirrors on the ceiling, so wherever one turns they always see themselves and inevitably they can escape their worst enemy, themselves. All the people who live in the hotel are all just prisoners here, of [their] own device. The hotel is not a real place, it is a metaphor for people who stray from the path of spirituality and get lost in their own hedonistic pleasures, whether it be drug addiction, materialism, or anything in between. No matter how hard they try to kill the beast, their own personal torments, they cannot do it. The last lines of the song give the sense of urgency to get back on the spiritual path before it is too late. Once one enters the hotel [they] can check-out any time [they] like, but [they] can never