My sister Liz loves “Hotel California” and the Eagles, and my bro-in-law loves her. So much that he flew her to the Big Apple last Valentine’s Day to see the Eagles at Madison Square Garden. How romantic is that?
A collaboration of all five Eagles of that era: Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Don Felder, and Randy Meisner, The Hotel California album was released on Christmas day in 1976 and became one of the biggest selling of all time. Texas vocalist Don Henley said of the song writing process, “We were getting an extensive education, in life, in love, in business. Beverly Hills was still a mythical place to us. In that sense it became something of a symbol, and the ‘Hotel’ the locus of all that LA had come to mean for us. In a sentence, I’d sum it up as the end of innocence, round one.”
Liz, if you’re reading, I dedicate this iconic classic to you.
Although the Gipsy Kings released their Spanish flamenco version back in 1990, I probably heard theirs for the first time in The Big Lebowski Jesus scene, sometime after 1998 (click the link for purple polyester poetry in motion). When not touring, The Gipsy Kings founding members, Nicolas Reyes and Tonino Baliardo, live with their families in the south of France.
Today will be fabulous.
