Therefore, many GIs imported their tastes in music into the war zone. Many of these conscripts did not want to be in Vietnam, and no one wanted to be alienated from his own generation back home. As draft quotas were raised and deferment and exemption loopholes closed, an overwhelming number of military personnel belonged to one generation: the average age of combat soldiers was 19 and, according to some figures, 90 percent were under 23 years of age. The Vietnam conflict has been called “America’s first rock-and-roll war” because of the predominance of rock music that permeated the American experience there.
Hotel California is a metaphorical music of the Vietnam War The narrator was told “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave” Therefore the users find it difficult to refrain from indulging in it.Ĭocaine addiction is something similar to the journey that has no return. Cocaine has powerful psychological addictive properties. Cocaine has correspondingly intense effects on the body – and on the mind. It is a well-known factor that prolonged use of cocaine leads to paranoia and delusion. Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way ’this could be heaven or this could be hell’ His mind goes through a mystic fathomless fantasy. While on his wild drug trip the narrator experiences euphoria and hallucinations. While high on cocaine, he has delusional feelings of grandiosity. The warm smell of Colitas (the Spanish term for tumble weeds) makes his head heavy and sight dim. The “Dark Desert Highway” refers to a craving drug trip that has a disastrous aftermath.
The narrator is on an exotic experimental mind journey. Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair Then he sees a sparkling light and decides to go there and have a night rest. Hotel California is a first person narrator who is driving in the dessert. Hotel California is a metaphor for cocaine addictionĪs the music critics view this song is an allegory about hedonism and self-destruction. For the Eagles Hotel California was their interpretation of the high materialistic life in Los Angeles. The Eagles echoes the California lifestyle and the culture in the ’70s with their all-time greatest hit.
The extravagant lifestyle in LA which is a mixture of materialism and hyper consumerism has caused nostalgia and emptiness. Ecological imbalances, environment pollution and economic recessions have become the unavoidable realities under the hyper consumerism. The consumerism increased in the West rapidly after the WW2.Ĭonsumerism has negative repercussions on people and the society.
People are encouraged to buy and consume various products despite the necessity. The Economists who advocate consumerism believe that the key to economic prosperity is the organized creation of dissatisfaction. Under the Consumerism systematic creation and fostering of a desire to purchase goods and services in ever greater amounts take place. Consumerism is an economic policy that states that the market is shaped by the choice of the consumers. Hotel California reflects the materialism and hyper consumerism in the Western World.