Saturday, June 12, 2010

In the song "Hotel California," what does "colitas" mean?

In the song "Hotel California," what does "colitas" mean?, "Straight Dope" article. Pretty funny. The site is quite entertaining and often informing, if you can take Cecil Adam's attitude as Know-It-All. Yeah, more than me.

I found it because by now I'm just trying to get that friggin song out my head.
Suppressing it didn't work, so I thought I'd at lease learn the lyrics properly, which included finding out if "colitas" is a desert flower or what.

By the way, I'm sure there must be many many theories of the meaning of the song. And of course Don Henley is doing the smart thing, not helping, not squashing any flighty ideas. Like that other Don, when asked: "What does 'Bye bye Miss American Pie' mean?..." Says he: "it means I never have to work again".
Cecil does not even mention the one I heard many years ago (from a nice guy, a soldier of fortune who served for a while in the Foreign Legion, friend of a friend, who later landed in jail for killing his girlfriend), that the title was a nickname for a woman's prison. Can't be a wide-spread theory though, it doesn't blib on google.

By the by, I rather like Madonna's version of American Pie. It has a phat sound, and it does not have the sheer exhausting length of the original.

Update:
ingly said...
"Yeah, more than me."
Shurely shum mishtake.
Actually it is worth putting up with that to enjoy reveling and sharing in your obsessions.


Like Steve Jobs said to the guy in the audience of the recent keynote who yelled "I love you Steve": 
Thanks, I think! 

Obsessions, yeah. I've reflected that's what they are. I can be intensely interested in something for a few hours, and then not at all. I've caught myself researching wide and deep to find just the right gimmigahoojit, when I know full well that I'll probably barely use it when I get it. 
I don't think I have any healthy interests, merely obsessions, more or less managed. 
Whether that's true for everybody, I dunno. Maybe it's a question of degree only.

Update:
I wanted to see what The Eagles looked like in the seventies (shock: long hair!), and found this. I must say, they are admirably, amazingly consistent in their renditions of the song.

8 comments:

ingly said...

"Yeah, more than me."

Shurely shum mishtake.

Actually it is worth putting up with that to enjoy reveling and sharing in your obsessions.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

LOL!
And here I was, hoping somebody would deny it. :-)

Well, it's a quality, and it's surely the quality which annoys our dear Josey/Hank/Anon so much, but what the heck, all is life, says Buddha.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I like the mishtake line. Is it a quote?

BTW, who you be? You sound like you've been around for a while, but I don't recall comments? Good ta hear from ya, don' be shy.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, more than me.

You don't act like a know-it-all. Kind of the opposite, really. Many a time you've posted about something asking people to explain it.

Anonymous said...

Like Steve Jobs said to the guy in the audience of the recent keynote who yelled "I love you Steve":
Thanks, I think!


I liked Seinfeld's response when I female fan yelled that during I'm Telling You For the Last Time: "Thank you, I love you too, but I feel the need to see other people."

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

Oh yes, good one.

For your first comment, now that's more like it! :-)

Like many things, I think two apparent opposites can be true at the same time. If the human mind is anything, "split" probably describes it.

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