Is Hotel California on some Satanic Shit or What?

Author: Daniel Taylor

27 Sep

So last night I was trying to explain to Surrogate frontman Chris Keene over some cans of Schlitz the part in the Eagles’ “Hotel California” where , if you play it backwards, it talks about Satan organizing his own religion and about how on the inside cover of the LP, Anton Lavey can be seen kicking back looking all satanic and shit. But his dubiousness made me doubt my conviction on this matter. After all, my original research on this matter was conducted in the pre-internet dark ages, sitting in my bedroom, stoned off my fucking ass, playing my dad’s LP backwards on my turntable with my finger and tripping out hella. But that was, 10, maybe 11 years ago. Maybe I had just made it all up. So I made it my quest, my mission for the day, to get to the bottom of this shit for once and for all, or at least for once.

First off, I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just making it all up like I have a habit of doing sometimes. Thankfully some French dude was cool enough to put up a YouTube clip of the part of the song that played backwards talks a bunch of dark shit. It’s in the second verse,where Don Henley sings “There were voices down that corridor/I thought I heard them say.” Played backwards, this part says, rather clearly (at least for backward shit) “Satan, oh he came, and organized his own religion / Yeah when he knows he shouldn’t” I mean, whether or not this is just an aural coincidence or not was still to be determined, but no one can say that it’s not a little bit creepy, than randomly some words backwards sound a lot like a meaningful sentence, and not just a meaningful sentence, but a sentence about some super satanic ass shit?

Next I needed to determine if the face in the crowd on the inside gatefold of the record was indeed good ol’ Anton or just some other random. I figured the logical first step to this would be to find the actual image online and look at it again for good measure (since my copy of the record is still in Dad’s closet where I originally found it way back when). Strangely enough, the best I could find is a distant blurry shot on someone’s eBay auction. Apparently the group shot only appeared in the original vinyl artwork, and not on subsequent CD versions. So you’ll just have to take my word for it (or got get a copy of the record) that in the windows in the top left is a super creepy dude kind of peering out of the shadows, which many people believe is Anton Lavey himself. Eagle’s guitarist Joe Walsh, however, has denied this saying:

Absolutely not. Any reference to Satan or anything like that is completely in the eyes of whoever is thinking that. That’s a reflection of how sick they are. The guy in the window is one of the Elektra/Asylum publicity guys. The lighting just happened to be bad and he was really shy, so he was just peeking around the corner.

Which would seem pretty open and shut, one would think. However, the guy who actually shot the photo, John Kosh who was Art Director for the album had this to say about the photo:

Kosh eagerly confirms that there is a mysterious figure on the balcony, visible only on the LP version. “I assume he’s a friendly spirit, because we got the picture and it worked!” says Kosh, laughing. “If he is of the spirit world — which I doubt — he’s benign, so it’s fine by me.”

Overall, the band has repeatedly and adamantly denied any dark overtones to the song, documented pretty extensively here. But of course, if I was still getting paid out major dough in royalties and licenses on a song I’d hesitate to confirm its satanic subject matter too. All I’m saying is this is some weird shit. For more fun with backwards shit about Satan in rock songs, check out this site.

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9 Responses for "Is Hotel California on some Satanic Shit or What?"

stephadepa September 27th, 2007 at 8:05 pm 1
there are actually a few creepy figures in the photo. I have the record so i had to take a look. Besides the one on the balcony, there’s one in the doorway on the left hand side and one in the doorway in the middle/right….
Angele September 27th, 2007 at 8:09 pm 2
I feel so edumacated after this. Thanks daniel! …in other notes, annorexic girl in the other blog makes me want to throw up the Taco Bell I just ate…mmmm, Taco Bell.
Dylan Weaver December 12th, 2007 at 4:58 pm 3
Daniel, I’ve got the image you were looking for. http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2301/2106557752_bb8f1eed6a_b.jpg

You can download a higher-resolution version of the image if you go to my flickr page or here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15160035@N07/2106557752/

I also have a scan of the back of the album cover, which you can see at the end of my Hotel California photo set.
Daniel Taylor December 13th, 2007 at 4:32 pm 4
THATS THE SHIT I’M TALKING ABOUT! Score one for the internet
Brett May 14th, 2008 at 1:10 pm 5
Hey some of the figures are creepy but i know for a fact that the one in the darkened window is a priest of the satanic church named Anton LaVey. I definately believe this song is deeply woven with death and going to hell. some interesting quotes: “This could be heaven or this could be hell”, “We’re all just prisoners here of our own device” and my favorite “You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave” I have an original album so im going with this theory.
Shadoe C. June 12th, 2008 at 8:15 am 6
The figure up in the right hand corner is simply a light in another hallway. You can see the round blackness around it, And the “face” is simply a light hanging in the hallway. As for the arms. The arms are a part of the chandaleir (sp?) hanging from the ceiling.

As for the song all I know is that it is creep as hell and I love it. I love mysterious shit like that.
Mark October 3rd, 2008 at 6:04 am 7
Hi all,

I noticed something on the inside cover of the Hotel California album many years ago, but no one else seems to talk about it. If you look at the Eagle band member with the glasses on, and then look to the right (as we look at him at head level) you will notice a character that seems to have 2 horns (like satan is supposed to) looking to its right….the horns are most notable against the black woman’s white top (who stands in the background). Also, on the back cover there is a vase(?) on the table that looks to have a distorted face in it….what is all that about.

Cheers
Dylan Weaver October 9th, 2008 at 5:40 am 8
@Shadoe C: I used to think that too when I looked at the cover (of which I have a copy in my possession) and I never understood why people made such a big deal of it… It really just looks like a light. That is, until I looked at it with a magnifying glass. The you also have to compare it with the picture on the back. It looks totally different, and there is no light fixture or chandelier, nothing, where the image is at in the main picture. Also, with magnification, the arms are extremely creepy looking, and it definitely looks like a person, or being or something, no longer dismissible as a light.

The link I gave in my previous post does show the whole inside cover art, but it’s actually not the best one for viewing what I’m talking about, this one is http://www.flickr.com/photos/15160035@N07/2106558156/sizes/l/in/photostream/ especially if you zoom in (normally requires that you download the picture, depending on your browser) and also compare it with this picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/15160035@N07/2105780815/sizes/l/in/photostream/

@Mark: I looked at what you mentioned. I don’t think the horned figure is anything. I also believe the black woman you mentioned is a man with long hair, but that doesn’t really matter. Either way, that person is standing next to another man in white with a white, gangster-looking fedora.

It looks to me like the image you’re referring to is some sort of shadow on the first person wearing white. You can kinda see his hand or arm pointing down, and this forms what you see to be the front of the horned figure’s face. What appears to be the sheen in the horned figure’s eye, I believe is just part of the guy’s white suit showing through where there’s a break in the shadow. It’s definitely hard to tell, even with the original album in my hand.

As for the other thing you mentioned, first, it’s a wine cart, not a table, and the vase is a champagne bucket with a bottle of champagne in it. Sorry to be so picky, but I just want people to be able to clearly identify what we’re talking about here.

It certainly does look like a distorted face, but after a lot of looking, magnification, and thinking, I’ve decided that it’s actually 2 or 3 faces. I think that what we see there is people standing against or sitting near a wall. The wall I’m talking about can best be seen in this picture http://www.flickr.com/photos/15160035@N07/2106560002/sizes/l/in/photostream/ It juts off at a strange angle, but it’s the appropriate angle for the backdrop of what we see that looks like a face in the bucket.

At the far left side of the “face” it appears rounded, but this really only happens at the rounded part of the bucket, which is what we should expect if the corner of a flat wall were reflected in the rounded bucket. And if you look VERY closely, it looks like 2 or possibly 3 people. They’re probably people involved in the photo shoot, just simple bystanders, or perhaps a couple of the Eagles themselves watching or overseeing the picture-taking.

Either way, I could be wrong about all of it, but that’s what I see. I had never noticed these things before. I wish the image on the balcony was as easy for me to explain.
Dylan Weaver October 9th, 2008 at 5:50 am 9
Oh, sorry I didn’t clarify, but the exact wall I was talking about is on the very right-hand side of the picture; the last one that I gave a link to. It’s not as tall as the rest of the room, and, in fact, there are a couple people standing in front of it, probably close to where the people would have to be standing to make the face image.