Hotel California and Lord of the Flies

Bored            

        Stuck in the annex attached to a low-end laundry mat that was my high school job, I was bored. The most interesting thing I had to do was to devise new ways to absorb the water leaking in from the front windows as rain dripped unceasingly from the sky.   Rainy fall days at an ice cream shop, even one that also sells food, are predictably boring and clammy. As always, the radio was set to a station that mixed ‘new’ pop songs that had already been played to oblivion and classic hits that have also been played to oblivion. However, the classic hits were new to me. After a month or two, I learned to recognize Piano Man and American Pie and grown very sick of a pop song I can no longer remember, except for the fact that it talked about ‘sunshine’ and a ‘great day,’ neither of which could be applied to this particular night. Subtly, I attempted to start the multiple tasks necessary for closing the store, hoping that the manager in the back wouldn’t notice my quest to get out of there early. We were the only people in the place, as only two employees are necessary for staffing the annex-esque ice cream shop. It was about this moment that a ‘new’ song, aka one I hadn’t heard before, came on. In my rush to close I didn’t really hear the song until the guitar solo came on. It shredded through my internal monologue about the ridiculousness of trying to sweep the annex-esque ice cream shop’s terrible beat-up floor. I paused for a second and listened entranced by what I recognized as the coolest guitar solo I had heard to date (not that impressive of a title as I had heard about four previously, but nonetheless it was cool).

Unfamiliar with Music

Emerging from the kitchen third of the annex, the manager said, “Sweeping already?” He grinned and then noticed that I wasn’t really sweeping. “What?”

“Nothing I just hadn’t heard that song before.”

He grinned more and stood in front of the small drive through window. “Really? You’re joking.”

“No, you know I read books. That’s my thing, not classic rock.”

“You know who it’s by though right?”

“Dude I have no clue.”

 “It’s Hotel California by the Eagles.”

“Ohhhh.”

“See you knew it.”

I started sweeping again. “No I’ve heard OF the song, but I didn’t know what it was.”

He shook his head.

“I don’t pay attention when my dad plays,” I switched to a tone mimicking the radio, “All the greatest hits from the 60’s, 70’s, and 80s.”

“Yeah yeah.” He turned around and glanced out the window on his way back to the kitchen. “You got a customer.”

Parallels  

Forgive me, readers, those of you who worship classic rock are probably horrified, but I have only conveyed the truth. Despite my original ignorance, I have really come to enjoy the song. I couldn’t understand though why it reminded me of a book I read in high school, Lord of the Flies. Every time Hotel California came on, and it seemed to come on a lot once I recognized it, I always remembered Lord of the Flies. This is only made stranger by the fact that while I cannot stand Lord of the Flies, I adore Hotel California, mostly for the guitar solo, but still.

I know this sounds weird, but here me out, and for the record some poor schlep on yahoo answers also is reminded of Lord of the Flies whenever they hear Hotel California as well. Written in 1954 by William Golding, Lord of the Flies is about a group of English schoolboys whose plane crashes into an uninhabited island. The boys soon decide to light a smoke signal in hopes of being rescued. Here is the first similarity, “

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair/ Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air/ Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light,” are the first couple lines of the song. The signal fire the boys light is to draw people in just like the shimmering light of Hotel California. Another connection is that the narrator of Hotel California hears a “mission bell” which is similar to the choral group in Lord of the Flies, which largely becomes the antagonists of the story.

 Lord of the Flies was written in response to a type of stories that was popular at the time, where boys get stranded on islands and go on a fun adventure. However, this book takes a very dark view of humanity. Similarly in Hotel California, “And I was thinking to myself "This could be Heaven or this could be Hell" as the two endings for the boys to end up on the island. The island is either an idyllic paradise or a barbaric hell. As the chorus starts in Hotel California, “Welcome to the Hotel California/ Such a lovely place/ Such a lovely face,” the island puts forth a lovely face but it is only a façade. “Plenty of room at the Hotel California/ Any time of year/ You can find it here," there’s plenty of room on the island. Golding believed that the schoolboys without society would devolve into brutish ignorant savages. Therefore, you can find violence within people, though it is hidden by society, “any time of year”. 

The Finale 

            The most striking parallel between the two is the scene where the boys stab the pig repeatedly and savagely. The choir group ends up taking possession of the body of the pig and they steal boys away from the protagonist’s, Ralph’s, group through promises of feasts. “And she said: "We are all just prisoners here of our own device"/ And in the master's chambers, they gathered for the feast/ They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast.” The other possibility for these lyrics that connects to Lord of the Flies is that although the boys try again and again (take a stab at) to make an ordered society of their own they can’t avoid devolving into savage ruthless killers (their inner beast). Finally, Lord of the Flies ends with the boys being rescued by army pilots, which is an unhappy happy ending, because it demonstrates that even the ‘civilized’ world has forms of ingrained accepted brutality and that the boys may leave the island, but they can never escape the viciousness of human nature. “Last thing I remember, I was running for the door/ I had to find the passage back to the place I was before/ "Relax," said the night man, "We are programmed to receive/ You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!"

Bwawwww! Bwan na na neuw. Bwa nan a neuw na neuw bweee na neuewwwww.

Notes: 

All information about Lord of the Flies comes from wikipedia. Though I know English teachers typically say not to use it as a source, especially considering I am one, but it is actually pretty accurate. I did read the book, but this just refreshed my memory. Here is my post on that and here is even more information backing up wikipedia being accurate. 

Image Credit: I combined three photos ("Palace Hotel in Ukiah" by Bob Dass , "Hotel California" by Rodney, and "fly" by SteveP2008) in order to create this one: "Hotel of the Flies" by Me