I recently bought the album Hotel California because it was cheap and I’ve apparently decided to live in the past. Given how 2017 is playing out I don’t know that anyone would blame me. I never owned the album when it was new (in 1976), though I was just old enough to, even way back then. I was familiar with the singles, though, notably “Life in the Fast Lane” and of course the title track.
When The Eagles reunited in 1994 (after splitting up 14 years earlier) I wondered how they felt about the song. Radio played it to death, back when people listened to radios. It’s their “Stairway to Heaven,” a song that is indelibly tied to the band. I can’t even guess how many times I’ve heard it before finally buying the album. More than a dozen but less than a billion.
But a lot.
And yet, I find myself listening to the song now and it crackles with energy and still feels fresh coming through my headphones more than 40 years later. I love the opening guitars, the ironically upbeat chorus, and the overall Twilight Zone creepiness of the lyrics, ending with the great line I quote in the title of this post. And so I award “Hotel California” my favorite old song of the moment and best old song from 1976.
(I can’t actually think of other songs specifically from that year. Probably something by The Carpenters.)
Okay, I cheated and looked up the top ten songs of 1976:
| No. | Title | Artist(s) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | “Silly Love Songs“ | Wings |
| 2 | “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart“ | Elton John & Kiki Dee |
| 3 | “Disco Lady“ | Johnnie Taylor |
| 4 | “December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night)“ | The Four Seasons |
| 5 | “Play That Funky Music“ | Wild Cherry |
| 6 | “Kiss and Say Goodbye“ | The Manhattans |
| 7 | “Love Machine“ | The Miracles |
| 8 | “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover“ | Paul Simon |
| 9 | “Love Is Alive“ | Gary Wright |
| 10 | “A Fifth of Beethoven“ | Walter Murphy |
This is what you call a study in contrasts. Some legitimate classics (“50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”), predictable fluff (“Silly Love Songs”–this was #1 for the year? Or any year?) but disco was in full bloom, like a hideous algae covering your favorite swimming lake with a grotesque film and you prayed it would go away and a few years later, it did (then it came back). Still, no “Muskrat Love” so it wasn’t all bad.
