"Some Dance To Remember, Some Dance To Forget"
We all have heard this quote somewhere in our lives, but its origin is hidden in the lyrics of the iconic rock song "Hotel California" by the American rock band Eagles. This song was released in 1977, and the haunting lyrics came from Glenn Frey's imagination. Don Felder and Don Henley composed the song. Henley was given the responsibility of vocals for Hotel California.
One of the biggest talking points of Hotel California's song was its 2-minute and 12-second-long electric guitar solo, performed by Felder on a Gibson Les Paul with a double neck, and Joe Walsh accompanied him on his Fender Telecaster. Both guitarists took turns playing the lead in the song before harmonizing their styles to play arpeggios together toward the fade-out.
Hotel California is one of the most well-known recordings by the band, and in 1998, the long guitar coda present in the song was awarded as the best guitar solo of all time by readers of Guitarist. In addition to this, Hotel California also won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978. Since the song was out, rock fans and Eagles fans were continuously working hard to deduce the meaning of Hotel California. The band members shed some light on the topic, saying that it was their take on high life in Los Angeles. In one of the interviews, Henley said that the song was about the journey from being innocent to experiencing it all.
The song is regarded as one of the greatest rock songs to be ever created, and over the years, it has been covered by many artists worldwide. Commercially, Hotel California was able to climb to the top of the Billboard Hot 100, and it also reached the top ten of several international charts. In their live performances, the Eagles have played this song more than 1,000 times, and it is the third most performed song, right after "Desperado" and "Take It Easy."
For such an iconic and guitar-heavy song, we needed a guitar instructor who is a legend in himself. We brought Steve Luciano as your guitar chord instructor for this song. Steve has divided the guitar song lesson into 2 parts, where he discusses the chords and progression you need to use along with the rhythm and the backing track of the song. Steve has over 40 years of experience, and he's a jazz expert who studied the basics of guitar under a well-known musician, Joe Tinari. Steve was also the staff musician of Walt Disney for more than 15 years, and he performed live in front of a massive crowd at the peak of his musical career.
At Torrins, you can check out iconic rock like this one by visiting our guitar song repository. Some of the songs you can practice after completing this song lesson are Comfortably Numb by Pink Floyd, Good Time Bad Times by Led Zeppelin, and I Shot The Sheriff by Eric Clapton.
