 | My mother bought me The Eagles’ Hotel California as a Christmas present when I was in junior high, and I played it on the record player in my room and on the big stereo in the living room. (That thing was the size of a coffin and had a turntable, 8-track player, AM/FM radio, built-in speakers, and space for knickknacks.) I loved the gritty, glamorous songs even though I didn’t have enough life experience to understand most of them. Playing the record before school in the mornings helped me steel myself for running the gauntlet of junior high in a small town. |
 | The songs met me where I was. Even though I lived in the same small town my whole childhood, New Kid in Town radiated within me and seemed realer than real most days. Great expectations, everybody’s watching you You’re walking away, and they’re talking behind you. My tender heart wanted to have loved so much that I would have to talk myself into Try(ing) to Love Again. It might take years to see through all these tears. I wanted to be a Victim of Love. Tell all your girlfriends, your been-around-the-world friends That talk is for losers and fools. |
Hotel California, the ultimate road trip, let me see a future where I would have loved, lost, and learned. I would be stronger, no matter what love and life threw at me. If the Eagles could do it, I could do it.
However, when a visiting preacher came to our church, he told us about the evils of rock and roll. He played some song snippets backwards, which sounded quite clear after he told us what the garbled words were. I loved the Eagles, but I was more scared of hell. If the Eagles were against God, they had to go. My mother and I smashed Hotel California and a few other classic rock albums in the kitchen after we got home that night.
In college, I took the first few steps on my road to prodigal-ness. While still attending church, but failing morally, I did everything I could think of to ease my aching insides. I missed the songs that had soothed my soul in junior high, and I no longer felt compelled to follow all the religious teachings I had learned, so I got Hotel California on cassette. I played it in my Honda Civic’s tape deck, driving through dark desert highways with cool wind in my hair. The songs made more sense after a few years of bad boyfriends, boring part-time jobs, and living alone in cold places. They made a lot of sense, and they helped me make sense of my senseless life. If that makes sense.
During the next few years, I lost my moral compass and what remained of my religion. I sampled all the major world religions, self-help, new age, ancient mythology, transcendental meditation, and did a modest amount of partying (I may have lost my religion, but I hadn’t lost my common sense). I moved far away from everyone I knew and immersed myself in graduate school, getting an education but no satisfaction. The same kinds of troubled people kept finding me, and they dragged me lower and lower. I was sad every day, and didn’t see how it could get better. Wasted Time summed up my life, describing my loneliness at the end of each hopeless relationship.
You never thought you’d be alone, this far down the line.
And Hotel California didn’t sound like a road trip anymore, it sounded like the pattern of my life.
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
However, when a visiting preacher came to our church, he told us about the evils of rock and roll. He played some song snippets backwards, which sounded quite clear after he told us what the garbled words were. I loved the Eagles, but I was more scared of hell. If the Eagles were against God, they had to go. My mother and I smashed Hotel California and a few other classic rock albums in the kitchen after we got home that night.
In college, I took the first few steps on my road to prodigal-ness. While still attending church, but failing morally, I did everything I could think of to ease my aching insides. I missed the songs that had soothed my soul in junior high, and I no longer felt compelled to follow all the religious teachings I had learned, so I got Hotel California on cassette. I played it in my Honda Civic’s tape deck, driving through dark desert highways with cool wind in my hair. The songs made more sense after a few years of bad boyfriends, boring part-time jobs, and living alone in cold places. They made a lot of sense, and they helped me make sense of my senseless life. If that makes sense.
During the next few years, I lost my moral compass and what remained of my religion. I sampled all the major world religions, self-help, new age, ancient mythology, transcendental meditation, and did a modest amount of partying (I may have lost my religion, but I hadn’t lost my common sense). I moved far away from everyone I knew and immersed myself in graduate school, getting an education but no satisfaction. The same kinds of troubled people kept finding me, and they dragged me lower and lower. I was sad every day, and didn’t see how it could get better. Wasted Time summed up my life, describing my loneliness at the end of each hopeless relationship.
You never thought you’d be alone, this far down the line.
And Hotel California didn’t sound like a road trip anymore, it sounded like the pattern of my life.
You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
 | I hit my low point sometime during 1990. Shortly after, a friend asked me what I currently believed, knowing I was going through beliefs like most people go through sweaters. I realized that in spite of everything, I did believe in God. I also realized I wanted no part of Christianity--legalism and guilt hadn’t done me any favors. I felt like a closet believer-in-God, but that was almost as confusing as not believing in anything. Just a little more peaceful. Then hope finally arrived, in the form of Sam. Sam attended a church where God was ready to love, help, and forgive. This God wanted a relationship with me, and I was |
ready. The congregation had ex-Hell’s Angels, ex-sex workers, ex-drug addicts, and we all rejoiced in grace and clean life together. Then the housecleaning began. Out went the altar, Buddhist prayer books, prayer beads, books on mythology and new age, low-cut dresses, religious knickknacks from my travels in Asia, meditational drone music, most of my address book, the incense, and rock and roll. I made many happy trips down to the dumpster, ridding myself of anything that didn’t proclaim Jesus. There was no remorse, just joy that I was finally on a path that led to wholeness and happiness. The stuff in the dumpster was just collateral damage, Hotel California included.
For the next few years, Sam and I produced children and taught piano. Never a fan of Christian music, I was too sleep-deprived and morally cautious to listen to anything except Veggie Tales and classical. Then one day, while driving my mini-van in my denim jumper, I remembered the Eagles. I looked at my pre-teen children, and I thought of the comfort the Eagles had given me when I was that age. The faith that had grown in me since my wild days had developed to the point that I was no longer scared of anything that didn’t “proclaim Jesus.” This faith was hefty enough to embrace things that reflected the goodness and wisdom of God.
I bought Hotel California on CD, along with a few other classic rock old friends. We played it in the van and on the boom box in the kitchen. My kids loved it. We sang along. We harmonized.
For the next few years, Sam and I produced children and taught piano. Never a fan of Christian music, I was too sleep-deprived and morally cautious to listen to anything except Veggie Tales and classical. Then one day, while driving my mini-van in my denim jumper, I remembered the Eagles. I looked at my pre-teen children, and I thought of the comfort the Eagles had given me when I was that age. The faith that had grown in me since my wild days had developed to the point that I was no longer scared of anything that didn’t “proclaim Jesus.” This faith was hefty enough to embrace things that reflected the goodness and wisdom of God.
I bought Hotel California on CD, along with a few other classic rock old friends. We played it in the van and on the boom box in the kitchen. My kids loved it. We sang along. We harmonized.
 | Again, the songs meant a lot to us. Listening to The Last Resort, we discussed materialism, religion, and the plight of Native Americans. They put up a bunch of ugly boxes, and Jesus people bought them. They understood New Kid in Town, in their little school where everybody knew everybody. We discussed the cautionary tales that are Life in the Fast Lane and Victim of Love. We harmonized Peaceful Easy Feeling (from their debut album, Eagles) in that nice echo-y hallway to the bathroom at the mall. I’ve got a peaceful, easy feeling, and I know you won’t let me down Cause I’m already standing on the ground. My guitar-playing son asked me what my favorite electric guitar solo was. Hotel |
California, son, without a doubt. He learned it just for me.
| Last year, the Eagles came to town, my friend Kay and I went to their concert, and they did not disappoint! I don’t know how senior citizens with a history of drug abuse can still sound as good as they did in their prime, but they did. It would have been nice to go hug them and say thanks, but I’m not a fangirl. I’m a fan woman. Big difference. |
The fourth time I bought Hotel California was not because I had destroyed the CD in a swell of religious fervor. I still have the CD. I just wanted to have it on my iPod, too, so I bought the digital album. I listen to it while taking my middle-aged woman walk with my FitBit, my sunhat, and my sneakers with orthotic inserts.
 | It has not been Wasted Time. So you can get on with your search, baby, and I can get on with mine, And maybe someday we will find that it wasn’t really wasted time. Now that I have loved, lost, and learned just like I hoped I would in junior high, I see that I did come out of it stronger, in spite of (or because of) all life threw at me. Thank God for the Eagles. |
