To summarize, it was at the ideological front of the idea of the public mental hospital system being a bad thing (and yes in many ways it was) but that lead to the Reagan-era abolishment of pretty much the entire thing which drove so many people out of that system that many of them became permanently homeless and untreated of numerous mental illnesses... lingering on the streets for decades, some to the present day if they haven't died already.
I had always taken the lyrics to be about a loss of innocence that comes with working in the California entertainment industry. It's all glamorous from the outside but within the residents have become deranged and exploitative.
Wtf I didn't interpret it that way at all lmao, I thought it was a funny joke about California having nice weather or something which made you not want to leave
I still love the song but the lyrics were directly about being "tricked" into a public mental health institution, the kind that ceased to exist for the most part after Reagan's "reforms."
I highly doubt public mental health facilities have ever been synonymous with intoxicating opulence.
They weren't, but they still existed for those in dire need of a place to stay and access to medication.
They don't have to be "opulent" to be that and closing pretty much all of them left every single person kicked out of them on the street, many of them permanently. That's a little worse than "not opulent."
Kicking a lot of mentally ill people out onto the streets was an atrocity, no argument from me there.
I'm arguing that Hotel California being about mental hospitals doesn't make sense. There are so many lines that run counter to that interpretation:
There she stood in the doorway
The . . . intake nurse?
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted/She got the Mercedes Benz
Even if the staff can afford some luxuries, it doesn't seem like something they'd discuss with a patient.
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
Said nobody about an inpatient mental health facility ever
Mirrors on the ceiling/The pink champagne on ice
A hazard and contraband that would be immediately removed
And the part that might work,
You can check out any time you like/But you can never leave
really only half works. The "never leave" part works, sure, it was involuntary hospitalization, but how can you explain "check out any time you like?" Letting patients fake a check-out just seems like torture.
I always thought it was about drug addiction, specifically in the music industry, which lines up a bit more with the things you pointed out imo. And I heard that checking out was a euphemism for suicide.
I'm not 100% certain on my take, but some of your attempts to shoot it down are kind of Reddit-tier pedantic. "They livin' it up" can definitely be sarcastic or even medicated altered states of being, for example.
I already gave the example of "livin' it up" being taken so directly and literally that there's a willing refusal to see the possible interpretations of the line as sarcasm regarding the conditions of the people mentioned, or as an altered state of consciousness from psych medications.
Or, he could be neurodivergent and tends to take things literally. Just because someone interprets something different than you (particularly something as subjective as song lyrics) doesn't mean you have to go straight to insults.
I had no such intention and I find it a stretch to see pedantic behavior as fundamentally neurodivergent.
Saying that saying someone is being pedantic is ableist but then giving a pass to what I said supposedly "not making sense" sounds selective to me, like you already had a chip on your shoulder about this.
This is becoming too heated for me to meaningfully continue it so I need to stop here. It's not worth it over song interpretation.
I'm sorry if I came off as aggressive, it wasn't intended that way. I myself have been accused of being pedantic about things because of my autistic perspective, but I can agree that being pedantic isn't inherently a neurodivergent thing, I was just trying to give a different perspective. I do have to disagree that saying someone is being "reddit-level pedantic" is comparable to someone saying something doesn't make sense, though.
I appreciate your reply here; I do think the argument about the song lyrics was getting overwhelming for me anyway. I looked up what even the band thought about their own song and the takes are contradictory and even seem to shift a little over time. "It's about dangerous women in weird times," "it's about drugs," and yes, one even suggested it was about a temporary but scary stay one of them had in a mental hospital often associated with the song even if it may not be a perfect fit.
I will reconsider how I phrase that in the future, because I myself don't like when I receive ableistic feedback to something I say, whether it's well intentioned but poorly worded, or just "you are mentally ill" accusations from wreckers and chuds, implying that neurodiversity means inherent badness and contemptible opinions.
To summarize, it was at the ideological front of the idea of the public mental hospital system being a bad thing (and yes in many ways it was) but that lead to the Reagan-era abolishment of pretty much the entire thing which drove so many people out of that system that many of them became permanently homeless and untreated of numerous mental illnesses... lingering on the streets for decades, some to the present day if they haven't died already.
I had always taken the lyrics to be about a loss of innocence that comes with working in the California entertainment industry. It's all glamorous from the outside but within the residents have become deranged and exploitative.
That sounds a bit more directly like Iggy Pop's "Butt Town" song.
WHAT?
For fuck sakes there ain't no good boomer song
"You can check out any time you like but you can never leave... until you can, then you can never check back in. Tough shit. Have fun being homeless."
Wtf I didn't interpret it that way at all lmao, I thought it was a funny joke about California having nice weather or something which made you not want to leave
I'm too innocent
I still love the song but the lyrics were directly about being "tricked" into a public mental health institution, the kind that ceased to exist for the most part after Reagan's "reforms."
That seems like a stretch. I highly doubt public mental health facilities have ever been synonymous with intoxicating opulence.
They weren't, but they still existed for those in dire need of a place to stay and access to medication.
They don't have to be "opulent" to be that and closing pretty much all of them left every single person kicked out of them on the street, many of them permanently. That's a little worse than "not opulent."
Kicking a lot of mentally ill people out onto the streets was an atrocity, no argument from me there.
I'm arguing that Hotel California being about mental hospitals doesn't make sense. There are so many lines that run counter to that interpretation:
The . . . intake nurse?
Even if the staff can afford some luxuries, it doesn't seem like something they'd discuss with a patient.
Said nobody about an inpatient mental health facility ever
A hazard and contraband that would be immediately removed
And the part that might work,
really only half works. The "never leave" part works, sure, it was involuntary hospitalization, but how can you explain "check out any time you like?" Letting patients fake a check-out just seems like torture.
I always thought it was about drug addiction, specifically in the music industry, which lines up a bit more with the things you pointed out imo. And I heard that checking out was a euphemism for suicide.
I'm not 100% certain on my take, but some of your attempts to shoot it down are kind of Reddit-tier pedantic. "They livin' it up" can definitely be sarcastic or even medicated altered states of being, for example.
I don't see how he was being pendantic? He was just analyzing the song lyrics to point to another interpretation
I already gave the example of "livin' it up" being taken so directly and literally that there's a willing refusal to see the possible interpretations of the line as sarcasm regarding the conditions of the people mentioned, or as an altered state of consciousness from psych medications.
Or, he could be neurodivergent and tends to take things literally. Just because someone interprets something different than you (particularly something as subjective as song lyrics) doesn't mean you have to go straight to insults.
I had no such intention and I find it a stretch to see pedantic behavior as fundamentally neurodivergent.
Saying that saying someone is being pedantic is ableist but then giving a pass to what I said supposedly "not making sense" sounds selective to me, like you already had a chip on your shoulder about this.
This is becoming too heated for me to meaningfully continue it so I need to stop here. It's not worth it over song interpretation.
I'm sorry if I came off as aggressive, it wasn't intended that way. I myself have been accused of being pedantic about things because of my autistic perspective, but I can agree that being pedantic isn't inherently a neurodivergent thing, I was just trying to give a different perspective. I do have to disagree that saying someone is being "reddit-level pedantic" is comparable to someone saying something doesn't make sense, though.
I appreciate your reply here; I do think the argument about the song lyrics was getting overwhelming for me anyway. I looked up what even the band thought about their own song and the takes are contradictory and even seem to shift a little over time. "It's about dangerous women in weird times," "it's about drugs," and yes, one even suggested it was about a temporary but scary stay one of them had in a mental hospital often associated with the song even if it may not be a perfect fit.
I will reconsider how I phrase that in the future, because I myself don't like when I receive ableistic feedback to something I say, whether it's well intentioned but poorly worded, or just "you are mentally ill" accusations from wreckers and chuds, implying that neurodiversity means inherent badness and contemptible opinions.