Hotel California Acoustic Tales
I sometimes get asked by my friends and family to play songs they like but just recently I got asked to play the Eagles Hotel California acoustic version. “Holy crap”, I thought to myself. “I’ve never played that”. What an opportunity to learn a great song (which I love) that somehow slipped through the cracks. Hotel California is such a magical song that was so much more than blunt lyrics. There was a socio-political message in there that a lot of people missed. Kind of a feeling of “despair and wanting to come together” that the 70′s was awesome for.
Oddly enough, shortly after this request I witnessed one of the best Hotel California acoustic cover versions that I’ve ever heard and was by a local band called Ground Brightlite and was performed in a local club. The crowd had their lighters out, was all very retro. I remember thinking how hard yet cool it must be to play that song but for some reason I never sat down and gave it a shot. There’s definitely something to be said for an acoustic version of any epic ballad…let alone Hotel California. This performance really inspired me to learn it.
I filed through my 1000’s of guitar tabs that I have but nothing for the Eagles, let alone a Hotel California acoustic version. So, I went off to my local guitar shop and picked up a songbook and started improvising the version into acoustic. Even the solo had to be heavy improvised to accommodate. I turned it into a flamenco sounding bit but still very rock and roll. The finished product was pretty decent sounding (in my mind) so I went with it.
I would say to anyone who wants to learn how to play Hotel California on acoustic guitar to really get to know the song well and even watch some live performances on youtube or DVD or whatever media you have access to. That way you can get a strong sense of the emotion that these fine musicians put into their music and songwriting. The grab a songbook or a tab of the internet and play around with it until you make it your own unique version.
Well the story is ending, but, I did eventually learn to play Hotel California; maybe not as fantastic as the original but good enough to please my family and friends and get them singing along too. This song is great to play on any guitar instruments but acoustic is a really great version. I can’t wait for the next request for a song I don’t know how to play. Then the adventure will begin again.
