Get over it... but complain a bit first.

[MikeA]

what appears to be the anti-religious sentiment of the last verse. I can understand, however, why some would object to the line 'stand up & sing about what it's like up there' as if they are being told they are all unable to think for themselves.

I didn't take that part that way Julie. I took it that he was saying, maybe with tongue in cheek, that any place enough people call "Paradise" will draw more people and that congregation of people will end up destroying what it was the first group was singing the praises of.

You know, like "Hey, Heaven is so great". People hear about how great it is and flock to it and then will probably destroy it, just as happened with the development (or destruction) of our civilization recently and as referenced earlier in the song.

I didn't think he was knocking religion other than as a focal point that might draw others in to destroy what religion held reverent....again, just as other flockings of people destroyed other things referenced in the song.

[sodascouts]

Well, let's look at what the songwriters say about it.

This is from The Very Best of the Eagles Booklet:

GLENN: "'The Last Resort' was the final piece of the Hotel California puzzle. We started the song early in the record, and Don finished seven months later. I called it Henley's opus. I helped describe what the song was going to be about and assisted with the arrangement, but it was Don's lyrics and basic chord progression.

One of the primary themes of the song was that we keep creating what we've been running away from -- violence, chaos, destruction. We migrated to the East Coast, killed a bunch of Indians, and just completely screwed that place up. Then we just kept moving west: "Move those teepees, we got some train tracks coming through here. Get outta the way, boy!" There were some very personal references in the song, including a girl from Providence, Rhode Island, who Don had dated for some time. She had taken an inheritance from her grandfather and moved to Aspen, Colorado, in search of a new life. Look where Aspen is now. How prophetic is "The Last Resort" 28 years after it was written? Aspen is a town where the billionaires have driven out the millionaires. It was once a great place. Look at Lahaina; look at Maui. It's so commercial. It's everything Hawaii was not supposed to be. Whether we're carrying the cross or carrying the gasoline can, we seem to have a penchant for wrecking beautiful places."


DON: "The final burst on this one happened in Benedict Canyon at a house I was living in with Irving [Azoff, the band's longtime manager and friend]. I was thinking of all the literary themes based on nature that I had studied back in school -- the awesome beauty and the spirituality inherent in the natural world and the unrelenting destruction of it, wrought by this thing that we call civilization or progress.

Some years earlier we had done a couple of benefit concerts with Neil Young for the Chumash Tribe, Native American people who are indigenous to California. We became friends with an elder in the tribe named Samu, and, eventually, we were invited to attend some tribal rituals and drum ceremonies. Samu was on a mission to raise funds for an education program which would teach the young people in the tribe about their language and their culture. The old man feared, rightly, that the white man's culture was stripping his people of their identity. They were losing the memory of their language, their ceremonies, their history. We were fortunate enough to be able to help.

Also, I'd been reading articles and doing research about the raping and pillaging of the West by mining, timber, oil and cattle interests. But I was interested in an even larger scope for the song, so I tried to go 'Michener' with it. I remember going out to Malibu and standing on Zuma beach, looking out at the ocean. I remember thinking, 'this is about as far west -- with the exception of Alaska -- as you can go on this continent. This is where Manifest Destiny ends -- right here, in the middle of all these surfboards and volleyball nets and motor homes.' And then I thought, 'Nah, we've gone right on over and screwed up Hawaii too.'

I still think, though, that the song was never fully realized, musically speaking. It's fairly pedestrian from a musical point of view. But lyrically it's not bad. Especially the last verse, which turns it from one thing into another and it becomes an allegorical statement about religion -- the deception and destructiveness that is inherent in the mythology of most organized religion -- the whole 'dominion' thing. The song is a reaffirmation of the age-old idea that everything in the universe is connected and that there are consequences, downstream, for everything we do."

I'll post my thoughts later.

[MikeA]

Aghhh, what does HE know anyway...he just wrote the thing! <LOL>

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Well, this is just a personal thing for me, but I prefer not to discuss those volitile subjects of religion and politics here on the board, so I am going to stick with that here. I will say that my interpretation of the line in The Last Resort, "and, Jesus, people bought them" is that "Jesus" is used as an expletive. However, I certainly don't think it's wrong for anyone to interpret it as "Jesus people". As with many Eagles songs, I think the lyrics are intentionally ambiguous giving the listener the freedom to apply their own meaning to them.

[TimothyBFan]

Dreamer-probably a good policy to live by but I'm still looking forward to hearing what others think this song is about. No one has to go into detail about their religion or political beliefs while interpreting what they think the song is about really.

I listened a couple more times this weekend and I still think that even tho Don shakes his head during the "Jesus people bought them" doesn't neccessarily mean that he's referring to the people who did it as "Jesus people". Maybe he is shaking his head at "Jesus people". Just saying.... could be.

[Prettymaid]

But why would it be important to relay that 'Jesus people' bought these cookie cutter houses (ugly boxes)? It seems to me at this point he's just trying to say 'As wrong as it is for this beautiful land to be destroyed to build more cheap housing, I can't believe people will still buy them."

[TimothyBFan]

Because, PM, I'm trying to start an argument, ok?!?!? JK But I'm going on record as saying that I wasn't the only one that thought that and I'm still not sure. I still think it can be a remark on religion that he is trying to make. Same with the "they eve brought a neon sign, 'Jesus is coming'" line later on. He's obviously trying to make a statement about religion in this song also.

[Prettymaid]

Okay, I agree with you that he makes references to religion in the song too. I think he's saying, 'You think you're so good and religious, but look what you're doing to the land.' But in that particular line that we're discussing I think he's being more subtle than saying 'Jesus people', and that he is probably saying 'Jesus,...people bought them!'

That's my story and I'm sticking to it!

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Dreamer-probably a good policy to live by but I'm still looking forward to hearing what others think this song is about. No one has to go into detail about their religion or political beliefs while interpreting what they think the song is about really.

Just want to make it clear that I wasn't trying to telll others whether or not they should respond. As I said, it's a personal thing for me. Since religion and politics are such emotional topics, I find it hard to maintain objectivity when talking about them. Therefore, I prefer to avoid discussing them here, but that's just me.

[sodascouts]

When I first heard "The Last Resort", my immediate reaction was anger. I felt like it was hating on Christians. I thought that the last part sounded contemptuous of missionaries and people who believed in Jesus and went to church. In fact, it turned me off so much that I burned a version of Hotel California without the song on it to listen to in the car. I still haven't written out what I think because I want to be careful with what I say, but you're not alone in hearing that, TBF (I mean hearing an anti-religious attitude - as I said earlier, I think the line in question is "Jesus, people bought 'em").