Hotels In Song
Posted in Lyrics, Nirvana, Nostalgia at 14:29 on 18 July 2009
I featured the real Nirvana‘s Pentecost Hotel recently. After the posting I began to think about songs featuring named hotels in their titles. There aren’t all that many that came to mind. Hotel California, obviously, and Heartbreak Hotel. A quick scan of You Tube – up to page 16! – only revealed Procol Harum’s Grand Hotel as one I hadn’t heard. (I’ve listened to it now and it’s a bit overblown.)
The only other named hotel song I can remember is this from Mike Batt. From the sublime (Nirvana) to the bathetic.
Mike Batt: The Railway Hotel
Perhaps that bathetic should have been pathetic after all. Or is that too harsh?
Tags: Lyrics, Mike Batt, Nostalgia, Procol Harum
Jim Steel
18 July 2009 at 23:32
Nico’s ‘Chelsea Girls’is about people in New York’s Chelsea Hotel. You might be able to claim the whole album since it’s called ‘Chelsea Girl’. It’s a great album, despite all of the (justified) criticism of the arrangements. But if you do that, you’d have to count The Doors’ ‘Morrison Hotel’.
I can also name a couple of songs about motels, if that’s any help.
jackdeighton
19 July 2009 at 23:07
I was just thinking about songs with Hotel in the title.
XXXXX hotel
Or Hotel YYYYY
Jim Steel
21 July 2009 at 21:29
And I was going to mention ‘Willie The Pimp’ next.
Martin McCallion
23 July 2009 at 15:09
Leonard Cohen gets at least two: ‘Chelsea Hotel #2’, and ‘Paper Thin Hotel’.