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Bad Horse


Beneath the microscope, you contain galaxies.

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Jan
24th
2020

The Royal Martian Orchestra's Guide to the Hotel California · 4:30pm Jan 24th, 2020

Last night, as sometimes happens, I had a sudden craving to hear "Hotel California" by the Eagles. But when I got to the Eagles directory on my hard drive, I saw I had a bunch of albums of theirs that I'd pirated years ago, and never listened to. I decided to play one of them instead of hearing "Hotel California" yet again (and probably getting it stuck in my head for a few weeks yet again).

I chose this song from 1975.

Déjà vu at 0:23.
Suspicions growing at 0:45.
Mind blown at 1:10. I've been a Douglas Adams fan since 1978 and an Eagles fan since 1985, and I never knew.

Turns out the strings were the same orchestra that later did the strings on Hotel California: the Royal Martian Orchestra.

Report Bad Horse · 676 views · #Eagles #70s rock #HHGTTG
Comments ( 14 )

Ah yes, good old journey of the sorcerer. One of my favourite eagles tracks for some incredibly inexplicable reason.

As an aside, it seems, to this amateur, to be very close to a sonata form in composition.

5191149 I'd heard part of it many times--on my lo-fi taped-off-the-air recordings of the 1978 BBC HHGTTG broadcasts, which I replayed until they wore out. I never realized until now that it was by the Eagles.

Wow, that is super cool. Awesome connection right there.

5191168
Yeah, I bought the album on CD just to get that track.

Much of the music behind the spoken parts of The Book are from Jean-Michel Jarre’s album Oxygène.

When they went to do:

The Hitchhiker's Guide TV show, the Eagles wouldn't give Adams and Co. permission to use the actual recording from the album as the theme. But, they said, if you want to record your own version, that'd be fine.

So the version on the TV show is different and has Adams himself in there strumming away on acoustic rhythm guitar. :twilightsmile:

Mike

Yeah, "Journey of the Sorcerer" has long been my favorite Eagles tune; but it'll never lose its association with the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" for me.

I love me some good deep cuts! Especially on the earlier albums where they had banjo.

5191299

I discovered that piece a few years ago but never realized its connection to Hitchhiker until you told me. I'm guessing you mean the BBC series.

However upon first hearing it I did think "Gee, for all the banjo strumming, it could still be great space-opera music. Maybe if they remake Dark Star..."

(Did you know a a bunch of fans got together and produced a whole album of bluegrass inspired by Serenity and Firefly? It's called Done the Impossible. Old friend of mine's in the band, is how I heard of it.)

I prefer it without the vocals, but still.

PresentPerfect
Author Interviewer

I have never in my life had a desire to hear Hotel California.

And yet, I heard it today. :|

5191453
Yup, the original BBC radio play, then the TV series.

Hah, yes, glad you found out, then; I would have told you, but, well, I didn't know you didn't know, and kind of a random thing to say out of the blue. :)

I came for the somebody mentioning Hotel California and stayed for the third sexiest Eagles track I ever heard in my damn life. Shame on the universe for not informing me of this song.

5191458 Relax! You can check out any time you like.

jz1

I make strange internet content for fun. This one is entirely on you - I didn't even know this song existed before this post.

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