I have to write about an existentialist philosophy/argument that is in the song Hotel California (the Eagles). The song is my stimuli for my paper, in which I have to oppose two philosophical arguments. Do you know how this song relates to existentialism? – MC

Sartre wrote a famous existentialist play called No Exit. The theme is that three people die, and their afterlife is spent in a room of a generic hotel. What makes the play existentialist is that Sartre guides us to see that each person is avoiding making real choices for his or her own personal reasons. They avoided responsibility for their own choices in life, and now seemed poised to do the same throughout all eternity. They have created their own hell through refusing to acknowledge their existential freedom to shape their own destinies.

Hotel California can be seen as another version of the hotel in No Exit. The hotel is a metaphor for Los Angeles, and the aimless, undirected drifting that people do there. They are distracted by materialism, but fail to make existential choices.