Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Title source for "Some Dance to Remember "

(Posted on behalf of Walter)

Some of you may have already figured out where the title of our Jan. 6 selection, Jack Fritscher's Some Dance to Remember,
comes from. I knew I'd heard/read the phrase "Some dance to remember, some dance to forget." The words are in the lyrics of The Eagles' "Hotel California." "Hotel California" appears a few times in the book. The reference seems appropriate because of some similar hedonistic nightmarishness in the story--plus its location.

"Hotel California"

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night.

There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way.

There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'.
He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face.
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise)
Bring your alibis.

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said, 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device'.

And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before.

'Relax,' said the night man,
'We are programmed to receive.
You can check-out any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

Walter

1 comment:

Jack Fritscher said...

Dear BookMen,

Greetings for the new year and the new decade. Thanks for reading and discussing my signature novel "Some Dance to Remember." Authors write alone in silence; so it is wonderful to find you talking about the lives some of us gay men lived during the Titanic 1970s when everyone partied innocently on not knowing about the iceberg of HIV. So: Is SDTR, as "The Advocate" suggested, a kind of gay "Gone with the Wind"? I wish I could join you or have a webcam. Be assured of my thanks that you all are readers, not just of my books, but of all books. Readers! Ah! Thanks. Jack Fritscher jack@jackfritscher.com