Until I was about 15 or 16, hotels were a complete mystery to me, the apparent hallowed ground of the rich and privileged. Our family holidays in the early days were chaotic camping trips to north Wales, where, although the beaches were sandy, it regularly rained, and our tent leaked at every seam. It was like Mike Leigh’s Nuts in May, only madder.
Later we went posh - with bed and breakfasts - on walking trips in the Lake District. You had to be up absurdly early for a big bacony breakfast you could barely wolf down, then - out you go! Cagoules and walking boots, massive socks, rocks and muddy, but windy, breathtaking walks with flasks of tea and Kendal Mint Cake. There was no lounge or bar or swimming pool area in which to relax. We were only allowed to return towards dusk, and, after eating fish and chips for our tea, there was rarely a communal TV, and even after a quick pub trip – if there were any within staggering distance – this left not much to do but play backgammon, battleships, Mastermind or Yahtzee in what really felt like someone’s damp-dog-smelly sitting room (because it was someone’s sitting room). And hopefully because there was actually a damp dog in it.
So then, the aura of the hotel still remains special to me, even though I’ve sampled a few over the years since escaping home and the stoical routines of those humble early holidays. Because of those cut-price times I still walk into hotels feeling a little naughty and mystified, as if I’m a false Dr Who setting foot in an alien land on a sneaky adventure. But coming from a musical family, hotels and songs always have an association – whether the degenerate crash zone of the travelling performer, the lonely haven of the penniless wandering minstrel, or the luxury piano-into-the-swimming pool venue of the international rock star.
All kinds of things go on in hotels, seedy, secretive, sexy, wild, and, as well as the humdrum, sometimes even sleep. And many a song has been written in them, often about many of such experiences. So this week it’s time to nominate any songs that have hotel associations. But by hotels we can also include bed and breakfasts, motels, and hostels – any pay-by-the-night accommodation with a solid roof, luxury or louche, heavenly or humble.
What experiences and feelings do hotels inspire? A place of holiday relaxation? Business functional boredom? Or excitement, opportunity, discretion and secret liaison? Hotels are capsules of society, style and period, holding in them a random cross-section of society, a demographic all needing a bed. Like a train carriage, they are oddly intimate, and yet anonymous. What kind of hotel do you imagine? The blandness of the Crossroads Motel, or the colourful splendour of the Grand Budapest Hotel? Or the ugly concrete-y booze-and-bikini shagging barracks of a Benidorm holiday package? Or, as one place I visited in the Canary Islands, a people-watching paradise, a surreal slow-motion zombie movie of sumptuous food mountains in a vast, endlessly replenished buffet bar.
Then again, a hotel might have the anarchic seaside town insanity of some Fawlty Towers or the nylon-sheet seediness of the grey and yellow dirty weekend in Brighton or Clacton-on-Sea. While some places are steeped in anonymity, hotels are also as much about the staff, whether it’s the super-discreet and efficient, or the battling barminess of a Basil Fawlty, or, as I once experienced when walking the Pennine Way after at the age of 15 with two friends, the almost frighteningly manic warden of an isolated youth hostel host in Baldersdale on the Yorkshire/Durham boggy borders. Wandering around in his underpants and chattering to himself, he had clearly gone over the edge from being alone for days at a time about 20 miles from any road or signs of civilisation.
Some hotels are steeped in the sinister, such as the Bates Motel in Hitchcock’s Psycho - don’t go in that shower, Janet! - or the giant Colorado lounge and or utterly terrifying and changing geometric carpet patterns and rooms down corridors of the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. Redrum! Redrum! Hotels are meant to be zones of safety, but it is when that idea is upturned that they become the infinite ventricles of mental hell. Some famous musicians have found themselves trapped there for weeks. You might be able to think of a few.
At the other end of the scale there are grandest five-star hotels of multi-tipping servitude, perfumery, chocolates on pillows, shoe buffing and tassle-wearing fawning. That may be Claridge’s in London, The Ritz in Paris or the Plaza in New York. Well, if only I could confirm that personally. With luxury in mind, if you’re feeling particularly flush, there’s always the alternatives, from the extraordinary Magic Mountain Hotel tower of Peru - or the proposed undersea Poseidon Resort of Fiji where you might be able to down in luxury in a bubble-windowed bedroom around which fish - and sharks - circle above your head.
Or why not try the palatial turrets and lakes the Oberoi in India, the Atomium in Brussels, the ice hotels and cube treehouses of Sweden, the Amangiri Resort immersing your into the clear skies absolute stillness of the Utah desert, the Fairy Chimney Hotel carved into the mountains of Turkey, the Howler Monkey Hotel in Costa Rica (exotic noisy neighbours) or the Ngorongoro Crater Lodge in Tanzania, right above and amongst the beasts of the jungle? For hotels are also places to dream and escape, but that is where songs can also take us, without even going anywhere. So, whether relating a hotel or other accommodation in titles, or more interestingly in the narrative of lyrics, or if a song is heavily associated with a particular hotel stay, put it forward, and let’s take a trip there.
Some background: previously the topics of pub and bars, cafes and restaurants, and holidays have come up, but the hotel offers opens up so many more facilities and many more songs, not to mention all those that didn’t get a room in older lists. And this week there cannot be a more impeccable host to politely greet and gently treat your nominations at the grand revolving doors of L’Hôtel Readers Recommend de Chansons Grands. It is the keeper of the magnificent Marconium song emporium, the marvellous Marconius. Place your bookings in comments below and optionally check in some songs at the Spotify playlist by last orders at the bar (11pm UK time) on Monday 12 January for his list published on Thursday 15 January. No reservations required.
To increase the likelihood of your nomination being considered, please:
• Tell us why it’s a worthy contender.
• Quote lyrics if helpful, but for copyright reasons no more than a third of a song’s words.
• Provide a link to the song. We prefer Muzu or YouTube, but Spotify, SoundCloud or Grooveshark are fine.
• Listen to others people’s suggestions and add yours to a collaborative Spotify playlist.
• If you have a good theme for Readers recommend, or if you’d like to volunteer to compile a playlist, please email peter.kimpton@theguardian.com
• There’s a wealth of data on RR, including the songs that are “zedded”, at theMarconium. It also tells you the meaning of “zedded”, “donds” and otherstrange words used by RR regulars.
• Many RR regulars also congregate at the ‘Spill blog.
