What's Floating Around Cloud 9? 22 May 2017

Welcome to another week and if you caught our blog last week you will know that were mentioned films where the hotels are almost as important as the plot, story line and characters. 

This started a debate here at Cloud 9 Towers about whether hotels featured more in films than in songs and guess what - films win!  

However, there are some very iconic songs which mention hotels including some pretty famous ones -It’s well over 40 years since Hotel California was released by The Eagles and this is probably the most famous of all songs with a hotel in the title. 

The album's lead single has since become one of the most celebrated rock 'n' roll songs, as well as the most important tune referencing the hospitality industry - even if in a slightly weird sort of way. Hotel California was not about a specific accommodation choice but the line "you can check out but never leave" more about living in LA in the 70's.

There are some actual hotels called Hotel California dotted about the world including  one in Santa Monica, California, one in Palm Springs, Florida, and another in Baja, Mexico. We bet the people who look after their SEO have a terrible job trying to get the properties to rank highly given that a search simply brings up the Eagles!

Another fictional hotel, Heartbreak Hotel was instead inspired by the story of a man who leapt to his death from a hotel in Miami, leaving a single line suicide note: “I walk a lonely street.” Elvis had a top hit with this song and even though the King is no longer with us, there are Heartbreak Hotel-themed stays available for fans, including the 128-room, boutique offering on Elvis’s Graceland estate in Memphis.

Copacabana Palace in Rio, which is looked after by the lovely people at Bellmond Hotels, inspired Barry Manilow to create his 1978 hit - and although a nightclub in New York also claims inspiration, we like to think that Rio is a more glamorous setting for the story in the song! 

Perhaps a little less known and certainly less of a hit was Blue Hotel by Chris Isaak. There are a few Blue Hotels dotted around the world so whether any of these inspired the song we don't know -  we like to think that if the hotel did inspire the song that it was likely to be the Blue Hotel in Sydney and not the Big Blue Hotel in Blackpool but who knows?!

Lastly anyone under 40 probably wont even know this song but Pennsylvania 6-5000 by Glen Miller,  is the phone number of the Pennsylvania Hotel in New York City. Before area codes, the first two numbers were called the "Exchange Code," and were represented by a word whose first two letters were used as the numbers. Thus, "Pennsylvania" represented the PE exchange code, which translates to the number 73 (P=7, E=3). The number today, complete with area code, is (212) 736-5000.

You see, we don't just know our hotels here at Cloud 9, we also know our numbers!

Have a great week!