Hell Hotel

Trivia/Info

• The Early Years FAQ quotes Bill Krauss as saying, "I think Flans said that the song was based on a Twilight Zone episode, but I can't remember which one. 'Sebastian C.' is Sebastian Cabot, who you may remember as the butler on the 60's sitcom 'Family Affair.'"^[1] The Twilight Zone episode being referred to is "A Nice Place to Visit", which first aired in 1960.
• In 2017, John Flansburgh explained the origins of the song^[2]:

For many years in New England and NYC there would often be Twilight Zone marathons on Halloween or New Years, and I would like to cloister myself with a tape recorder and use those marathon nights to work on music in my own marathon kind of way-–and let Rod Serling and crew be my silent companion. I can't be positive but I am pretty sure the genesis of the song is from one of those nights. As for my love of the series-–there are so many great episodes I can't say I have one favorite. I just enjoy the vibe of the series.

• This method of writing songs had been used by Flansburgh as late as 1994, according to a 1995 interview:

Every year there's a Twilight Zone marathon, around the Fourth of July or something like that, around some long weekend... I am inevitably at home working for that period, and I always feel like it's a full moon time to write songs... It's such a beautiful formula. It's like O. Henry stories. The balance is so perfect; in the course of 25 minutes it all happens. It's hard to say what the exact parallels are. I think it would be self-engrandizement to start explicitly making the parallels.

• Media wiki TV Tropes uses "Hell Hotel" as the name of a trope. The page notes that the title "is from an obscure They Might Be Giants song. Like, obscure even for them."^[3]
• When asked on Twitter why the song never appeared on official releases, Flans said: "I think we liked the way the demo worked but it was hard to update. That's our pal Jonathan Gregg playing the awesome guitar part. Might be the only guitar "guest" on any early track..." ^[4]
• According to Flansburgh, the band stopped performing this song around 1985.^[5] Despite this, the song appeared on a 1987 song list, possibly for the band's second album Lincoln.

Song Themes

Falsetto, Hotels, Questions, Relatives, Religion, Supernatural, Robots, Screaming, Self-Reference

Videos