20 Songs About Hotels and Motels

Here’s 20 of country music’s best hotel and motel songs. Apologies for excluding Neal McCoy’s “Hillbilly Rap.”

Honorable Mentions:

Cadillac Sky – “Motel Morning”
David Houston – “No Tell Motel”
Eagles – “Hotel California”
Gene Watson – “Love in the Hot Afternoon”
Guy Clark – “Lone Star Hotel”
Jack Ingram & Jerry Jeff Walker – “Picture on My Wall”
Joe Ely – “Standin’ at the Big Hotel”
Little David Wilkins – “Motel Rooms”
Tom Russell – “Evangeline Hotel”
Wade Bowen – “Lost Hotel”

• 20. “Hotel Whiskey” – Hank Williams Jr. & Clint Black

  A bottle, a room, and an old guitar are all Hank Junior and Clint Black need on this single from 1991. Can’t get enough hotel songs from Bocephus? Listen to “The Cheatin’ Hotel” from 2002′s The Almeria Club Recordings.

• 19. “Cheapest Motel” – Tracy Byrd

  A stay at the cheapest motel in town costs a man everything. Well, that’s what he gets for being stupid enough to frequent that hotel in the first place. Even a novice adulterer knows you’ve got to cheat at least one town down the road.

• 18. “Motel In Memphis” – Old Crow Medicine Show

  The boyish string band does some of their best work when dealing with more serious subject matter, i.e. “Big Time in the Jungle.” On this haunting track from Tennessee Pusher they sing about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination at the Lorraine Motel and the aftermath, asking “Did you tremble when you thought about the future/And cry out for a martyred man?”

• 17. “This Hotel Room” – Steve Goodman

  Goodman’s hotel room has a lot of stuff: room service, Magic Fingers, TV Guide. But a man can get tired of all those luxuries when he’s been away from home for too long.

• 16. “The End of the Rainbow Inn” – Chris Wall

  Losing one’s home bar is like losing a beloved family member, or a limb or something. Chris Wall, or, as his website calls him, the Cowboy Savior/Hero/Poet sings about his closing honky tonk with the same emotion others might reserve for true love or mama.

• 15. “Home Motel” – Willie Nelson

  Nobody can write a sad song quite like Willie Nelson. A once happy home has now become the Home Motel on Lost Love Avenue. Its sole tenant stumbles in between dusk and dawn, only to “call your name and then remember you don’t live here anymore.”

• 14. “Little Hotel Room” – Ray Charles & Merle Haggard

  Lonely guy in a crappy hotel room: a theme we’ve seen before on this playlist, but Merle and Ray sure make it sound new, not to mention damn good.

• 13. “Twilight Motel” – Alison Brown

  Brown is one cool banjo player. This slow, jazz-influenced instrumental from 1992′s Twilight Motel should be heard by anyone who’s interested in exploring the banjo outside of traditional bluegrass.

• 12. “Motel Match” – Loretta Lynn

  In 1981, the Coal Miner’s Daughter sung “A motel match started a fire.” Makes sense. After all, who wouldn’t be tempted by Lynn’s provocative outfit on the I Lie album cover?

• 11. “Chelsea Hotel ’78” – Alejandro Escovedo

  More than a few legendary musicians, artists and writers have resided at New York’s Hotel Chelsea. On this track from Real Animal, Escovedo sings about, among other things, one of the hotel’s most infamous incidents: Nancy Spungen’s murder. Other artists who’ve sung about the Chelsea include Ryan Adams and Leonard Cohen.

• 10. “The Bitter Inn” – Johnny Rodriguez

  The rundown motel where this brokenhearted guy is staying matches his mindset: “At this place I call home/The sign out front’s gone/Like our love it’s gone with the wind/So I gave it a name/For the tears and the pain/I call it the Bitter Inn.” Note to self: don’t cheat until you can afford a stay at the Ritz-Carlton.

• 9. “Heartbreak Hotel” – Elvis Presley

  Not a real hotel. But a classic song nonetheless; it’s the hit that made Elvis a star. Willie Nelson and Leon Russell’s countrified version, shown below, topped the charts in 1979. Wanda Jackson, Merle Haggard, Chet Atkins, Roger Miller, and Tanya Tucker are just a few of the other country artists who’ve also covered it.

• 8. “Another Motel Memory” – Shelly West

  Not to be confused with the Rolling Stones’ “Memory Motel,” this Top 10 single is from West’s second solo album, Red Hot. On this little slice of ’80s pop-country heaven, she sings about how she doesn’t want to be just another roll in the hay. A little more Jose Cuervo might change that tune; he is, after all, a friend of hers.

• 7. “In Some Room Above The Street” – Gary Stewart

  This was a Top 20 hit for Stewart in 1976. The couple here is married, but not to one another, which is why they’re meeting in that room above the street. In the song’s final verse, Stewart sends the lady back home to her husband: “If he wants your love tonight/Don’t turn away, don’t hurt his pride/Close your eyes and think of me/In some room above the street.” What a prince.

• 6. “The Night Miss Nancy’s Hotel For Single Girls Burned Down” – Tex Williams

  Turns out “hotel for single girls” is a euphemism for “whorehouse frequented by pillars of society.” The real mystery is what—or who—started the fire that left “the so-called elite caught out in the street/With their pompous purity down.”

• 5. “Spokane Motel Blues” – Tom T. Hall

  Poor Tom T. Hall. All his buddies are out boozing it up and having a good time while he’s stuck songwriting in a motel room far away from them all. I’m not sure if that actually qualifies as suffering for one’s art, but it’s a good song nonetheless.

• 4. “Camelot Motel” – Mary Gauthier

  No exhausted travelers here: the Camelot Motel is full of “sinners, liars, outlaws and fallen angels/Looking for the grace from which they fell.” Mentally ill bar hookups, anonymous gay sex, robbers on the run…it’s either the makings of a country song or the cast of a wacky sitcom.

• 3. “Third Rate Romance” – Sammy Kershaw

  Kershaw covered this song in 1994, 19 years after the Amazing Rhythm Aces recorded the less successful original. The music video delivers its own judgment on third rate romances in skeezy motels: the fella gets his watch and wad o’ cash stolen while he’s in the john.

• 2. “Motel Time Again” – Johnny Paycheck

  Splitting one’s time between bars and motels might not be the healthiest way to live, but it seems to work here. A wonderful country song from an underrated artist.

• 1. “Margie’s At The Lincoln Park Inn” – Bobby Bare

  He’s a Scout Leader, a family man, preacher’s pal, and an adulterer. He regrets the affair, promised his wife he wouldn’t cheat anymore, but he’s also tempted to make another trip to Margie’s room at the Lincoln Park Inn. This was a Top 5 hit for Bare in 1969; lots of other artists have recorded this song (written by Tom T. Hall) including Johnny Darrell and Charlie Sizemore.