Jul 31, 200608:06 AMThe Life

Hotel California

On a dark desert highway / cool wind in my hair / warm smell of colitas / rising up through the air. —Hotel California, 1976. I always thought colitas were some sort of exotic flowers, not the "little buds" of a marijuana plant. Who would have guessed the Eagles knew anything about dope?

[This month's top desert music: America's A Horse With No Name, U2's The Joshua Tree (including Where The Streets Have No Name) and Ray Stevens' delightfully un-P.C. Ahab, The Arab ("...he saw Fatima laying on a Zebra skin rug / Wearing rings on her fingers and bells on her toes / And a bone in her nose ho, ho...").]