That Was Called Love: The Songs and Stories Inspired by the Hotel Chelsea

Though the now-defunct building has tenants slowly squeezing out from its walls, the beloved Hotel Chelsea can be remembered through song.

Written by Victoria Canales

Photo courtesy of Spectrum News NY1

The golden age of momentous New York City hotels lasted decades, serving as a creative backdrop for multitudes of musicians and artists. Before becoming a household name as a singer-songwriter, Bob Dylan inhabited the Hotel Chelsea in 1961. Decades later, in 1992, Madonna had a photoshoot in the same place, where she lived at the birth of her stardom. Likewise, Patti Smith and Iggy Pop resided within the hallowed rooms of 23rd Street building before being crowned, respectively, Godmother and Godfather of Punk Other Chelsea alumni include Jimi Hendrix, Jim Morrison, Cher, and Joni Mitchel. Many of these musicians wrote songs dedicated to the hotel, such as “Sara” by Bob Dylan and “Chelsea Morning” by Joni Mitchell. Here are a few of the most famous songs dedicated to the hotel.

The “punk poet laureate” Patti Smith dipped her toes into the many art forms that flooded the Hotel Chelsea, her home from the late ‘60s to the early ‘70s. Beyond playwriting and journalistic writing for Rolling Stone, she wrote her first song, “Fire of Unknown Origin,” at the Chelsea. 

Smith later gifted fellow Chelsea inhabitant Janis Joplin a poem from which she developed, “Lullaby.” The coupling of Smith’s heart-wrenching poetry with Joplin’s powerful voice speaks to the hotel’s ability to merge distinctive talents to push artistic limits. In turn, Joplin’s impressionable time in the Hotel Chelsea also inspired Leonard Cohen to write “Chelsea Hotel No. 2.” The famous song nostalgically recounts the passion and vulnerability exchanged between the two musicians in the one night spent together in the Chelsea. Cohen refers to the hippie movement of the ‘60s and ‘70s, reminiscing about the sweet scent and exciting air of New York at the time.

But not everything at the Chelsea was fun and games. In 1978, Nancy Spungen was found dead under her bathroom sink. Spungen’s boyfriend, Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols, was arrested for her murder. The Hotel Chelsea murder inspired the Misfits to write “Horror Business.” The dark and violent nature of the song matches the alleged horrors of the event. “You don’t go to the bathroom with me / I’ll put a knife right in you / I’m warning you,” frontman Glenn Danzig howls over razor-sharp guitars. The song blends the story of the murder with the Alfred Hitchcock horror movie Psycho, which also famously features a murder in a bathroom, emphasizing the inhumanity and terror of Spungen’s death at the Chelsea.

Patti Smith at the Chelsea — Photo courtesy of Medium

Joey Ramone also depicts the Chelsea in a less romantic manner with his ballad, “Like A Drug I Never Did Before.” With his psychedelic binge at the focus of the song, Ramone’s illustration of the Chelsea is not only evocative of “Horror Business” due its violent punk sounds, but also because of its brutal themes. Instead of focusing on a feeling, “Horror Business” and “Like A Drug I Never Did Before” tell stories of mayhem and sin, relying on raw shock value to get their point across. This definitely clashed with the introspective nature of the songs that came out of the Chelsea in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, and these songs are almost blasphemous in the way they rewrite the otherwise fun and adventurous history of the hotel.

In modern times, the hotel stands as a pale imitation of what it once was. It hasn’t taken new residents in years, and its current inhabitants are slowly being filtered out over the years. However, that hasn’t stopped contemporary artists from romanticizing the place as well. From American-Canadian singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright to baroque-pop queen Lana Del Rey, Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel No. 2” has been covered by a spectrum of artists and even spoofed by the folk-punk Jeffrey Lewis Band with “The Chelsea Hotel Oral Sex Song,” which describes the narrator’s fantasy of an affair similar to Cohen and Joplin’s.

On her debut album, Phoebe Bridgers, a standout indie artist making a name for herself, has a song titled “Chelsea.” The track was written from the perspective of the murdered Nancy Spungen, and though the subject matter is grim, Phoebe does her best to give Nancy a voice in the event she is arguably most known for. She calmly and sadly relates the tale, wailing “I won’t be home with you tonight” and reminiscing over “the Chelsea and the floor.” Bridgers’ newfound popularity helped bring the hotel back into the public eye and introduced it to a new generation of music lovers.

The Chelsea seems to inspire songs dealing with love and longing. For the most part, they are folksy, acoustic ballads, with lyrics that touch on nostalgia and the bittersweet feeling that memories bring. Cohen’s performances of “Chelsea Hotel No. 2” were magical; Patti Smith’s performance of “Lullaby” was haunting. Though musicians and artists no longer dominate it, the Chelsea will most likely continue to inspire songs and musicians for years to come, even if it shuts down entirely. If there’s anything a musician can sing about, it’s a good story.

“I remember you well in the Chelsea Hotel

That’s all; I don’t even think of you that often.”

-Leonard Cohen, “Chelsea Hotel No. 2”