The Hotelier is an American emo band from Worcester, Massachusetts. They wr… Read Full Bio ↴The Hotelier is an American emo band from Worcester, Massachusetts. They write songs. Those songs are about things.

The Hotelier formed in June 2009 when lead singer Christian Holden met Chris Hoffman, Zack Shaw, and Sam Frederick while attending high school in Dudley, Massachusetts. In 2009, the band released their first EP, titled We Are All Alone, which received little success outside of Massachusetts. At the end of the year, the band released Two Song Demo. In 2011, the band released their first album, titled It Never Goes Out, receiving some attention.

Originally named The Hotel Year, the band changed its name because they did not think the name was particularly good, and there was a band called My Hotel Year which they did not want to be confused with.

The band released their second album in 2014 titled Home, Like Noplace Is There, which brought the band to attention in the emo revival scene. After releasing the album, vocalist Christian Holden stated in a blog post on the bands Tumblr that "Our new album deals with some real dark stuff. So to all my brooding and slightly damaged friends, have your a happy album or Rugrats in Paris nearby. It’s partly about my experience with friends and loved ones in the past three years which were very complicated, toxic, and abusive. But laid within is a lot about the deconstruction of self for personal growth and transformation. I hope it helps you live and stuff. Apparently we are emo now." Home, Like Noplace Is There ranked at number 1 on the AbsolutePunk staff's top 30 albums of 2014, and number 6 on the users' top 50 albums of 2000-2015. According to Marc Snitzer, writer for the Philadelphia City Paper, The Hotelier was named one of two bands "leading the emo revival". The release of the band's sophomore album was ranked number seven on Alternative Press's list of the "12 Biggest Moments of The #EmoRevival in 2014". Leor Galil, writer for the Chicago Reader named it his favorite record of 2014. The band was also featured (for their second album) in a Boston Globe article highlighting the best music from Boston in 2014. The album was included at number 29 on Rock Sound's "Top 50 Albums of the Year" list.

The band was featured on Property of Zack's "Artists To Watch in 2015". The band performed at the 2015 Primavera Sound festival in Barcelona, Spain. In the spring of 2015, the band supported La Dispute and Title Fight on their co-headlining tour.

On 15 February 2016 Christian Holden wrote a blog post on the band's Tumblr account in which they mentioned an impending album announcement for an album entitled Goodness. The album was formally announced the next day. At the same time the band released a trailer for the album set to the song Goodness Pt I, a song sold as a limited edition numbered vinyl during the band's 2015 tour.

The band premiered their second single titled "Soft Animal" on April 22, 2016. The album itself was released a little over a month later, on May 27, through Tiny Engines.

Sun
The Hotelier Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

You and I'd escape the night and call it summering.
I'd hold your rays and ride for days while you spin endlessly.
You undone, I felt safely strung between all your nerve endings.
So you made waves to congregate and finally ask of me,

"Will you lay with me where the sun hits right?
When the tired days can't remember
how a blurring haze came across your eyes.

Will you lay with me forever?"

Sun.
Focused state. Wide awake in the eye of everything.
You and me twin-firing machines spending all our energy.

I felt the shade cool and grey and glanced up suddenly.
Aurora spray, a horizon away as I shout at the top of me,

"Will you lay with me in the sun tonight?
When the tired days can't remember
how a blurring haze comes across my eyes.
will you lay with me forever, Sun?"

Carved your name across the sky in a fit of exiting.
With the polar night just in sight, will you come and visit me?
You and me twin-firing machines spending all our energy.

If it's you undone, then I can't sit with you.
And it's you undone and I can't sit in your sun.

Overall Meaning

The Hotelier's "Sun" is a song that portrays a deep sense of yearning for a partner or lover. The song opens with the lyrics "You and I'd escape the night and call it summering," which refers to the desire of the singer to escape the darkness and loneliness of life and spend the summer with the person they love. They paint a picture of riding endlessly while holding each other's rays, creating a sense of warmth and security as they spend their days together.

The singer goes on to explain how they feel strung and connected to their partner's nerve endings, indicating a deep emotional bond. The partner then asks the singer to lay with them where the sun hits right, wanting to spend forever in their embrace. The word sun is used symbolically as a source of warmth, light, and energy that the singer wants to share with their partner.

Throughout the song, the singer conveys their desire and willingness to spend eternity with the person they love, even if it means leaving everything else behind. They talk about the beauty of the world and how they want to experience it all with their partner. However, they also acknowledge that if their loved ones are undone, they cannot sit with them in the sun, indicating that they need their partner to be whole and complete before they can be together.

Line by Line Meaning

You and I'd escape the night and call it summering.
We would leave everything behind us and pretend it was summer.

I'd hold your rays and ride for days while you spin endlessly.
I would hang onto your light and keep going while you keep moving forward.

You undone, I felt safely strung between all your nerve endings.
I felt secure and connected to every part of you when you were vulnerable.

So you made waves to congregate and finally ask of me, "Will you lay with me where the sun hits right?
You gathered the courage to ask me to be with you where everything is perfect.

When the tired days can't remember how a blurring haze came across your eyes.
When things get overwhelming and confusing, and you can't understand what's happening.

Will you lay with me forever?"
Will you stay with me forever in this place where everything is perfect?

Sun. Focused state. Wide awake in the eye of everything.
The sun is a symbol of clarity and awareness, where everything is revealed.

You and me twin-firing machines spending all our energy.
We work together, tirelessly putting all our energy into what we're doing.

I felt the shade cool and grey and glanced up suddenly.
I felt a sudden shift in my surroundings, and it made me look up.

Aurora spray, a horizon away as I shout at the top of me,
The northern lights, far in the distance, made me want to shout.

Will you lay with me in the sun tonight?
Will you stay with me in that perfect place where everything is clear and bright?

If it's you undone, then I can't sit with you.
If you're feeling lost or broken, I can't be with you in that state.

And it's you undone and I can't sit in your sun.
If you're feeling lost or broken, I can't be in that perfect place with you.

Contributed by Blake F. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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