"A House Is Not a Motel" is a song written by Arthur Lee and first released by Love on their 1967 album Forever Changes.
[2] According to a friend, Lee got the line about blood mixing with mud turning grey from a Vietnam War veteran.
[4] AllMusic's Matthew Greenwald called "A House Is Not a Motel" " another one of Arthur Lee's meditations of his own personal world, and it's both beautiful and brutal at the same time."
[1] Considered to be "wonderfully dark" by The AV Club's Kyle Fowle, he wrote that it was "the most rock-oriented song, complete with blazing guitar solos that underscore the lyrical exploration of the chaos and inhumanity of war.
"[5] David Barker considered the song to be an inversion of "Sympathy for the Devil" by the Rolling Stones and believed that the house Lee was referring to was a church while the motel symbolised the decrepitude of the world.