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by watergirl2 on July 13th, 2006

watergirl2

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What is the Eagles song "Hotel California" really about?

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  • by davoomac on July 17th, 2006

    davoomac

    There are so many different opinions on this ranging from:
    Satanism, drugs, alcohol, addictions, jail time... the list goes on.

    Heres the right answer:
    The song really isn't about anything according to Glenn Frey. His quote from a radio interview a few years back was: "we were listening to a lot of Steely Dan records at the time and were impressed with the way that they could make 'junk sculpture' lyrics about nothing and make them work into a song."

    The song is a great narrative tale about decadence (pink champagne) and mysticism (a spooky dungeon-like house) and even botany (the smell of colitus!), but it certainly has no realm in fact.

    Don Felder brought the rough guitar track to Henley/Frey and asked them if they could do anything with it. This is unusual in that songs by them were typically written the other way around. It serves as an interesting note that further proves that they did some serious ad-libbing and probably got the booze and drugs flowing before they wrote this song.

    The album on the whole is all about the southern California lifestyle at that time (Life In The Fast Lane, Last Resort) and shouldn't be looked at in any other way.


    Here are some resources on the subject:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_California
    http://www.inthe70s.com/generated/lyricsmeaning.shtml
    http://experts.about.com/q/Eagles-449/Meaning-song-Hotel-California.htm
    http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/hotel.htm
    http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1121

    Comments

    • Well ..... there is a real Hotel California. Don't know when it was built though. Hotel California
      Place page
      1670 Ocean Avenue
      Santa Monica, CA 90401-3212

      ALF - Gordon Shumway

      by ALF - Gordon Shumway on August 26th, 2010

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