Among other opinions : Don Henley: "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles. from http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=1121

I also thought it was about heroin addiction

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

It is about pizza.

"It's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about" Henley said in a 2002 interview with "60 Minutes."

It's about six and a half minutes. ha ha ha. Nah, I guess, like most art, it's represents whatever it means to you. It could be about a literal hotel somewhere in the state of California, or maybe it's about the way the entertainment industry turns talented people into consumers of excessive quantities of luxury items as well as mind-altering drugs, and then uses those people up and casts them aside to die penniless in obscurity, only to use their images after their departure to exploit their children and grandchildren in order to make more money to entice the next generation into the same trap. Who knows?

not sure

Californication.

Its about the Eagles and their wild and crazy days on the road. Don Henely said this.