The Eagles’ Hotel California has been the subject of debate since its release in 1977, but the band members have revealed the true meaning behind the song in multiple interviews
Since its release, Hotel California has been widely regarded as one of the greatest rock songs of all time.
The hit tune was a billboard chart-topper, shifting more than 16 million copies in the US alone. And in 1978, the song won a Grammy award for Record of the Year. Penned by the late Glenn Frey, along with fellow band members Don Henley and Don Felder, it comes over as a song about holidaymakers checking into a plush hotel in the state.
However, there have been numerous theories speculating what the song truly represents, with the band members themselves revealing the real meaning behind the track in various interviews.
And it’s not about a dreamy weekend getaway.
The song has been characterised as being “all about American decadence and burnout, too much money, corruption, drugs and arrogance; too little humility and heart.”
It has also been interpreted as an allegory about hedonism, self-destruction, and greed in the music industry of the late 1970s.
Henley described it as “our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles,” and later said, “It’s not really about California; it’s about America. It’s about the dark underbelly of the American dream. It’s about excess, it’s about narcissism. It’s about the music business. It can have a million interpretations.”
In 2005, Henley further clarified the song’s meaning to Rolling Stone magazine, which ranked Hotel California at no. 49 on its list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.
“We were all middle class kids from the Midwest,” Henley commented. “Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in L.A.”
And, fun fact, Cameron Crowe, former journalist turned director, disclosed an interesting nugget about the Eagles’ iconic song. In the liner notes of The Very Best Of published in 2003, part of a piece titled “Conversations with Don Henley and Glenn Frey,” Crowe shared that Hotel California was almost going to be called Mexican Reggae.
Quite frankly, it just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Also, while we’re in the fun fact zone, the verse “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast,” from the hit song is actually a humorous dig at fellow rockers Steely Dan.
In the very same compilation album notes, Frey divulged that this lyric in “Hotel California” was a nod to Steely Dan following a reference to the Eagles in Steely Dan’s track “Everything You Did.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
