in camarillo california there are alot of back roads wit no lights.. no nothing! its trully a dark desert highway.even till this day there are nothing but feilds back there and at night its comepletly dark. on one of the backroads there was a mental institution back in the day.now they built a university and a bunch of apartments right next to it and people say its haunted. i trully think that this song was written about a trip down that back road.everything in this song makes sense when u think about it that way.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktQ6KWI0a3s
To all my brothers and sisters in Christ... I personally believe that this song, if played backwards, is some kind of satanic chant...
Warning!! Don't visit the link if you're not strong in the faith...

This song is most definitely about the California Music Industry. Why? Because the Eagles have said so. California and the Music Industry has always been steeped in the drug cult so therefore the many comparisons. It's talking about how they bring you in and use you up and make money off of you. You become dependent on that life style because music is all you know how to do... you can check out any time you want but you can never leave.... where would you go? At the time this song was written... you had to go to California for rock producers. Now it's a bit better... there are choices. It's a great song and one could pretty much compare it to any addiction in life... What ever works for you and how ever you want to apply this song to your life is cool. That's why they do it... for the fans.

I agree that some of this is about the 70's drug era...but I feel that this song is about a drunk driving accident and how he is finding out he is dead. When it refrinces Mirrors on the Ceiling and Pink champagne on ice...Fermaldihide is pink and needs to be chilled before being placed into the body and mirrors on the ceiling are from a morges office. Also when he says you May Check Out but you may never leave...and then we are programmed to recieve..morges take in bodies. I really feel like this song is about a man who was involved in a car accident and is realizing he is dead. And the women he refrences is the doctor. And when they gather for the feast he is actually being shown his dead body. As they stab it with their stealy knives it is actually the docters performing the autopsy...I might be wrong but I am pretty sure this is about Death.

everyone thinks this song is about drugs, or an institution of sorts, or, dare i say, the devil.

allllllllll wrong.

it's about when jesus went to california and started an underground fight club, you know, like the hit movie that was based on a book. anyways, when jesus started this fight club, he used a basement of a hotel, and he only fought girls who drove mercedes-benzs. he became a huge wino and smashed ladies faces in and told them they looked lovely afterwards. all these bitches finally got sick of it, and tried to destroy jesus with steely knives, but failed miserably. he would never let them leave, and continued bashing faces until the romans found out about this.... and the rest... as they say... is history.

I just know what he means by "spirit here since 1969"...does he mean like spirit as in liquor...you know like liquor and wine...or does he just mean like emotional spirit?

1 Reply

I read in a book that this song is about a satanic cult The Eagles were in. The last lines, "You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!" I believe means that they can always try to escape the whole satanic idea, but Satan knows them good, so they will never escape his grasp.

if this song is about drugs witch is a good to put it deth but it can be about rehab but i think it is about a haunted hotel or someone dying bec where it says

"There she stood in the doorway;"

it can be angel greeting him to heaven
ONE REASON to prove it can be a haunted hoteli when it says

And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis

sound like somthing haunted

Good song, but the Pope said that the Eagles harbored with the devil because of it, and that doesn't make any sense, since it's about killing the devil

I know this song is about drug addiction and all of hollywood society with money and such.....When it says "Stab it with their steely knives"...is that a shot at STEELY DAN??

To natalieclodfelter:
I saw Glenn Frey in an interview with Bob Costas about 15 years ago and he stated that the line is indeed a dig at Stelly Dan. There is a song called 'Everything You Did' by S.D. that is about a couple having an argument or something. Anyway, one line in the song is 'turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening'. The Eagles decided to dig back with the 'steely knives' line. I don't think it was anything malicious in either case, just a tip of the hat more than anything.

Well, just to end all debates, I figured I would go ahead and shed some light on the subject...

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/hotel.asp

This is one song I don't care about the actual meaning for.
For me, it takes me back to a nice hotel in Costa Mesa, CA, on New Year's Eve, when a girl who had become my best friend suddenly became much more. That's MY "Hotel California," and whenever I hear this song, her face is the first image to appear in my mind's eye.

you are morons. its not about a cult or satan or an actual place in costa rica not mexico or drugs or a mental hospital its about life and death and starting over but getting lost along the way. its about the beach about surfin....and drugs and stuff. actually who cares? its a bloody great song who speaks to everyone about everything!

you are morons. its not about a cult or satan or an actual place in costa rica not mexico or drugs or a mental hospital its about life and death and starting over but getting lost along the way. its about the beach about surfin....and drugs and stuff. actually who cares? its a bloody great song who speaks to everyone about everything!

"They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast"
I do not get this part.
CAN ANYONE HELP?

It's about everything in excess, drugs.

This is about materialism and excess. California is used as the setting, but it could relate to anywhere in America. Don Henley in the London Daily Mail November 9, 2007 said: "Some of the wilder interpretations of that song have been amazing. It was really about the excesses of American culture and certain girls we knew. But it was also about the uneasy balance between art and commerce."

On November 25, 2007 Henley appeared on the TV news show 60 Minutes, where he was told, "everyone wants to know what this song means." Henley replied: "I know, it's so boring. It's a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and about excess in America which was something we knew about."

I always thought this song was about the libido/sex drive. "you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave"...like Albert Einstein said when he lost his libido in older age. "It's like being unchained from a madman"

plus all the other lyrics..hearing the mission bell, heaven or hell.. "were all visitors here of our own device"- the temptress/prozzy arguing that were in control of our urges.
I think, as I said above its about the libido, the lyrics sort of hinting at an existential conflict between the needs of the body and the needs of the soul..

This song --my all-time favorite-- is about celebrities and their materialistic lives. Don Henley said it himself in an interview.

Yes, there are references about drugs, but those furthur prove my point. In the days when this song was released, a lot of the big rock stars were on drugs.

angiekinnnnns on 02-26-2008 @ 11:14:58 PM
"...they stab it with their steely knives..."
I do not get this part.
CAN ANYONE HELP?
====================================
It's giving props to Steely Dan--who had mentioned the Eagles in one of their songs.

The following passages by Glenn Frey and Don Henley come directly from the liner notes of The Very Best of the Eagles (2001):

HOTEL CALIFORNIA
GLENN: The song began as a demo tape, an instrumental by Don Felder. He'd been submitting tapes and song ideas to us since he'd joined the band, always instrumentals, since he didn't sing. But this particular demo, unlike many of the others, had room for singing. It immediately got our attention. The first working title, the name we gave it, was "Mexican Reggae."

For us, "Hotel California" was definitely thinking and writing outside the box. We had never written any song like it before. Similar to "Desperado," we did not start out to make any sort of concept or theme album. But when we wrote "Life In The Fast Lane" and started working on "Hotel California" and "New Kid In Town" with J.D., we knew we were heading down a long and twisted corridor and just stayed with it. Songs from the dark side -- the Eagles take a look at the seamy underbelly of L.A. -- the flip side of fame and failure, love and money.

"They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast" was a little Post-It back to Steely Dan. Apparently, Walter Becker's girlfriend loved the Eagles, and she played them all the time. I think it drove him nuts. So, the story goes that they were having a fight one day, and that was the genesis of the line, "turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening" in "Everything You Did," from Steely Dan's The Royal Scam album. During the writing of "Hotel California," we decided to volley. We just wanted to allude to Steely Dan rather than mentioning them outright, so "Dan" got changed to "knives," which is still, you know, a penile metaphor. Stabbing, thrusting, etc.

Almost everybody in my business can write music, play guitar, play piano, create chord progressions, etc., but it's only when you add lyrics and melody and voices to these things that they take on an identity and become something beyond that sum of the individual parts. I remember that Henley and I were listening to the "Hotel California" demo tape together on an airplane, and we were talking about what we would write and how we wanted to be more cinematic. We wanted this song to open like an episode of The Twilight Zone -- just one shot after another.

I remember De Niro in The Last Tycoon. He's got this scene, and he's talking to some other people in his office. He speaks to them: "The door opens...the camera is on a person's feet...he walks across the room...we pan up to the table... he picks up a pack of matches that says 'The Such-And-Such Club' on it... strikes a match and lights a cigarette...puts it out... goes over to the window... opens the shade... looks out... the moon is there... what does it mean? Nothing. It's just the movies." "Hotel California" is like that. We take this guy and make him like a character in The Magus, where every time he walks through a door there's a new version of reality. We wanted to write a song just like it was a movie. This guy is driving across the desert. He's tired. He's smokin'. Comes up over a hill, sees some lights, pulls in. First thing he sees is a really strange guy at the front door, welcoming him: "Come on in." Walks in, and then it becomes Fellini-esque -- strange women, effeminate men, shadowy corridors, disembodied voices, debauchery, illusion... Weirdness. So we thought, "Let's really take some chances. Let's try to write in a way that we've never written before." Steely Dan inspired us because of their lyrical bravery and willingness to go "out there." So, for us, "Hotel California" was about thinking and writing outside the box.

DON: We were enamored with hotels. Hotels were a big part of our lives. The Beverly Hills Hotel had become something of a focal point -- literally and symbolically. I've always been interested in architecture and the language of architecture, and, at that time, I was particularly keen on the mission style of early California. I thought there was a certain mystery and romance about it. Then, there are all the great movies and plays in which hotels figure prominently, not only as a structure, but as a dramatic device. Films such as Grand Hotel, The Night Porter, and even Psycho -- motels count too. There are plays like Neil Simon's Plaza Suite and California Suite, which Glenn and I went to see while writing the song. We saw it as homework or research. We were looking for things that would stimulate us and give us ideas. Sometimes it was just driving around. We would still take trips out to the desert. At one point, Glenn and I rented a little red house up in Idlewild -- way up in the San Bernadino Mountains. We'd drive out there sometimes just to clear our heads, sleep on the floor in sleeping bags. We didn't have any furniture. We were just on the quest.

to me its a manipulative woman who tricks many men into being with her. and then keeps her seductive hold on them and wont let them leave. but it could really be anything. whatever the real meaning...its a kick ass song. great lyrics and great music.

"It's definitely about drugs addiction, however it's a great song with a lovely rhythm ... "

Yeah Rionative, we dont love the people who wrote this song or who did the drugs, just what they produced. Nice gesture, pinhead.

This song was written by druggies, and may have druggy references, but to suggest that this song is "About drugs" and that alone is shallow and is patronizing and belittling to the musicians who toiled for many years developing this song and battling addiction.

Comment all you like, but i dont think anyone will truly know what this song is about.

Apparently Hotel California is also an undeclosed site where terrorists are taken to undergo US interrogation.

i'm sure lighting up a candle could point to a J, but i think many many other parts of this song... mirrors on the celing, pink champaigne on ice... all of this imagery has more meaning than simply doing a line or smoking off a fat blunt and then partying with pretty women and your friends.

Nice try, though.