I dont think this song is about drugs.. it's a metaphor of something on a bigger scale like life itself.. drugs limit it a lot. well it could be about drugs.. part of it.
But its about getting through life in general.. as for the people that said its about the pressures of the music industry and the whole california culture are on the right track.. their explanations even support my little theory.

oh and please.. i dont have to be reminded every time by some wise ass that songs are like art and can be interpreted however we want. thank you.. i dont really need your permission to interpret a song.. we were just a little curious on knowing what the songwriter wrote it about.. do we have to say this everytime? and the reason why they use metaphors is to describe things better and give you a lively, vivid picture.

anyway.. the lyrics are very well written. They are very haunting.. they sound like a horror movie. And specially with the song's ending. It ends on the guy being stuck in that place for good.. it's really left unclear.. Makes me think of "in the mouth of madness" everytime.. it's a horror movie with a similar idea.
Also reminds me of "the shining" someone already said that i think.

I dont think this song is about drugs.. it's a metaphor of something on a bigger scale like life itself.. drugs limit it a lot. well it could be about drugs.. part of it.
But its about getting through life in general.. as for the people that said its about the pressures of the music industry and the whole california culture are on the right track.. their explanations even support my little theory.

oh and please.. i dont have to be reminded every time by some wise ass that songs are like art and can be interpreted however we want. thank you.. i dont really need your permission to interpret a song.. we were just a little curious on knowing what the songwriter wrote it about.. do we have to say this everytime? and the reason why they use metaphors is to describe things better and give you a lively, vivid picture.

anyway.. the lyrics are very well written. They are very haunting.. they sound like a horror movie. And specially with the song's ending. It ends on the guy being stuck in that place for good.. it's really left unclear.. Makes me think of "in the mouth of madness" everytime.. it's a horror movie with a similar idea.
Also reminds me of "the shining" someone already said that i think.

oops

Did anyone say going to jail???

Drugs makes lots of sense but i always thought it was about going to prison. The songs done it a sarcastic sort of way for the most part but listen and think about it.

Only at the last paragraph does he get somewhat serious

"You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!" means u can kill urself and leave jail anytime but u will never leave the walls and...

Well let me know what u think

You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!

Checkout= killing urself
Leave= free from jail

This song is really great but i want to know why dont the songwriters say what it's about in like an interview or something?

It's not like they are Shakespeare or anything?

I think the drug theory makes a lot of sence, and i can see the showbiz/music recording one too. Im not too big on the jail one but its a possibility. The only thing in here that I totally disagree on is that asshole "Satan Hater" Fuck you, you sin too, and even if this song is about the "Hotel California" cult or Satanic worshippers why dont you-Satan Hater- read the lyrics "LAST THING I REMEMBER, I WAS RUNNIN FOR THE DOOR..." that obviously means that he, or they, didnt want to be there. Go to hell, jackass, or maybe your god will save you.

I think a lot of valid points were made about this song. While parts of the song would make sense for a cult, jail or hell, there are parts that don't fit in for those theories. I think it's about being addicted to the entire California rock star lifestyle. I'll go through the entire song to make my point.

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
*Approaching the highway is a symbol for taking *drugs or getting ready to enter the rock star lifestyle
*either way he'd be under the influence of colitas *which I think is weed
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
*The light is a symbol for all of the fame and glory. *He's about to stop at the Hotel California
There she stood in the doorway;
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
*He sees a girl and wonders if this place is good or *bad. The gril seems to be a love intrest but she *might be a symbol for all the people and bad *influences he meets in California.
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here
*Girl lights up on something and he feels haunted *by his inner being telling him about his addiction
Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes-Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget
*The girl is absorbed by material things. She has a *lot of "friends" who represent the party people *Henly met in California. The all like to drugs, *some for great memories and others to escape *their current reality.
So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said, 'We haven't had that spirit here
Since nineteen sixty nine'
*In 1969, the Summer of Love and Woodstock the *youth of America were young, idealistic, and *motivated to make a difference. By the 70's, when *this song was made, that spirit had disappeard and *many former hippies were strung out on drugs *and/or lived hollow, meaningless lives
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...
*He is still haunted by his conciece(sp), he probably *knows he shouldn't be there

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
*The last line refers to justifying to others and *himself why he has gone back to drugs or the *lifestyle
Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device
*Woman tells him that they are prisoners of their *addiction to drugs and the lifestyle
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
*No matter how hard they try, people cannot shake *their addiction

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,' said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave!
*Best line in the whole song. He finally tries to *escape from his addiction, but he realizes that *even if he withdraws for a little bit, he'll always be *an addict. Possilbly the best lyrics I've ever heard in a song. Very poetic and symbolic. Also has a kick ass guitar solo. One of the all time greats.

this song reminds me about the film 'From dusk till dawn' the whole theme and lyrics kinda fit the song well.
"They gathered for the feast
The stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast"

reminds me of vampires.

Hotel California is a metaphor for Herion.

Well, in my opinion, whether the song is "about" drugs, prison, the music scene or the muppets. It still generates debate and enjoyment, both for it's lyrics and instrumental content. In other words, what good music has done for generations. A classic song.

well i agree with the person saying it's about the music industry. But i don't like your attitude, if you think you're right no need to put down other people's ideas. I really try to avoid the idea of insanity to do with a song. I think the "insanity" card is used to often to describe songs that can't be explain. It's either drugs or insanity. I don't see either how it can be about a church? Why can't they leave??
I'm sticking with the music industry idea. Thanks for contributing.
P.S. i have never actually heard this song, but the lyrics fascinated me so much.

i heard this song was about suicide...either way, i like the song.

Here is a link so some random person's journal. This person did not come up with this. It was put on some website but now i forget what it is, and this guy must have copy-and-pasted it.

This makes mroe sense.

There are so many morons in this world. Whenever they can't figure out the meaning of a song, it must be about drugs.

http://www.pantheratigris.blogspot.com/2003_02_09_pantheratigris_archive.html

Wow, man, that site is just a BIT of a stretch. I'm glad the guy who wrote it doesn't seem to be standing by it, because he's WAY off base.
"Colitas" is Mexican slang for "little buds" of marijuana. Whether or not the entire song is about drugs can certainly be debated, and I agree that people are much too quick to attribute that meaning to every song they don't understand (like most Pink Floyd, for instance), but it's certainly one hell of a reach to make "Hotel California" be about marriage.
It's a lot easier to believe it's just some kind of 70s ghost story with a catchy tune. I'm more willing to believe it's an acid trip than a secret diatribe about marriage.
In either case, "colitas" is definitely, without question, marijuana. (Which doesn't necessarily mean the rest of the song is about drugs; smoking marijuana in the 70s was like smoking cigarettes today.)

Hi,

to finish all the speculations (or to start them new? hehe) here Don Henley himself!

Don Henley:
I like the ‘Hotel California’ track ; I like the song—I’m very proud of that one. It’s very cynical, but that’s all right. It’s our bicentennial year, you know, the country is 200 years old, so we figured since we are the Eagles and the Eagle is our national symbol, that we were obliged to make some kind of a little bicentennial statement using California as a microcosm of the whole United States, or the whole world, if you will, and to try to wake people up and say ‘We’ve been okay so far, for 200 years, but we’re gonna have to change if we’re gonna continue to be around’.

Any comments to it?
nice greetings from Bangkok!

And more from Don Henley:

There’s a picture of the Beverly Hills Hotel on the front, which is really THE hotel in California; very elegant and very decadent at the same time. It’s a romantic place and you can see all kinds of people there—You see a lot of tourist types, a lot of very glamorous movie star people, and a lot of phony people. A lot of real people too. A lot of people have parties there, so that’s what the front of the album cover is. It’s shot from a crane about 100 to 150 feet up in the air, at sunset. There are black silhouettes of palm trees and the sky is a kind of rusty, smoky color. We superimposed a neon sign that says ‘Hotel California’, because we couldn’t use the name Beverly Hills Hotel: we’d probably have been sued.

nice greetings

And more to it from DOn Henley about the word "colitas":

Don Henley:
"There's a little bit of a Latin feel to the song, and a reggae sound that nobody ever notices, except they always want to know what colitas means. I think Richie Fernandez's father gave me that word. It's supposedly spanish for bud. I was looking for a way to describe the smell of lit weed."

Don Felder from the Eagles:

I remember the day when I came up with the idea for the song:

"I had just leased this house out on the beach at Malibu--I guess it was around '74 or '75. I remember sitting in the living room, with the doors wide open, on a spectacular July day. I had a bathing suit on and I was sitting on this couch, soaking wet, thinking the world is a wonderful place to be. I had this acoustic 12-string and started tinkling around with it, and those 'Hotel California' chords just kind of oozed out. I had a TEAC four-track set up in one of the back bedrooms and I ran back there to put this idea down before I forgot it. I also had one of those old Rhythm Ace things, and I remember it was set to play this cha-cha beat. I played the 12-string on top of that. A few days later, I came up with a bass line and mixed the whole thing to mono, ping-ponging back and forth on this little four-track."

Eagles singer/guitarist Don Henley picked the song out of a cassette containing eight or ten different ideas that Felder had put together. "Henley said, "I really love that one that sounds like a matador or something," Felder recalls.

Originally written and recorded in E minor, the song was ultimately transposed to B-minor and re-recorded to accommodate the vocal melody delivered by Henley. Felder capoed his acoustic 12-string at the seventh fret, which enabled him to preserve the open chord shapes of his original guitar arrangement. The "High strung" timbre produced by the capo's placement, enhanced by processing the 12-string through a Leslie cabinet, ended up becoming part of the song's distinctive sound. Felder played all of the song's guitar tracks except for the landmark solo, for which Felder and Joe Walsh traded licks and harmonies. "Joe and I sat on two stools and worked the whole thing out," Felder recalls.

Don Henley and Glenn Frey collaborated on the song's memorable lyric. "Glenn had this idea," Felder remembers. "The fantasy of California. It's supposed to be a microcosm of the world. Glenn is great at conceptualizing. He'll say, 'I can see this guy driving in the desert at night and you can see the lights of L.A. way off in the horizon.' Henley gets the picture and goes from there.

Sometimes you dont need to be so worried about what a song like this is about...Its one of those songs you just blast in your car and sing along to

Guys...Jeeze...Its just a dream. Don Henly had a dream and embellished it and put it to music. It Has no actual meaning except what you might want to interperet a dream like that to mean

righto im gonna go with the majority and base it on the high life enjoyed in the sixties, ie drugs, prostitution etc, based on a shitload of metaphores in the song...this is gonna take a while
1. Warm smell of colitas - colitas is the spanish name for chemically THC enriched weed, suggesting the bloke in the song has been through the best weed and all that, but now looks for something stronger
2. 'Such a lovely place...such a lovely face' - the drugs have a really appealing quality, but is only on the surface
3. 'We havent had that spirit here since 1969" - not the alcholic spirit, but the good happy spirit in reference to the drugs, which ended at the close of the 60's. This is another element of the song, at the ckose of the sixties, everyone was realizing the repocussions of drug use in the 70s and still addicted to them
4. 'she got a lot of pretty pretty boys that she calls friends' - suggestions of prostitution, another 'high life' cliche
5. 'stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast' - steely knives = needles, the beast = addiction. simple
6. 'pink champagne on ice' two extremely potent and expensive forms of speed or trips or some other drug, not sure of the specific type, but this is the strongest hint of drug use in the song
7. then of couurse the classic 'you can check out any time you like but you can never leave' - you can say i quit, or die, but you will never stop the addiction

well thats about for the space im given, but i could go all day. This is a complex bloody song, not only musically, but lyrically as well. Anyone who says 'it doesnt matter what it is about' is in the wrong place for starters, and misguided as well. That is half the brilliance of most songs, in particular ones that convey a meaniingful message through the lyrics. You know, some people have written their thesis on deciphering the lyrics to this song alone...complex bloody song

Spando dude. just cause idiots write thesis about what they think a songwriter means doesn't mean that crap is really there. You can read metaphore and unintended meaning into literally everything. Take it from me, (I've been a professional musician and songwriter for many years and I know many professional songwriters), you're giving songwriters way too much credit. The symbolism, metaphore and hidden meaning you are imagining in songs just isn't there most of the time. For most, the process is much more a process from the heart and gut and just not that complicated and contrived. There are a few songwriters in the last 50 years who have written that way but the vast majority have not. Don Henley's not one of them.

If you really want to know what the song is about go here:

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

This person explains it very well.

yeah alright liverdude, ill take it from you, and as a fellow song writer, im very impressed that your in with the 'pros'. but since you know so much about song writing, please tell me why the fuck henley would even bother to use words such as 'colitas', 'pink champagne' 'ice' and 'steely knives'? they arent exactly everyday words you jackass, henley must have had some motive for using them, one possible motive being to get a message across. he didnt just write 'from the heart', and and have two bloody obvious references to drugs just sitting in his heart. and if you look closely, youll see that every second post on this song says something about the metaphors etc, so why not comment on them? also, if you look very closely, in the box you wrote your comment in, it says "What does this song mean to you?" i wrote what it meant to me, so fuck off.

thank you.