# What The Heck is the Eagles' "Hotel California" About? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 30, 2000, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983 "2000-10-30T22:16:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 17\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/1 "2000-10-30T22:16:28Z")
I went to a haunted house last night with some friends. And we started talking about eerie things. And “Hotel California” came up. She said they are talking about “Hell”. I don’t get it. Is that true? Could somebody please explain what this song is about. And if it is about “hell”, please explain how? Thanks? ---
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/2 "2000-10-30T22:18:10Z")
I almost forgot is “Puff the Magic Dragon” really about weed or not? ---
**Author:** ![sdimbert](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sdimbert/32/20204_2.png) [@sdimbert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sdimbert)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/3 "2000-10-30T22:22:09Z")
I use this song as an introductory lesson to symbolism in poetry. Most of my students agree that the song is about a brother. You can go from there. ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/4 "2000-10-30T22:23:21Z")
[http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5\_001.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a5_001.html) This should shed some light on the situation… * * * Yer pal, [Satan](http://www.members.tripod.com/jmspoofe/sdmb/satan.jpg) \*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR: Six months, three weeks, 20 hours, 28 minutes and 45 seconds. 8194 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,024.26. Extra life with Drain Bead: 4 weeks, 10 hours, 50 minutes. **THE YANKEES WIN! THAAAAAAH YANKEES WIN! 1996 · 1998 ··· WORLD CHAMPIONS ··· 1999 · 2000 26 Titles! The #1 Dynasty of all-time! And most importantly… RULERS OF NYC!!**\* ---
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/5 "2000-10-30T22:32:05Z")
Thanks for the Link Brian(i like that name better than your other one and afterall you have been calling me “william” lately 😉 ) Maybe I didn’t read it well enough but Cecil gave 6 answers which one is right? Did I miss something? ---
**Author:** ![Spoke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@Spoke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spoke)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/6 "2000-10-30T22:40:50Z")
I always figured that it was about Hell, but that Hell was being used as a metaphor for drug addiction of some sort. (So a double metaphor, I reckon). “I had to find a passage back to the place I was before.” (_i.e._, back to being clean and sober, IMO) ---
**Author:** ![Wildest\_Bill](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Wildest\_Bill](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wildest_Bill)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/7 "2000-10-30T22:46:23Z")
Yea now that makes some sense. That is why could check out anytime you want but you can never leave. I wonder what the stabbing the beast with their steely(sp) knives line was about? ---
**Author:** ![sailor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a587f6/32.png) [@sailor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sailor)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/8 "2000-10-30T22:47:51Z")
I started a thread on the same topic a few months back. If you search you will find. The official answer is… there is no official answer. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/9 "2000-10-30T23:22:46Z")
Never gave it a whole lot of in depth thought, but I always assumed the steely knives were the razor blades used on the mirror. ---
**Author:** ![Satan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2000, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/10 "2000-10-30T23:47:05Z")
Actually, the “Steely Knives” were just put in because Sleetly Dan name-checked The Eagles in a song earlier (which one I’m not sure, but someone will know) and they were reciprocating. * * * Yer pal, [Satan](http://www.members.tripod.com/jmspoofe/sdmb/satan.jpg) \*I HAVE BEEN SMOKE-FREE FOR: Six months, three weeks, 21 hours, 52 minutes and 26 seconds. 8196 cigarettes not smoked, saving $1,024.56. Extra life with Drain Bead: 4 weeks, 11 hours, 0 minutes. **THE YANKEES WIN! THAAAAAAH YANKEES WIN! 1996 · 1998 ··· WORLD CHAMPIONS ··· 1999 · 2000 26 Titles! The #1 Dynasty of all-time! And most importantly… RULERS OF NYC!!**\* ---
**Author:** ![Fiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e274bd/32.png) [@Fiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiver)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/11 "2000-10-31T14:11:05Z")
I’m pretty sure I read or heard an interview with Glenn Frey once where he stated categorically that it does not mean anything. They set out to write a creepy and surreal song meant to evoke the same feelings as a “Twilight Zone” episode. Frey has been amused by all the analysis claiming to find deeper symbolic meanings in the song. ---
**Author:** ![hawthorne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@hawthorne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hawthorne)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/12 "2000-10-31T14:17:46Z")
And in case you’re wondering about **Steely Dan** , yep it is the dildo in _The Naked Lunch_. ---
**Author:** ![JoeyBlades](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a87d85/32.png) [@JoeyBlades](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JoeyBlades)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/13 "2000-10-31T15:21:35Z")
Just heard Glenn Frey talking about this last night in an interview. The point of the song is to throw together lots of allusive, weird lyrics and see what the fans and critics came up with. There **WAS** no deeper meaning, but the band thought it would be a hoot to see what everyone **THOUGHT** it was about. In other words, it’a a pseudo-intellectual joke - nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/14 "2000-10-31T15:30:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Satan \* > \*\* > > **THE YANKEES WIN! THAAAAAAH YANKEES WIN! > 1996 · 1998 ··· WORLD CHAMPIONS ··· 1999 · 2000 > 26 Titles! The #1 Dynasty of all-time! > And most importantly… RULERS OF NYC!!**\* \*\* Hijack: As most baseball fans in the rest of the country have long feared, this confirms that Satan in fact has been rooting for the Yankees all along. In fact, my Met fan brothers are convinced that George Steingrabber has sold his soul to the Devil (but of course the Devil had that a long time ago). But as a Yankee fan myself, I have to say, “Way to go, SATAN!” ---
**Author:** ![don\_Jaime](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b4bc9f/32.png) [@don\_Jaime](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_Jaime)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/15 "2000-10-31T19:32:06Z")
Somewhere in the depths of the _Dallas Morning News_ is a travel article about the real life Hotel California, in some dump of a town in Baja. Pictures, rates, everything. It had been a hippie flophouse of sorts in the time when the Eagles had owned a portion of it. I think the year was 1990. If I ever get to a research library I’ll see if I can find it again. ---
**Author:** ![Running\_with\_Scissors](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a183cd/32.png) [@Running\_with\_Scissors](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Running_with_Scissors)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/16 "2000-10-31T20:14:43Z")
The Steely Dan song that referenced the Eagles was Everything you did from The Royal Scam. I had always thought that Hotel California came **before** The Royal Scam, but they’re both copyrighted the same year, according to [allmusic.com](http://allmusic.com), and Hotel California is actually dated Dec 8 of that year. So it’s likely that the Dan’s line came first. If you’re interested, the exact line is: _ **Turn down the Eagles, the neighbors are listening.** _ ---
**Author:** ![jmullaney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/85e7bf/32.png) [@jmullaney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmullaney)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2000, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-heck-is-the-eagles-hotel-california-about/38983/17 "2000-10-31T21:28:03Z")
Ya know, the whole song bears a resemblance to [2 Peter chapter 2](http://bible.gospelcom.net/cgi-bin/bible?passage=2PET+2&language=english&version=NIV&showfn=off) Most strikingly: > [@](#): > > 12 … They are like brute beasts, creatures of instinct, born only to be caught and destroyed, and like beasts they too will perish. > 13 They will be paid back with harm for the harm they have done. Their idea of pleasure is to carouse in broad daylight. They are blots and blemishes, reveling in their pleasures while they feast with you. and > [@](#): > > 17 These men are springs without water and mists driven by a storm. Blackest darkness is reserved for them. > 18 For they mouth empty, boastful words and, by appealing to the lustful desires of sinful human nature, they entice people who are just escaping from those who live in error. > 19 They promise them freedom, while they themselves are slaves of depravity–for a man is a slave to whatever has mastered him. compare to the [lyrics](http://w3.informatik.gu.se/~dixi/lyrics/hotelcal.htm)