What is the Hotel California about?

Question

I've heard the following:

1. The Winchester House

2. A Mental Hospital

3. A Bad Drug Trip

What's the truth?

Answer 1

It's about a bad drug trip/ drug addiction.

"Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way " That's not a candle she's lighting up.

"Some dance to remember, some dance to forget" Some people do them to remember good memories, some people do them to forget bad memories.

'We are all just prisoners here, of our own device" That is basically what drug users are

"They stab it with their steely knives But they just can't kill the beast" The beast being the addiction/

"You can checkout any time you like, but you can never leave!" You can always say you aren't addicted or that you can quit anytime you want, but you'll always end up going back to them.

Pretty basic clear meaning, there are other metaphors in there to decipher but that's the basics.

(Although you have to look at it as it could mean several other things. Music is a type of art, and art is meant to be interpreted, so therefore it's seen differently by each person that views it.) Hope this helped :)

Answer 2

Hotel California touched on many themes, including innocence (and the loss thereof), addiction to drugs, death, the dangers, temptations, and transient nature of fame, shallow relationships, divorce and loss of love, the end results of manifest destiny, and the "American Dream".
Members of Eagles have described the album as a metaphor for the perceived decline of America into materialism and decadence. In an interview with Dutch magazine ZigZag shortly before the album's release, Don Henley said:


This is a concept album, there's no way to hide it, but it's not set in the old West, the cowboy thing, you know. It's more urban this time (. . . ) 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.'

Answer 3

Think about the words. California one big place of many of life's best and worst vices. Wonderfully stunning in your first arrival dream, then a nightmare with no way out. Remember, some vices are not always necessarily negs.

Answer 4

If I'm not wrong, it's about a mental hospital.

Answer 5

i heard it was bout elvis. so i have no idea what real sorry

Answer 6

I heard it's about hell.