Does anyone know what the hotel california song means?

Answer 1

Business strategies .....
Just as "sex sales" in songs and advertising more so currently ( "Laffy taffy" or "Don't U wish your gf was a freak like me?" ) Drugs and satanism sold more so in the 60's and 70's. There are many artist who rode that bandwagon back then. So you will get every idea under the sun to what that song means and I am sure they are all correct in some form, but it still boils down to what SOLD!

Answer 2

Some people have read aspects of devil worship into those lyrics, but personally, I think they mean what the band members themselves have always said they were written about:

Hotel California is an allegory about hedonism and greed in Southern California in the 1970s. At the time of its release, the Eagles were riding high in the music world, experiencing material success on a frightening level. Though they thoroughly enjoyed the money, drugs, and women fame threw their way, they were disquieted by it all and sought to pour that sense of unease into their music and to warn others about the dark underside of such adulation.

In a 1995 interview, Don Henley said the song "sort of captured the zeitgeist of the time, which was a time of great excess in this country and in the music business in particular." In another interview that same year, he referred to it as being about a "loss of innocence."

The album has as its underlying theme the corruption of impressionable rock stars by the decadent Los Angeles music industry. The celebrated title track presents California as a gilded prison the artist freely enters only to discover that he cannot later escape.

The real Hotel California is not a place; it is a metaphor for the west coast music industry and its effect on the talented but unworldy musicians who find themselves ensnared in its glittering web.

Answer 3

This is almost verbatim to one of Glenn's interviews about the song. "The song is like a movie. We take this guy and make him like a character in the move "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 a movie..." It's just about a guy driving and needing to stop for a break and gets stuck in a hotel.

Answer 4

this is what i found on the web with meaning of Hotel California

This is about materialism and excess. California is used as the setting, but it could relate to anywhere in America.
Don Henley: "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles.
This won the 1977 Grammy for Record Of The Year. The band did not show up to accept the award, as Don Henley did not believe in contests.
Don Felder got the ball rolling on this. He had the chord progressions and took it to Don Henley and Glen Frey. They put the words down, then Joe Walsh wrote all the guitar parts and arranged them for everyone. (thanks, Les - Dannevirke, New Zealand)
"Colitas," in the line "Warm smell of colitas," is often interpreted as a flower or a sexual reference. It is a Spanish word translated to Henley by The Eagles Mexican-American road manager meaning "Little Buds," and is a reference to marijuana.
This was recorded at 3 different sessions before The Eagles got the version they wanted. The biggest problem was finding the right key for Henley's vocal.
Glenn Frey compares this to an episode of The Twilight Zone, where it jumps from one scene to the next and doesn't necessarily make sense.
The line "They stab it with their steely knives but they just can't kill the beast" is a reference to Steely Dan. They shared the same manager and had a friendly rivalry. The year before, Steely Dan included the line "Turn up The Eagles, the neighbors are listening" on the song "Everything You Did."
Don Felder and Joe Walsh played together on the guitar solos, creating the textured sound.
The lyrics for this came with the album. Some people thought the line "She's got the Mercedes Bends" was a misspelling of "Mercedes Benz," and wrote Henley to complain. The line was a play on words.
Glenn Frey: "That record explores the under belly of success, the darker side of Paradise. Which was sort of what we were experiencing in Los Angeles at that time. So that just sort of became a metaphor for the whole world and for everything you know. And we just decided to make it Hotel California. So with a microcosm of everything else going on around us." (thanks, Moomin - London, England)
When The Eagles got back together in 1994, they recorded a live version of this for an MTV special that was included on their album Hell Freezes Over. The album was #1 in the US its first week.
All 7 past and present members of The Eagles performed this in 1998 when they were inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
The hotel on the album cover is the Beverly Hills Hotel, known as the Pink Palace. It is often frequented by Hollywood stars. The photo was taken by photographers David Alexander and John Kosh, who sat in a cherry-picker about 60 feet above Sunset Boulevard to get the shot of the hotel at sunset from above the trees. The rush-hour traffic made it a harrowing experience. Check out the hotel.
Although it is well known that Hotel California is actually a metaphor, there are several strange internet theories and urban legends about the "real" Hotel California. Some include suggestions that it was an old church taken over by devil worshippers, a psychiatric hospital, an inn run by cannibals or Aleister Crowley's mansion in Scotland. It's even been suggested that the "Hotel California" is the Playboy Mansion. (thanks, Adam - Dewsbury, England)
The music may have been inspired by the 1969 Jethro Tull song "We Used to Know," from their album Stand up. The chord progressions are nearly identical, and the bands toured together before The Eagles recorded it. In a BBC radio interview, Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson said laughingly that he was still waiting for the royalties. (thanks, Lawrence - Royal Tunbridge Wells, England and Dave - Cleveland, OH)
In Chicago at the time of this song's popularity many people called Cook County jail "Hotel California" because it is on California street. The name stuck and now people of all ages and races refer to the jail by this nickname. (thanks, jesse - chicago, IL)
Don Felder: "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 all the doors wide open on a spectacular July day. I had this acoustic 12-string and I started tinkling around with it, and those Hotel California chords just kind of oozed out. Every once in a while it seems like the cosmos part and something great just plops in your lap." (thanks, Stone - Libertyville, IL)
The Hotel California album is #37 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Albums of all time. According to the magazine, Don Henley said that the band was in pursuit of a note perfect song. The Eagles spent 8 months in the studio polishing take after take after take. Henley also said, "We just locked ourselves in. We had a refrigerator, a ping pong table, roller skates and a couple cots. We would go in and stay for 2 or 3 days at a time." (thanks, Ray - Stockton, NJ)
According to a reader-submitted poll for Guitar World magazine, the guitar solo for this song is ranked #8 out of 100. (thanks, Romeo - Belo Horizonte, Brazil)

Answer 5

Yes

Answer 6

I think it has different meanings but I think heroin, drugs, hell once you're there you can never go back. On the cover of the album you hold it a certain way you can see the devil.

Answer 7

Heroine

Answer 8

hotel california is an idiomatic verse--it means an addictive thing (it could be drugs, gambling, liquor, nowadays, technology) that you can't quit from, and when you realize that it's wrong---you are trapped and can't get out...