One of the most mysterious and widely speculated songs in rock history, “Hotel California” is best described in the words of its creators. As Don Henley explained in the Daily Mail dated 9/11/2007:

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.

Though the annotations to the left do their best to decipher Henley & co.’s words, it’s important to keep in mind a quote (and classic malapropism) from Eagles member Glenn Frey: “Vaguery is the primary tool of songwriters.”

In response to the insinuation that the first working title of the song was “Mexican Reggae,” Don Felder laughed and responded:

Yes, that’s right. It wasn’t really a title. When I first wrote all the music for it, I put it on a cassette with about 16 or 17 other song ideas, another one was what later became “Victim of Love,” and gave copies of the cassette to Joe Walsh, Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and Randy Meisner. At the time I said, “If there’s anything on this cassette you like you want to work on, call me and let me know.”

And so Henley said, “I like that song that sounds like a Mexican reggae.” That was his description of what it drew in his mind. And later we started talking about it, and he came up with the framework lyrically of the hotel being a physical structure called the Hotel California, which there is no real Hotel California other than the one that’s down on Sunset here, the Beverly Hills Hotel is the artwork on the front of the cover.

During the 58th Grammys in February 2016 the Eagles were presented with their Grammy from 1977 for Album of the Year because they didn’t attend the Grammys in ‘77. This took place during a commercial break just after they and Jackson Browne finished a tribute to Glenn Frey.