Hotel California - Live; 1999 Remaster

Written by Don Felder, Glenn Frey and Don Henley, this song is about materialism and excess. California is used as the setting, but it could relate to anywhere in America. Don Henley in the London Daily Mail November 9, 2007 said: "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." On November 25, 2007 Henley appeared on the TV news show 60 Minutes, where he was told, "everyone wants to know what this song means." Henley replied: "I know, it's so boring. It's a song about the dark underbelly of the American Dream, and about excess in America which was something we knew about." He offered yet another interpretation in the 2013 History of the Eagles documentary: "It's a song about a journey from innocence to experience."

California is seen from the perspective of an outsider here. Bernie Leadon was the only band member at the time who was from the state (Timothy B. Schmit, who joined in 1977, was also from California). Joe Walsh came from New Jersey; Randy Meisner from Nebraska; Don Henley was from Texas; Glenn Frey was from Detroit, and Don Felder was from Florida. In a Songfacts interview with Don Felder, he explained: "As you're driving in Los Angeles at night, you can see the glow of the energy and the lights of Hollywood and Los Angeles for 100 miles out in the desert. And on the horizon, as you're driving in, all of these images start coming into your mind of the propaganda and advertisement you've experienced about California. In other words, the movie stars, the stars on Hollywood Boulevard, the beaches, bikinis, palm trees, all those images that you see and that people think of when they think of California start running through your mind. You're anticipating that. That's all you know of California." Don Henley put it this way: "We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest. Hotel California was our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles."

"Hotel California" won the 1977 Grammy Award for Record of the Year, but the Eagles didn't show up to accept it. That's because Don Henley didn't believe in contests, and the band had work to do: Timothy B. Schmit had just joined and was learning the repertoire. Schmit says they watched the ceremony on TV while they were rehearsing.