My friend Miguel sent me the coolest site to check out. If you dig music and like to listen to the lyrics, or if you just like music trivia, you will love this site. It explains what songs are about and provides background information and trivia.
Miguel and I both love the song Hotel California by The Eagles, so I checked out that one.
Songfacts:
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.
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.
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