i'm guessing some kind of drug rehab metaphor,,but i could be wrong...

On a dark desert highway
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night
There she stood in the doorway
I heard the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself
This could be Heaven or this could be Hell
Then she lit up a candle
And she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor
I thought I heard them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely place (background)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year
Any time of year (background)
You can find it here
You can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She's got the Mercedes bends
She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget
So I called up the Captain
Please bring me my wine
He said
We haven't had that spirit here since 1969
And still those voices are calling from far away
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely Place
Such a lovely Place (background)
Such a lovely face
They're livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise
What a nice surprise (background)
Bring your alibies

Mirrors on the ceiling
Pink champagne on ice
And she said
We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax said the nightman
We are programed to recieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave

it's about this place in california that's a hotel.

Anxiety said:

It's clearly about some homosexual getaway. I mean look at the following lyrics:

Her mind is Tiffany twisted
She's got the Mercedes bends
She's got a lot of pretty, pretty boys
That she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard
Sweet summer sweat
Some dance to remember
Some dance to forget


and this is a dead giveaway:

Mirrors on the ceiling
Pink champagne on ice


need i say more??







¤
[Edited 2/11/05 20:47pm]

Actually they they just made the whole thing up
(i heard on a program that discusses classic albums , can't remember the name )
After hearing that i never liked the song anymore
[Edited 2/11/05 20:59pm]

it's about KITTIES!!!

I once pondered this a while ago...

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.
[Edited 2/11/05 21:09pm]

Luv4oneanotha said:

Haven't heard that , must have turned the program off the minute i heard it's a fictional place

And she said
We are all just prisoners here
Of our own device
And in the master's chambers
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives
But they just can't kill the beast
Last thing I remember
I was running for the door
I had to find the passage back to the place I was before
Relax said the nightman
We are programed to recieve
You can check out any time you like
But you can never leave[/quote]


i still say cocaine and it's addictive ways..fuck what the composer said steely knives...you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave...sounds like a Bobby and Whitney song to me!

Dewrede said:

its basically comparing the music biz, to Hell... Tiffany twisted was a manger, they knew who owned alot of music acts...

The Music Business is One Big Hotel,
One big hotel you can never leave...



See the biz has always been like this, to white and black artist alike...

meltwithu said:

What is colitas?????

EverlastingNow said:

Legend has it that it's a slang term for ganja.



Anyways, fuck The Eagles.

Luv4oneanotha said:

Are you sure?

I always assumed those lines were refering to the distorting mindfuck that is materialism. "Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes bends." She has lost persepective and is obsessed with jewelry from Tiffany's, expensive cars, etc. That sort of thing.
[Edited 2/12/05 8:27am]

It's about a song that I never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever need to hear again.

Stax said:

Possibly, but it is about a manger

"she had alot of pretty pretty boys, who she called friends"

talking about her clientelle

I thought this thread would have produced some answers regarding the association between "Hotel California" and the occult. I hate The Eagles so I can never recall the story.

Luv4oneanotha said:

yeah, I can see that, but you said they knew her? What's that about? Just curious.

CinisterCee said:

The Occult Rumours are totally false,

People said that in the backcover of the Album, the saw Anton LaVey, The Leader of The Satic Chuch, and that Hotel California was about Satan,

False, the personon the back cover was a female model

their are no links to the occult lol



In those days Westside acts had the same agents managers, so it doesn't surprise they knew her , or possibly was involved with her

In fact those Occult rumours are true, the Eagles used the Baphomet on more than one occasion.

It is a very dark song and those that have eyes can see.

Yoda

YODAHENDRIX said:

Please...

And i thought i was Conspiracy Theorist

It's about me.

I had no idea what exactly the song was about, but I loved the instrumentation on the song. One of the first songs I learned to play on guitar. But I'm going to agree with this:

Luv4oneanotha said:

That sounds right to me.

And why are some of you replying with "Fuck the Eagles" when this is a thread about one of their most well-known songs? edit
[Edited 2/12/05 14:41pm]

PurpleMusiq8 said:

A total of one person replied that way. I just said I never need to hear that song again. Personally, I like The Eagles, but this isn't my favorite song of theirs. I'd rather hear Take It to the Limit, I Can't Tell You Why or Take It Easy.

A Straight Dope Classic from Cecil's storehouse of human knowledge


-----

In the song "Hotel California," what does "colitas" mean?
15-Aug-1997


-----

Dear Cecil:

Just what does "colitis" mean? In the song "Hotel California" by the Eagles the first lines are, "On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitis rising up through the air." I remember I tried looking it up at a university library years ago and couldn't find the answer. I know songwriters sometimes make up words, but I didn't see a Dr. Seuss credit on the album. --Wendy Martin, via the Internet

Cecil replies:

Uh, Wendy. It's colitas, not colitis. Colitis (pronounced koe-LIE-tis) is an inflammation of the large intestine. You're probably thinking of that famous Beatles lyric, "the girl with colitis goes by."

As for "Hotel California," you realize a lot of people aren't troubled so much by colitas as by the meaning of the whole damn song. Figuring that we should start with the general and move to the particular, I provide the following commonly heard theories:

(1) The Hotel California is a real hotel located in (pick one) Baja California on the coastal highway between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz or else near Santa Barbara. In other words, the song is a hard look at the modern hospitality industry, which is plagued by guests who "check out any time [they] like" but then "never leave."

(2) The Hotel California is a mental hospital. I see one guy on the Web has identified it as "Camarillo State Hospital in Ventura County between LA and Santa Barbara."

(3) It's about satanism. Isn't everything?

(4) Hotel California is a metaphor for cocaine addiction. See "You can check out any time you like but you can never leave." This comes from the published comments of Glenn Frey, one of the coauthors.

(5) It's about the pitfalls of living in southern California in the 1970s, my interpretation since first listen. Makes perfect sense, and goddammit, who you going to believe, some ignorant rock star or me?

(6) My fave, posted to the Usenet by Thomas Dzubin of Vancouver, British Columbia: "There was this fireworks factory just three blocks from the Hotel California . . . and it blew up! Big tragedy. One of the workers was named Wurn Snell and he was from the town of Colitas in Greece. One of the workers who escaped the explosion talked to another guy . . . I think it was probably Don Henley . . . and Don asked what the guy saw. The worker said, "Wurn Snell of Colitas . . . rising up through the air."

He's also got this bit about "on a dark dessert highway, Cool Whip in my hair." Well, I thought it was funny.

OK, back to colitas. Personally I had the idea colitas was a type of desert flower. Apparently not. Type "colitas" into a Web search engine and you get about 50 song-lyric hits plus, curiously, a bunch of citations from Mexican and Spanish restaurant menus. Hmm, one thinks, were the Eagles rhapsodizing about the smell of some good carryout? We asked some native Spanish speakers and learned that colitas is the diminutive feminine plural of the Spanish cola, tail. Little tail. Looking for a little . . . we suddenly recalled a (male) friend's guess that colitas referred to a certain feature of the female anatomy. We paused. Naah. Back to those menus. "Colitas de langosta enchiladas" was baby lobster tails simmered in hot sauce with Spanish rice. One thinks: you know, I could write a love song around a phrase like that.

Enough of these distractions. By and by a denizen of soc.culture.spain wrote: "Colitas is little tails, but here the author is referring to 'colas,' the tip of a marijuana branch, where it is more potent and with more sap (said to be the best part of the leaves)." We knew with an instant shock of certainty that this was the correct interpretation. The Eagles, with the prescience given only to true artists, were touting the virtues of high-quality industrial hemp! And to think some people thought this song was about drugs.

OUR SUSPICIONS CONFIRMED

This E-mail just in from Eagles management honcho Irving Azoff: "In response to your [recent] memo, in 1976, during the writing of the song 'Hotel California' by Messrs. Henley and Frey, the word `colitas' was translated for them by their Mexican-American road manager as 'little buds.' You have obviously already done the necessary extrapolation. Thank you for your inquiry."

I knew it.

or....from the Urban Legends music page...

Claim: The Eagles song "Hotel California" is about Satanism.
Status: False.

Examples:


[Collected via e-mail, 2003]
There's a rumor that's been around for some time concerning the Eagles' song "Hotel California". The basic premise is that the song is about a Christian church that was abandoned (or otherwise vacated) in 1969, and was taken over by an occultic group (usually Satan worshippers). For some unknown reason, it became known as the "Hotel of California". Further rumors have it that the Eagles are Satan worshippers, and that Satan appears in the window on the "Hotel California" album jacket.



-----

[Collected via e-mail, 2001]

I remember hearing as a kid that the Eagle's megaplatinum song "Hotel California" was about Aleister Crowley's mansion near Loch Ness, and the weird goings-on that supposedly happened there; including such "clues" as the line "...they stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill The Beast" (Crowley's nickname). It's even been said that if you look on the album cover, you can see Satanic High Preist Anton LeVey in one of the windows. I've looked, and though it is fuzzy... damned if it doesn't look like him.



-----

[Collected via e-mail, 2000]

My fellow high schoolmates and I (class of '85) were warned of the "evils" of certain types of music and were not allowed to play anything that was not approved by the nuns, at our school dances. Music by the Eagles was not allowed due to the "fact" that the song Hotel California was about a Satanic Cult organized in California in the year 1969. Reference was made to the lyric, "we haven't had that spirit here since 1969," as meaning the Spirit of Christ had not been present since 1969 upon organization of the cult. The mentioned lyric is a reply to a request for wine, in the song. According to my very protective, but wonderful teachers, this was yet "more proof" that the song was about a Satanic cult. Wine is an important symbol of the blood of Christ for Catholics and many Christian denominations.




Origins: The
Eagles' 1976 album "Hotel California" has sold more than 16 million copies, spawned a best-record Grammy, and is regarded by numerous rock critics as one of the best albums ever. Its title track, the haunting "Hotel California" continues to entrance listeners even though during its heydey the song was on the charts for only nineteen weeks and in the number one spot for only one.

Because its lyrics contain an ominous undercurrent, many have appeased their sense of disquiet by finding in the words literal and figurative meanings that just aren't there. Theories abound as to what the song means. Some see the devil in the lyrics. Others see a madhouse.

Some believe the song was written about a real inn bearing that name. Though there is a Hotel California in Todos Santos, a town on Mexico's Baja California peninsula, its relation to the song begins and ends with the coincidence of a shared name. None of the Eagles stayed there, let alone wrote music there. Nor did they have this building in mind when they set down the lyrics to this popular song.

Those who persist in believing the song must be named after an actual building have been known to assert "Hotel California" was the nickname of the Camarillo State Hospital, a state-run psychiatric hospital near Los Angeles which housed thousands of patients across its sixty-year history before closing in 1997. To them, the lyrics seem to fit what a mentally disturbed person would experience upon incarceration in a long-term care facility. The imagery of the song is explained as that person's hallucinations juxtaposed against moments of startling clarity as he realizes where he is.

However, by far the most common theme to surface in Hotel California rumors is one that links the song to devil worship. The lyrics (which speak of trying to "kill the Beast" and not having had "that spirit here since 1969") form the bedrock of the various Satan-related theories, but the belief is also fed by the album design. The inner cover is a photograph of people in a courtyard of a Spanish-looking inn. In a balcony above them looms a shadowy figure with arms spread. Many who look at that photo see Anton LaVey, leader of the Church of Satan, and interpret the spread arms as his welcoming the populace below into Satan's trap. That the people in the picture seem unaware of the gleefully evil figure standing above them only adds to the implicit horror of the scene — the innocents below are oblivious to their having wandered into the house of the Devil.

It's wonderful imagery. But it doesn't hold up. The shadowy figure was a woman hired for the photo shoot.

When it comes to finding Satan in this song, over the years we've heard the following:

The song is a tribute to the place where the Satanic Bible was written.

Devil worshippers bought an old church and rechristened "the Hotel California."

Some or all of the Eagles were either heavily involved with the occult or were disciples of LaVey.

All the album photographs were taken in and around a building that used by Anton LaVey's headquarters for his Church of Satan. (Which wasn't the case — the album cover was shot at the Beverly Hills Hotel.)

In California the 'Church of Satan' is registered under the name 'Hotel California.'
Another oddly persistent set of rumors centers on the photos used for the album. On the cover was the image of the approach to a Spanish mission-style hotel at sunset. Inside was the courtyard scene described above, and on its back was a photo of a black man leaning on a mop in the hotel's lobby. Besides the "Anton LaVey standing on the balcony" whisper, the presence of certain figures in some photos but not in others is attributed to their being ghosts whose spirits were accidentally captured on film, with the presumption being these were guests of the hotel who expired there. Also, the janitor leaning on a mop in the lobby photo has been rumored to be the propped-up corpse of a dead man (shades of Elmer McCurdy, that). In a particularly creepy extension of that rumor, he was murdered by LaVey as a human sacrifice or by the band members.
[Collected via e-mail, 2000]
On the cover of The Eagles album Hotel California, there is a picture of an abandoned hotel with someone in the doorway. When they took the picture there was noone in the hotel, and when they developed the picture it seemed as if there was noone there. But on the album cover there appeared someone in the doorway and the belief is that a person died (in some form or another...ranging from overdose to murder) in the hotel before it became abandoned and then appeared in the photo. Another variation I've heard is that they went back & took the picture twice and both times someone appeared in the doorway. I've also been told that the person is only visible on the album cover & not the tape or cd.

Besides the four primary rumors (real hotel, mental hospital, devil worship, ghostly images), we've also picked up some unusual ones:

The Hotel California was the name of an inn run by cannibals who were in the habit of taking in guests only to serve them up for dinner. The song's closing line ("You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave") seems to have sparked that one.

"They stab it with their steely knives" was a swipe at Steely Dan, with whom, according to rumor, the Eagles were having an ongoing feud.

"Warm smell of colitas rising through the air" line — which does refer to the scent of burning marijuana — was seen as a sign the song was about drug addiction. Others have interpreted 'Hotel California' as a code name for cocaine and thus saw both the album and the song itself as a description of a journey into addiction.

The song was about cancer. (We've no idea what prompted that thought.)
The truth proves far less satisfying than the myriad rumors that have sprung up around this song.
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.

Barbara "the golden state of mind" Mikkelson

Why is a song that people wonder about the meaning always assumed to be about drugs or sex?

Why is there such a huge dislike for The Eagles? I'm not a mega fan or anything, but I do like a few songs, including this one, and not for the drug or hedonistic references. I just find it haunting, that's all.

I like The Eagles. That said, it's a shame that this "Hotel California" is their best known song. I really can't stand this song, and I don't care if I never hear it again.

Truly a shame...The Eagles have much better material in their catalogue...

Little piece of trivia: Fagen and Becker namedropped The Eagles in a Steely Dan song. The reference to 'steely knives' in Hotel California was a way of returning the favor...

Luv4oneanotha said:

Thanks for this info.