Hotel California
"Hotel California" is a song by American rock band Eagles, released as the second single of their album of the same name on February 22, 1977.[6] Songwriting credits go to Don Felder (music), Don Henley, and Glenn Frey (lyrics). The Eagles' original recording of the song features Henley singing lead vocals and concludes with an iconic 2 minute and 12 seconds long electric guitar solo performed by Felder with a Gibson Les Paul Gibson EDS-1275 double neck and Joe Walsh with a Fender Telecaster, in which they take turns of playing the lead before harmonizing and playing arpeggios together towards the fade-out.[7]
This article is about the Eagles song. For the Eagles album, see Hotel California (album). For other uses, see Hotel California (disambiguation)."Hotel California"
"Pretty Maids All in a Row"
February 22, 1977[1]
1976
- Record Plant, Los Angeles
- Criteria, Miami[2][3]
- 6:30 (album version)
- 6:08 (single version)
The song is one of the best-known recordings by the band, and in 1998 its long guitar coda was voted the best guitar solo of all time by readers of Guitarist.[2][8] The song was awarded the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978.[9] The meaning of the lyrics of the song has been discussed by fans and critics ever since its release, the Eagles themselves described the song as their "interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles."[10] In the 2013 documentary History of the Eagles, Henley said that the song was about "a journey from innocence to experience ... that's all."[11]
Since its release, "Hotel California" has been regarded as one of the greatest rock songs of all time, and has been covered by many artists. Julia Phillips proposed adapting the song into a film, but the members of the Eagles disliked the idea and it never came to fruition. Commercially, "Hotel California" reached the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top ten of several international charts. The Eagles have performed "Hotel California" well over 1,000 times live, and is the third most performed of all their songs, after "Desperado" and "Take It Easy".[12]
Cultural influence[edit]
"Hotel California" and its lyrics have become absorbed into the wider culture around the world, and have been used by various writers and commentators to reflect on issues ranging from politics to social media and welfare,[81][82][83] or as an observation on a particular situation.[84][85] The lines "We are programmed to receive / You can check out any time you like / But you can never leave!" were used by an economist to refer to how the appeal of an attractive "Hotel California"-type host country to foreign investors may be countered by the cost of exit on leaving the country.[86] A term "The Hotel California Effect" was then used to refer to the negative effect of financial regulations on investment,[87] and the problems foreign investors faced when getting their money out of China.[88][89] It has also applied to other ideas such as problems when leaving a service provider or social media network,[90][91] or when exiting cloud computing.[92] The same analogy has been used by various commentators considering scenarios for Brexit, with the term "Hotel California Brexit".[93][94][95]
A book titled Operation Hotel California: The Clandestine War Inside Iraq was written about the clandestine operation named after the song title by CIA–US Special Forces teams in Iraqi Kurdistan in the lead-up to the Iraq War.[96][97]
Although the Eagles were noted for their reluctance to license their songs for use in shows,[98] the song has been used in a number of films and television shows, such as The Big Lebowski (performed by the Gipsy Kings),[99] Absolutely Fabulous, American Horror Story, The Sopranos,[57] and the end credits of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.[100]
Alleged theft of lyrics[edit]
On July 13, 2022, three individuals – rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz and rock memorabilia specialists Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski[101] – were charged after allegedly conspiring to sell Henley's handwritten lyrics to the song "Hotel California" and two other songs from the same album that the Manhattan District Attorney's office claims were improperly obtained. Prosecutors claim the lyrics could be worth over $1 million at auction. The three men pleaded not guilty and were released without bail pending trial. Eagles manager Irving Azoff said the case exposed "the truth about music memorabilia sales of highly personal, stolen items hidden behind a façade of legitimacy".[102] In February 2024, Henley testified that he never gave the lyric sheets away and repeated his claim from 2012 that they were stolen from his barn in Malibu, California decades prior.[101] Henley also acknowledged that he granted writer Ed Sanders, who in 1979 began working with The Eagles on a biography which was never published, some access to them, but stated that he never allowed Sanders to have permanent possession of them.[101] Though Sanders was not among those charged, he was acknowledged to have sold 100 pages worth of Hotel California lyric sheets to Horowitz in 2005 after alleging to Horowitz that Henley's assistant sent him the documents.[103][101] Eventually, Inciardi and Kosinski would begin auctioning them in 2012.[101] Defense lawyers have claimed Henley legally gave Sanders the lyric sheets.[103] On March 6, 2024, Assistant Manhattan District Attorney Aaron Ginandes abruptly dropped the criminal case against Horowitz, Inciardi and Kosinski midtrial, stating to the presiding judge that prosecutors believed that newly released emails backed defense arguments which questioned the trial's fairness.[104][105]
Partial credits from Richard Buskin and Bill Szymczyk.[3]