Songwriters have little control over how others interpret their lyrics once they put them out into the world, and that includes analysis from a writer’s own bandmates—which is why the meaning of The Eagles’ massive hit, “Hotel California”, changes depending on which Eagle you ask. From Satanic references to the Beverly Hills Hotel to marijuana to prostitution and just about everything in between, listeners have been poring over the words Don Henley sings with his signature rasp since the band first released the track in 1977.
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Something about the song’s laidback groove and flowery lyrics like “Her mind is Tiffany twisted,” and, “Warm smell of colitas rising up through the air,” makes the song sound like it came straight out of a misty coastline at night, palm trees swaying in the darkness, far-off music playing. But ten years after the song’s release, Joe Walsh appeared on Almost Live! and offered a “Hotel California” explanation that’s decidedly less glamorous.
Joe Walsh Explains His Interpretation of “Hotel California”
For some context, the general public had already amassed countless explanations of what The Eagles’ “Hotel California” actually meant by the time Joe Walsh visited Almost Live! on January 22, 1987. This might explain the slight exasperation in his tone as he answered host Ross Shafer’s questions about the hit single. Nonchalantly picking at his nails as he began, Walsh said, “Yeah, there was some references to Satanism and all that. Well, ‘Hotel California’, the entire album is about the fact that everybody in California that lives there is from Ohio.”
“If you play it backwards, it doesn’t make any sense,” Walsh continued. “Because it doesn’t make any sense if you play it forward. We don’t have—we didn’t have any reference to, uh, anything other than trying to make a musical statement about how the whole state is like a hotel, you know. You can’t be a successful actor in Toledo, you know.”
And if anyone would know the entertainment opportunities of the Great Lakes area, it would be Joe Walsh. The rock ‘n’ roller spent his early childhood in Columbus, Ohio. He returned as a late teenager to study at Kent State University. While there, Walsh played in various groups around the Cleveland area after dropping out of Kent State—a decision he would later say was largely influenced by his being present at the time of the Kent State massacre in 1970.
What Did the Actual Songwriters Say About the Song?
As funny and aloof as Joe Walsh’s explanation of “Hotel California” may be, he wasn’t the Eagle who wrote it. Glenn Frey and Don Henley were the writers of the lyrics in question, and their explanations were decidedly more poetic. Speaking to Rolling Stone, Henley said, “Lyrically, the song deals with traditional or classical themes of conflict. Darkness and light, good and evil, youth and age, the spiritual versus the secular. I guess you could say it’s a song about loss of innocence”, per the Encyclopedia of Great Popular Song Recordings.
Frey explained the song as a sonic representation of a cinematic image of “a lone guy who is almost hypnotized by the monotony of driving in the desert in a seemingly endless journey. Dead tired, he sees the light of some refuge in the distance and pulls in for the night. This is when he enters a weird world peopled by freaky characters and is quickly spooked by the claustrophobic feeling of being caught in a disturbing web from which he may never escape.”
To Joe Walsh’s credit (and as a native Ohioan), I can attest that this is technically what living in Ohio can feel like, too. So, you know, maybe all these song explanations can co-exist.
Photo by Doug Griffin/Toronto Star via Getty Images
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