[imagesource: Reuters]

“You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”

The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’ is one of the most recognisable tracks of all time and, like many famous songs, there is much conjecture over the exact meaning of certain lyrics.

Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’ is another example and the debate on that front has provided an all-time classic quote.

When asked what it all means, he would often joke that “it means I’ll never have to work again”.

Back to ‘Hotel California’, written in 1976 by Don Henley, Don Felder, and Glenn Frey as the eponymous track of an album that would sell more than 40 million copies.

Lest you need reminding.

Back in the 1980s, at the height of America’s Satanic Panic, the silliness really escalated. The Telegraph below:

Wisconsin Reverend Paul Risley got some mileage from an elaborate interpretation of the song as a literal description of a deal with the devil. In this theory, the title referred to a San Francisco hotel purchased by American author Anton LaVey and converted into his controversial Church of Satan.

LaVey’s hedonistic cult was established in 1969, a date that appears in the lyric “We haven’t had this spirit here / Since 1969” (the Spirit in this reading being a Holy one).

Risley also took offence to the lines “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast”, claiming it referenced a ritual stabbing.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, guitarist Glenn Frey said it was aimed at fellow US band Steely Dan, who referenced the Eagles in a song of theirs.

Not to be outdone, others have theorized that the song is about a drug trip (the initials The Hotel California can be acronymized into THC, a principal component of cannabis) or a cannibalistic orgy (“in the master’s chambers / They gathered for the feast”).

The titular Hotel has also been (mis)identified as Camarillo State Mental Hospital, which was shut down in 1997.

The primary writer of the lyrics, Don Henley, has repeatedly stated that it’s “about the excesses of American culture and certain girls we knew”.

None of the band members is originally from California and Felder, who has since been booted, says he recalls them driving into Los Angeles one night and being wowed by the lights and the concept of everything the city represented.

The lyrics are back in the news this week because three men – Glenn Horowitz, Craig Inciardi, and Edward Kosinski (all pictured below) – have been charged with possessing documents including Henley’s handwritten lyrics to the song.

According to The Guardian, prosecutors said they knew that the documents were stolen:

The men attempted to sell the manuscripts, manufactured false provenance, and lied to auction houses, potential buyers, and law enforcement about the origin of the material, the New York district attorney’s office said.

They had also allegedly engaged in a “years-long campaign to prevent Henley from recovering the manuscripts”, the department said.

They were originally stolen in the late 1970s by an author who had been hired to write a biography of the band, the DA’s office said.

That man then sold the notes to Horowitz in 2005, who then sold them to Inciardi and Kosinski.

Horowitz was charged with conspiracy, attempted criminal possession of stolen property, and hindering prosecution. Inciardi and Kosinski were charged with possessing stolen property and conspiracy.

You know what they say about prison. Much like a hotel in California, you can never leave.

[sources:telegraph&guardian]