
But the lyrics that are indisputable in the eyes of something related to Satanism are “So I called up the captain please bring me my wine he said we haven’t had that spirit in here since 1969”–the spirit of Jesus has left this church since the church of Satan had been established.ĭon Felder had rented a beach house on Malibu beach he was sitting on the couch and just started playing guitar and out came that chord progression. At the end of the song “You can check-out anytime you like but you can never leave” as it is known that if you sell your soul to Satan it belongs to him forever even if you try to redeem yourself afterwards. Also in the song “I was thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell” an indication of something sinister. The church of Satan was established in 1969 in California and basically its tenets were hedonism, living to the hilt, disregard of traditional morality and indulging fully in the senses and particularly the sensual senses. If you zoom in on it that figure it’s Anton LaVey. When you open the original album you will see the inside of the hotel lobby and in the back window you will see a man dressed in black robes and a shaved head. The third and more somber interpretation is that the Eagles at the height of their success have been lured in the church of Satan under the auspices of the great satanic priest Anton LaVey and that they did not dare to speak about Satan publicly but wrote this song and masked the lyrics inside the song. Then a woman appears out of nowhere “There she stood in the hallway I heard the mission bell I was thinking to myself this could be heaven or this could be hell” So this could be a whole initiation into drugs. So if you listen at the beginning of the song “on a dark desert highway cool wind in my hair warm smell of colitas rising up through the air” Colitas in America could be a codeword for grass.

One of the most interesting ones is that whole song is a metaphor for a drug trip and The Hotel California (THC) spells out the principal components in grass which needless to say was extremely popular in southern California at that time. However there are other interpretations for the lyrics that are more penetrative and titillating and even darker. Hotel California has inspired endless debates on what the lyrics really mean as they’re very enigmatic and cryptic. Don Henley said “It’s a song about a journey from innocence to experience.” When The Eagles were interviewed they said “it is about the jaded, blasé, hedonistic lifestyle that characterizes California” And indeed when you listen to the song there are lyrics that sounds like the epitome of that type of lifestyle (mirrors on the ceiling, pink champagne on ice, Mercedes-benz). It’s about the jaded and hedonistic lifestyle that characterizes southern California.
