The Song “Hotel California” Explained At Last
By Don Henley
Alright, I’m getting older. My partner in the Eagles Glen Frye died a couple years ago, I think. I’ll have to Google it — although we still toured together we didn’t actually speak for the last fifteen years, so I’m not sure. If there was a funeral I didn’t go. Anyhow, it’s made me think I should stop being coy and finally let you all know the true meaning of the song. Before it’s too late and I die and take this secret with me.
I know the song’s meant a lot to you over the years and I appreciate it, really I do, as do my investment banker and Uncle Sam. I think I’ve paid those two bastards about fifty million in commissions and taxes over the years, thanks to this great song.
Spoiler alert, it’s not what you thought. So if you don’t want it all ruined for you, maybe you should just click off here.
For those of you still aboard, here goes.
ON A DARK DESERT HIGHWAY COOL WIND IN MY HAIR, WARM SMELL OF COLITAS RISING UP THROUGH THE AIR
Ok, so Colitas is the cologne I used to wear, that’s what that meant. It was real musky and manly and I got in Mexico City.
UP AHEAD IN THE DISTANCE I SAW A SHIMMERING LIGHT, MY HEAD GREW DIZZY AND MY SITE GREW DIM, I HAD TO STOP FOR THE NIGHT
This is where I first saw the UFO, ahead of me. And it was about to send down like this laser beam and beam me up into the mother ship. I was shitting bricks, to be honest. I might have even cried. But soon I was rising up in the air like Colitas cologne and being sucked into this hole by the aliens. And then I was in the ship.
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
The “she” is ET, only a woman. I mean, she looked exactly like ET only with boobs. When she lit up the candle she hit the button that ignited the rockets and we left earth. And then the female ET said, “Welcome to the Hotel California, Don Henley, we love your tunes. You are going to sing for us on our home planet.”
On their home planet they had made a little kind of zoo for me to live in, and they made it look like California, with palm trees and a mini Disneyland and Sunset Boulevard and shit. They wanted me to feel at home.
Then they made me sing my hit song “Desperado” over and over again until I wanted to kill myself. Man I hate that song now. I had to sing it a billion times practically because they loved it so much. They sometimes let me sing “Take it Easy” and also “Peaceful Easy Feeling.” But they didn’t like “Witchy Woman,” they said it scared them. Also “You Can’t Hide Your Lyin Eyes” also really scared them. If I was mad at them or something all I had to do was sing one of those two songs and they would give me what I wanted.
MIRRORS ON THE CEILING,
THE 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
Well, this is about me doing a shit load of blow. They had unlimited quantities for me, because they knew I loved it. They also brought me hookers that they had kidnapped from earth. It was pretty awesome.
But the only ET I was allowed to have sex with was that first one. She said her name was Tiffany (Tiffany Twisted), and she drove around in a little flying car that looked like a Mercedes. She was pretty sexy. The female sex organs of these creatures were really powerful. It rocked me in a way that no human girl ever has. And she actually had a lot of babies from having sex with me. The babies, girl or boy, looked like Don Henley’s head on top of ET’s body, if you can believe it. They were pretty cool, my kids. They grew up and moved away and I miss em.
YOU CAN CHECK OUT ANY TIME YOU WANT, BUT YOU CAN NEVER LEAVE
Well, they told me the good news is that I could live forever in their world, but never leave it. So that’s what I did, I lived there for thousands, I mean billions of years. I’m like a trillion years old now. Finally I got sick of it and I demanded they take me back home and I just started singing “Witchy Woman,” and some other really bad songs that I hadn’t even recorded yet and wouldn’t record until my horrific solo career, like “The End of the Innocence.” They couldn’t take it. And they took me right back to the desert where they kidnapped me, and the fucked up thing was no time had passed. I was still thirty years old or whatever, and this all happened in like an hour.
And I drove into LA and played the song for Glen and the boys. The rest is history. I never saw the aliens or Tiffany again, but the other day I got an email from Tiffany saying she missed me and that after I die we could be together again.
I know you’re not going to believe me, and that’s why I never told anyone. But guess what, attached to that email from Tiffany was a little video of my time on the planet, in the Hotel California, hanging around with the aliens. And in the video you can even see some of our ET-Don Henley kids, So fuck yourself if you don’t believe me, I don’t care, you can see for yourself here.
Peace.
(Ah, I’m only kidding. I didn’t actually write the song so I have no idea what it means. You should ask Don Felder)
