"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] The song was written by Don Felder (music), Don Henley, and Glenn Frey (lyrics), featuring Henley on lead vocals and concluding with a 2 minute and 12 seconds long electric guitar solo performed by Felder and Joe Walsh, in which they take turns playing the lead before harmonizing and playing arpeggios together towards the fade-out.

"[11] Since its release, "Hotel California" has been widely 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.

"[21] Frey came up with a cinematic scenario of a person who, tired from driving a long distance in a desert, saw a place for a rest and pulled in for the night, but entered "a weird world peopled by freaky characters", and became "quickly spooked by the claustrophobic feeling of being caught in a disturbing web from which he may never escape".

[15] In an interview with Cameron Crowe, Frey said that he and Henley wanted the song "to open like an episode of the Twilight Zone", and added: "We take this guy and make him like a character in The Magus, where every time he walks through a door there's a new version of reality.

"[2][22] Henley then wrote most of the lyrics based on Frey's idea, and sought inspiration for the writing by driving out into the desert as well as from films and theater.

[28] The Hell Freezes Over version is performed using eight guitars and has a decidedly Spanish sound, with Felder's flamenco-inspired arrangement and intro.

[29] A music video for the song, filmed at the Capital Centre in March 1977, was first aired on the USA Network as part of the Night Flight program in August 1985.

[31] In 2013, a re-edited version of the video, as well as other footage from the Capital Centre concerts, was released as part of the History of the Eagles documentary set.

[36] Three months after its first release, the single was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), representing one million copies shipped.

[44] At the induction of the Eagles into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, all seven former and present members of the band reunited to perform "Hotel California"[45] and "Take It Easy."

[46] Glenn Frey said that originally "We decided to create something strange, just to see if we could do it," and that the song was meant to mimic the imagery of the 1965 novel The Magus by John Fowles, about a man in an unfamiliar rural setting who is unsure about what he is experiencing.

[47] Don Henley has given a number of explanations about the song, ranging from "a journey from innocence to experience"[11] to "a sociopolitical statement.

"[51] In the 2013 documentary, History of the Eagles, Henley reiterated: On just about every album we made, there was some kind of commentary on the music business, and on American culture in general.

My only regret would be having to explain it in detail to you, which would defeat the purpose of using literary devices in songwriting and lower the discussion to some silly and irrelevant argument about chemical processes.

"[56] Don Felder denied any such allegations in a 2019 interview, maintaining that the song was about "the underbelly industry in Los Angeles, how it can be less than beautiful.

[59] "Colitas" means "little tails" in Spanish; in Mexican slang it refers the flowering buds of the cannabis plant.

"[62] The Eagles' manager Irving Azoff appears to lend support to the marijuana hypothesis;[63] however, Felder said, "The colitas is a plant that grows in the desert that blooms at night, and it has this kind of pungent, almost funky smell.

[65] The presence of E major (a borrowed chord that contains a G#, which isn't usually found in the key of B minor), gives a hint of B Dorian mode.

The chords are played as follows: The eight-measure sequence is repeated in the intro, for each verse and in the outro, providing the harmonic framework for the entire extended dual guitar solo at the end of the song.

[66] This chord sequence is not commonly used, and Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull has pointed out its similarity to his song "We Used to Know" from their 1969 album Stand Up, an international hit which reached No.

[67] While the Eagles did open for Jethro Tull in June 1972, Don Felder, who wrote the music, did not join the band until 1974 and would not have been backstage at their concerts.

"[70] The chorus, or refrain, uses five of the verse's seven chords, structured with the melody in a way that infers a key change from B minor to its relative major key of D.[65] "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,[83][84][85] or as an observation on a particular situation.

[90][91] It has also applied to other ideas such as problems when leaving a service provider or social media network,[92][93] or when exiting cloud computing.

[98][99] Although the Eagles were noted for their reluctance to license their songs for use in shows,[100] the song has been used in a number of films and television shows, such as The Big Lebowski (performed by the Gipsy Kings),[101] Absolutely Fabulous, American Horror Story (Hotel), The Sopranos,[59] and the end credits of Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings.

[102] On July 13, 2022, three individuals – rare-book dealer Glenn Horowitz and rock memorabilia specialists Craig Inciardi and Edward Kosinski[103] – 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.

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".

[104] 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.

[105] 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.