10 Songs You're Not Supposed To Understand

"Hotel California" is one of those songs that deserves a special place among rock's greatest epics. Across 6 minutes, Don Henley's smokey voice seems to take you on a journey through the seedier sides of California and the trappings that you can fall into. It's a great picture, but you wouldn't get that from taking a look at the words on the page.

For as many picturesque images are accounted for on this song, the wordplay tends to get a bit too self-indulgent for its own good. There's a lot of metaphors for the American Dream, but you also have the (maybe) horror story of a man trying to escape a hotel that's out for his soul.

There have been plenty of stories written by the Eagles that take on a straight narrative, but this kind of terrifying account doesn't really live up to the Shining or anything.

However, fans are really the ones who blew things out of proportion, with many bold claims that the song is about Satanism and trying to find proof in the album artwork. After being fed up with the whole ordeal, Henley himself said the song is "a journey from innocence to experience....that is all."

There are a lot of interesting ideas in this track, but with over 3 decades of hindsight, it might be best to take the lyrics for what they are rather than try to extract some deeper meaning.