Hotel California

Don Felder made a demo of the instrumental in a rented house on Malibu Beach, using a Rhythm Ace drum machine and a 12-string guitar. Henley called it a Mexican reggae or bolero, which gave the song its first working title, Mexican Reggae. Frey wanted the lyric to open like an episode of The Twilight Zone and to play like a movie, and Henley wrote most of the words, driving into the desert for inspiration. Henley said the Beverly Hills Hotel had become a literal and symbolic focal point of their lives, and described the song as the end of the innocence, round one. He has also called it a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess. He denied that it had anything to do with Satanism, a rumor the band dismissed.

Henley recorded his lead vocal three times, twice at the Record Plant in Los Angeles and finally at Criteria in Miami. The first attempt was in too high a key, so Felder lowered it step by step from E minor to B minor. The released version was spliced from the best complete takes, with 33 edits on the two-inch master, according to Szymczyk. The closing guitar duet pairs Walsh on a Fender Telecaster with Felder on a Gibson Les Paul, and the two spent about three days working out the harmonized parts. At over six minutes it worried the record company, but the band refused to shorten it.

Life afterward

It entered the Hot 100 on the chart dated 26 February 1977 and topped it for a week in May, the band's fourth number one. It won the Grammy for Record of the Year and entered the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2003. Rolling Stone placed it at 49 in 2004 and 311 in 2021 on its list of the greatest songs. In 1998 Guitarist readers voted the solo the best of all time. A video filmed at the Capital Centre in March 1977 was shown on the USA Network in August 1985. The first live recording was made at the Los Angeles Forum in October 1976, and the 1994 Hell Freezes Over version has a flamenco-inspired introduction and uses eight guitars. The Eagles have played it more than a thousand times, behind only Desperado and Take It Easy. The Gipsy Kings recorded a Spanish flamenco version in 1990, later used in The Big Lebowski.