The mysterious history behind the 80s hit “Hotel California” seems to be darker than we thought

There is a long-told and creepy story about the Hotel California, related to a catchy song that seems to have dark meanings, to its lyrics and even it’s said to be related to the devil…

 

In 1976, the song “Hotel California” reached the ears of the world with the group “The Eagles”, and even though we all have found ourselves singing the catchy chorus of this masterpiece, there is a peculiar and chilling meaning behind which led to several rumors and theories about the song being related to paranormal phenomenons and Satanism.

The legend behind Hotel California:Famous artist Don Henley is said to have written the song based on his experience in the magical town of Todos Santos, Baja California Sur.

In the song, it is mentioned that a man arrives in the darkness of the night at a hotel where he is received by a charming woman, who with a candle in hand, shows him the way. The man asks for his wine and gets as a reply “we haven’t had that spirit since 1969”.

 

And although Don Henley denies having been a guest of the hotel, since before the song was created, in the “Hotel California” there was a legend that the spirit of a girl named Mercedes, invited the locals to drink wine, and then disappeared.

Other rumors are that the song is about a black mass and that the girl who receives the man is a priestess who wants to introduce the new man to the church of Satan.

There are phrases that support this theory such as:“This could be heaven or this could be Hell”, “We are all just prisoners here, of our own device”, “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast” and “You can check out any time you like,
But you can never leave!’

Another, slightly darker, legend says that the group of The Eagles signed a pact with the devil in order to obtain a huge success before writing the song.

 

The song could be dedicated to the Satanist “Anton Szandor LaVey”, since the year 1969 mentioned in the song, is the year in which the Satanic Bible written by him was published. And the name “Hotel California” refers to the place where Anton founded Satan’s church, on California Avenue in San Francisco.

We can even see on the cover of the “Hotel California” album, at the top a sinister face that seems to be Anton, who proclaimed himself “The Black Pope”.

 

Some claim that in the part of the song: “Wake you up in the middle of the night, just to hear them say” if you play it backward you can hear “Yeah Satan hears this, he had me believe in him”. Some say they can clearly hear this satanic message when played backward, others say this message is none existent, plenty of theories can be found online about this topic.

The many theories that emerged from this song had people questioning the inspiration for this hit, to the point that the artists were being asked multiple times about it.

 

During an interview, Glenn Frey once said “Everybody wants to know what that song was about, and we don’t know”

Don Henley also said that every fan had their own interpretation of the song, however, he shared what the lyrics meant to him: the dark side of the American dream, it’s about excess, narcism, and the music business. Still, it can have a million interpretations.

 

They also explained the vision they had in mind regarding the music video…

“It was just one shot to the next – a picture of a guy on the highway, a picture of the hotel, the guy walks in, the door opens, strange people.  We decided to create something strange, just to see if we could do it. And then a lot was read into it – a lot more than probably exists.”

 

This is certainly one of the most popular and sort of creepy theories within the music industry, what do you think about it?

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