"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. Songwriting credits go to Don Felder (music), Don Henley, and Glenn Frey (lyrics). The Eagles' original recording of the song features Henley singing lead vocals and concludes with an iconic 2 minute and 12 seconds long electric guitar solo performed by Felder with a Gibson Les Paul Gibson EDS-1275 double neck and Joe Walsh with a Fender Telecaster, in which they take turns of playing the lead before harmonizing and playing arpeggios together towards the fade-out.
The song is one of the best-known recordings by the band, and in 1998 its long guitar coda was voted the best guitar solo of all time by readers of Guitarist. The song was awarded the Grammy Award for Record of the Year in 1978. The meaning of the lyrics of the song has been discussed by fans and critics ever since its release, the Eagles themselves described the song as their "interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles." In the 2013 documentary History of the Eagles, Henley said that the song was about "a journey from innocence to experience ... that's all."
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. Commercially, "Hotel California" reached the number one position on the Billboard Hot 100 and reached the top ten of several international charts. The Eagles have performed "Hotel California" well over 1,000 times live, and is the third most performed of all their songs, after "Desperado" and "Take It Easy". (Full article...)