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.[35]
Don Henley has given a number of explanations about the song, ranging from "a journey from innocence to experience"[7] to "a sociopolitical statement".[36] In an interview with Rolling Stone, Henley said that the song was meant to be "more of a symbolic piece about America in general", and added: "Lyrically, the song deals with traditional or classical themes of conflict: darkness and light, good and evil, youth and age, the spiritual versus the secular. I guess you could say it's a song about loss of innocence."[8]
The song has been described as being "all about American decadence and burnout, too much money, corruption, drugs and arrogance; too little humility and heart."[8] It has also been interpreted as an allegory about hedonism, self-destruction, and greed in the music industry of the late 1970s.[37] Don Henley called it "our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles",[38] and later said: "It's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about."[39] 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. The hotel itself could be taken as a metaphor not only for the myth-making of Southern California, but for the myth-making that is the American Dream, because it is a fine line between the American Dream, and the American nightmare
