One thinks: you know, I could write a love song around a phrase like that.Įnough of these distractions. “Colitas de langosta enchiladas” was baby lobster tails simmered in hot sauce with Spanish rice. Looking for a little … we suddenly recalled a (male) friend’s guess that colitas referred to a certain feature of the female anatomy. Hmm, one thinks, were the Eagles rhapsodizing about the smell of some good carryout? We asked some native Spanish speakers and learned that colitas is the diminutive feminine plural of the Spanish cola, tail. Type “colitas” into a Web search engine and you get about 50 song-lyric hits plus, curiously, a bunch of citations from Mexican and Spanish restaurant menus. Personally I had the idea colitas was a type of desert flower. He’s also got this bit about “on a dark dessert highway, Cool Whip in my hair.” Well, I thought it was funny. The worker said, “Wurn Snell of Colitas … rising up through the air.” One of the workers who escaped the explosion talked to another guy … I think it was probably Don Henley … and Don asked what the guy saw. One of the workers was named Wurn Snell and he was from the town of Colitas in Greece. (6) My fave, posted to the Usenet by Thomas Dzubin of Vancouver, British Columbia: “There was this fireworks factory just three blocks from the Hotel California … and it blew up! Big tragedy. Makes perfect sense, and goddammit, who you going to believe, some ignorant rock star or me? (5) It’s about the pitfalls of living in southern California in the 1970s, my interpretation since first listen. See “You can check out any time you like but you can never leave.” This comes from the published comments of Glenn Frey, one of the coauthors. (4) Hotel California is a metaphor for cocaine addiction.

I see one guy on the Web has identified it as “Camarillo State Hospital in Ventura County between LA and Santa Barbara.” (2) The Hotel California is a mental hospital. In other words, the song is a hard look at the modern hospitality industry, which is plagued by guests who “check out any time like” but then “never leave.” (1) The Hotel California is a real hotel located in (pick one) Baja California on the coastal highway between Cabo San Lucas and La Paz or else near Santa Barbara. Figuring that we should start with the general and move to the particular, I provide the following commonly heard theories: You’re probably thinking of that famous Beatles lyric, “the girl with colitis goes by.”Īs for “Hotel California,” you realize a lot of people aren’t troubled so much by colitas as by the meaning of the whole damn song.

Colitis (pronounced koe-LIE-tis) is an inflammation of the large intestine.

What is hotel california about