On this day, May 7, 1977, the song “Hotel California” reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.
The Eagles' six-minute, eight-second song spent a week at the top of the charts before being knocked down to number three by Leo Sayer's “When I Need You,” notes the Best Classic Bands website. .
The album “Hotel California” was released on December 8, 1976, but the title track was released as a single two months later, on February 22, 1977, according to the rock music website SuperSeventies.
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“Every band has their creative peak,” Eagles founding member Don Henley told USA Today in 2020 about the “Hotel California” album.
“I think it was ours,” he continued. “We became very adept in the studio. We knew a lot about production. We knew more about songwriting. We had the musical ability.”
Shown here is the rock group The Eagles. From left to right: Don Felder, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner. (Getty Images)
He added: “We were willing to make some changes, take some risks and try to do something different from anything we had done before.”
Henley also said: “And you know, astronauts on the Space Station get a wake-up call every day. A lot of times people on the Space Station [NASA] The control center would say 'Hotel California'.”
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The musician laughed and then said, “Personally, I don't know if I'd like to start my day with that,” as USA Today noted.
“It's basically a song about the darkest part of the American dream and about excess in America.”
The enigmatic song has given rise to a variety of wild theories about its meaning, some of which amused Henley.
Rumors also spread that the song was actually about “heroin addiction or Satan worship,” Rolling Stone said, something Henley vehemently denied.
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“We were all middle-class kids from the Midwest,” Henley told that publication. “'Hotel California' was our interpretation of the good life in Los Angeles.”
In an interview with “60 Minutes,” Henley offered another meaning.
The Eagles' Don Henley, left, receives the band's 1977 Record of the Year award for “Hotel California” at, yes, the 2016 Grammy Awards. They were presented in 2016 as part of a tribute to co-founder Glenn Frey , recently deceased. (Frey passed away in January 2016). (Getty Images)
“It's basically a song about the darkest part of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about,” he said.
“Hotel California” would win Record of the Year at the 1977 Grammy Awards, although the band was not present that night because they did not believe they would win.
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The Eagles finally received the award at the 2016 Grammy Awards, as part of a tribute performance to then-recently deceased co-founder Glenn Frey, who died in January 2016 at age 67.
Various lineup changes
The Eagles were founded in 1971 by Frey, Henley, Bernie Leadon and Randy Meisner, according to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame website.
They went through several line-up changes and, after a series of pop hits, retired in 1980.
Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Don Felder and Randy Meisner of the rock band The Eagles. The group reached number one on May 7, 1977 with their song “Hotel California.” (Getty Images)
“The final plot twist is that they were reborn in 1994 for another tour as the public demonstrated an insatiable appetite for their music and their messages,” said the band's induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
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The Eagles were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1998, and were given the honor of induction by Jimmy Buffett.
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Over the course of the band's career, the group received 18 Grammy Award nominations and won six, in addition to a host of other awards.
The album “Hotel California” was added to the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008, the Grammy organization's website notes.
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