He sent a fax to Don Henley and asked about the hotel in Todos Santos and the rumors that he and/or the band had been here and possibly even written the song here. He talked to everyone he could and decided that the stories just didn’t seem right. and from that ‘Life in the Fast Lane’ came out of it, and ‘Wasted Time’ and a bunch of other songs.”Īnd even more: In 1997, travel writer Joe Cummings became intrigued with the legend. at night… you can just see this glow on the horizon of lights, and the images that start running through your head of Hollywood and all the dreams that you have, and so it was kind of about that… what we started writing the song about. Nobody was from California, and if you drive into L.A. We drove up the western Pacific coast of the Baja California peninsula from San Lucas to Todos Santos, eager to see if we too could be inspired, but we eventually learned the truth: The entire myth surrounding the hotel is complete nonsense.ĭon Henley told Rolling Stone that it was the band’s “interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles” and later reiterated “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.” Fax from Don Henley to Joe Cummings debunking the myth that he had stayed in Todos Santos.ĭon Felder described how the lyrics were written: “Don Henley and Glenn wrote most of the words. I had read and heard it might have something to do with the infamous rock song written by The Eagles, that the hotel might have inspired them to pen the lyrics. Like a lot of people, I bought into some of the hype surrounding the Hotel California in Todos Santos.

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