Mulling the Phrase
Senior band members Glenn Frey and Don Henley had no choice but to quietly tolerate Walsh’s hotel destruction, but once they had the opportunity to write about life on the road and what it meant to them, the result made them a fortune, rather than costing them one (in damage bills).
The Eagles – Glenn Frey, Don Henley (drums), and Don Felder. Photo By Times Newspapers/Shutterstock
Henley said he played around with the phrase “Hotel California” for quite a while, but the process of turning it into a song meant it had to go through a certain order that the band adopted by the mid-‘70s. At that point, the Eagles weren’t yet in need of communicating through lawyers, but they were, however, referring to each other by their last names.