Once Upon a Time in the Top Spot: Eagles, Hotel California

39 years ago this week, the Eagles sat atop of the Billboard Top 200 with their fifth studio album, an effort which would ultimately go on to be the best-selling studio album of their entire career.

Hotel California was a transitional album for the Eagles: in addition to being the first album without founding member Bernie Leadon and the last album with the band’s original bassist, Randy Meisner, it was also the inaugural album for guitarist Joe Walsh. That fluctuation in the lineup obviously didn’t hurt the Eagles’ creativity, though, given that the album featured such signature songs for the band as “New Kid in Town,” “Life in the Fast Lane,” and, of course, the title track, which introduced the world at large to the word “colitas” and also caused a tense moment between John Soeder of The Plain Dealer and Don Henley after the journalist asked if he regretted the lyric which referred to wine as a spirit, since spirits are distilled and wine is fermented.

“Thanks for the tutorial and, no, you're not the first to bring this to my attention—and you're not the first to completely misinterpret the lyric and miss the metaphor,” replied Henley. “Believe me, I've consumed enough alcoholic beverages in my time to know how they are made and what the proper nomenclature is. But that line in the song has little or nothing to do with alcoholic beverages. It's a sociopolitical statement. My only regret would be having to explain it in detail to you, which would defeat the purpose of using literary devices in songwriting and lower the discussion to some silly and irrelevant argument about chemical processes.”

Kids, remember: never question a songwriter about his choice of phrase in a lyric.

So, uh, anyone for a quick palate cleanser?

When it comes to albums that define the ‘70s, Hotel California is right up there with Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours, so it’s no surprise that both albums were nominated for Album of the Year at the Grammy Awards. The latter album actually ended up taking home that particular prize, but the Eagles still walked away with two statuettes that evening: one for “Hotel California,” which was named Record of the Year, and one for “New Kid in Town,” which won in the now-defunct category of Best Arrangement for Voices. (It was tweaked to be called Best Vocal Arrangement for Two or More Voices in ’81 before being dropped altogether after ’86.)

Yes, we know, you’ve probably heard most of the songs on Hotel California more times than you can count at this point, thanks to the radio, but if it’s been awhile since you’ve listened to the album from start to finish, give it another spin. It still holds up.