This is Anton Szandor LaVey, High Priest of the Church of Satan and author of The Satanic Bible. You're getting a little weird on me, John.

Just trying to throw you a curve, Jim!

A long-running urban myth said that one could see LaVey's face looking out a window inside the cover of the Eagles album Hotel California (1976), and that the song was about the Church of Satan, which was originally located on California Street. Snopes insists none of that is true.

I've never liked that song. It's creepy.

Nora

Glenn Frey has been quoted as saying, "That record explores the under belly of success, the darker side of Paradise. Which was sort of what we were experiencing in Los Angeles at that time. So that just sort of became a metaphor for the whole world and for everything you know. And we just decided to make it Hotel California. So with a microcosm of everything else going on around us."

Which maybe goes to show that musicians tend to be more articulate when, instead of explaining it, they take the message and "lay it between the lines," as Peter, Paul, and Mary said.