It was one of the definitive lyrics in rock music history: “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.” But what exactly were the Eagles talking about all those years ago in their seminal 1970s soft-rock ballad “Hotel California”?

Was it, as they claimed, a satirical swipe at west-coast self-indulgence, written even as they were sinking under its excesses? Or did it have deeper existential resonance? Perhaps something like: “We think we can leave the past behind, but it stays with us. We are prisoners of our histories, trapped by the very things that make us what we are.”