Hollywood Waltz

To me this is not about a woman per se but the LA/Hollywood scene. The people are symbols of how the place and Industry uses you up like a whore and then goes on to another.

This is what Don Henley said in one interview was intro to Hotel California.

Here he compares beatiful woman (and cheap one, though) with California (also beatiful but lacks morale).

Cluelessness abounds. The "she" of the song is Hollywood. The "Hollywood waltz" is sex.

The first verse of the song makes clear that the narrator is not talking about a woman but a place—Southern California, as named in the first line, for which “Hollywood” is a stand-in. The “lovers” are all those who exploited the place for profit, without reinvesting in its cultural, physical, economic, or aesthetic wellbeing. Principal among those are real estate developers, who Henley and Frey disparaged at length in “The Last Resort” on the Hotel California album the following year (1976):\n\n“Some rich men came and raped the land\nNobody caught \'em\nPut up a bunch of ugly boxes\nAnd Jesus people bought \'em.”\n\nHenley and Frey made clear the intent of both lyrics in the interviews that they gave and the benefits for which they played at the time. They had grown up in Texas and Michigan, respectively, and recognized L.A. as having the most narcissistic culture of any American city other than Las Vegas. \n\nThe other side of the lyric is “She gave much more than she’s taken.” There is more to L.A. that meets the eye. Beneath the tarnished glitter, there are real people doing real work that has contributed to the lives of humans all over the world.

This great song is Henley’s (and Leadon’s) view of what happened to Southern California in the postwar (WW 2) era. It’s sorta the flip side of “The Last Resort”: the latter decried the spoilation of the land, but the former celebrated the love nevertheless due it from all who were there for the experience. Schadenfreude for the 1970s, but you just had to be there.

Nobody has commented on this song, maily because is a relativly unknown song, but this is a great, and I mean great song, to me one of the most underrated. This song is about hope, about looking forward to life, and about a girl.

The Hollywood Waltz is a descriptive term that the Authors of the Song use to relay a "Theme" of a "shared-behavior" they probably all experienced during the time they lived in Southern California. The common place in time, experiences and (sometimes "fragile") emotional state they were all experiencing as young aspiring (often struggling) Musicians in Los Angeles (particularly Hollywood). Apparently, they had many friends, but not many close "female friends" or "lovers" (at least not many they could trust). The Lyrics bring you into both a time and place (or "mind-set" and "feeling") of a young man appreciating a moment of reflection in his life (during a beautiful time of year.....Springtime.....the Acacias are Blooming...) as he reflects on his (and others') "hollow relationship" with an older, more mature woman, who many they (and presumably others) have "shared" or "loved".....all a part of the Hollywood Scene in the 1970's. The Author(s) have "given-in" to "temptations of the flesh". In this song they very eloquently label this transgression "The Hollywood Waltz". Extremely Poetic, Beautifully Written and Forever a Spring-time Favorite.