Yesterday, I played my students the beginning of "New Kid in Town" (The Eagles, "Hotel California", 1976, by Don Henley, Glenn Frey, and JD Souther): "There's talk on the street, it sounds so familiar / Great expectations, everybody's watching you." They laughed at my joke: a week ago, we began discussing Charles Dickens's 1861 novel "Great Expectations". When I checked the song's lyrics on Genius, I found the claim that "the literal interpretation" of the song "involves the experience of a band becoming famous." That phrasing struck me as odd: the song may be figuratively about fame, but it is "literally" about "a new kid in town" and his romantic experiences. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 21 April 2026)