In the Eagles' song, "Hotel California" it says:
Mirrors on the ceiling,
the pink champagne on ice. And she said,
'We are all just prisoners here,
of our own device'.And in the master's chambers,
they gathered for the feast,
They stab it with their steely knives,
but they just can't kill the beast.
Why can't they "kill the beast" with their "steely knives"? Never really understood this.
In many ways, the song is an extended metaphor for chasing fame, pleasure and success, Los Angeles style. The beast is the avatar of this goal. Everyone wants to feast on it, but no one can actually kill it, because you never actually reach the top of the heap. Chasing fame is an endless pursuit, which is why the guests are unable to check out of the hotel, even as the years go by.
According to http://www.glennfreyonline.com/eagles/verybest/linernotes.htm, the reason the knives are specifically "steely" is a dig at a rival band, Steely Dan, who had dropped a similarly dismissive namecheck of the Eagles in one of their earlier songs. So, we might imagine that it's the members of Steely Dan in this verse who are trying to kill the fame beast, and never quite getting there.
Hiding tributes to and/or digs at other bands in the lyrics is not unusual across the history of pop music. You might compare AWOLNation's dig at the Fleet Foxes in "Swinging From the Castles," or any number of rap rivalries, including the one documented in LL Cool J's "4, 3, 2, 1."
