Songfacts®:

• This was one of four songs on the first Village People album, which was created as a studio production before the group was assembled. The group was conceived as a gay disco act, so the songs were written with that audience in mind. Along with "Fire Island" and "San Francisco," "Hollywood" was one of three songs on the set that was about a place significant to the gay community.
• Village People were the creation of the French producers Jacques Morali and Henri Belolo, who wrote this song with their American associates Peter Whitehead and Phil Hurtt. Morali and Belolo put the track together while Whitehead and Hurtt handled the lyrics. Whitehead was gay and wrote about that culture. Hurtt (not gay) was a professional lyricist who had written the words for the Spinners hit "I'll Be Around." To broaden the song's appeal, Hurtt made the song more universal in scope, drawing on his own experiences in Hollywood. Hurtt never tried to make it as a West Coast actor, but he had been there on business and had a good handle on the game that was played there.
  
  "Now it's time to get a new car
  You know the kind that has a phone and a bar"
  
  To appear more important than they really were, guys would rent expensive cars to show off as their own.
  
  "Slip outside and call and have yourself paged
  Get on the phone and scream as though in a rage"
  
  Before cell phones, this was a classic ploy in Hollywood: have yourself paged, then pretend to boss around the imaginary person on the other end of the line.