Felder's Role in Writing Hotel California

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Yeah - I would venture to guess that the reason Jethro Tull/Ian Anderson never brought a lawsuit claiming the Hotel California rip-off of We Used to Know is because it would be baseless. Even Ian Anderson says as much in his comments here ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xny0Uj4--tk

[chaim]

I'm a Tull/Ian Anderson fan, but I'm not a fan of Ian's Hotel California thing. Ian always says that it's ok, and that Hotel California is a better song, and that the song is totally different etc. etc. But it's always Ian himself who brings it up. He mentions it in interviews and concerts. So obviously he very much wants the world to know that there's a similarity.

This Charlie Daniels Band song is much more similar to We Used To Know, but either Ian doesn't know the song, or it's nicer to talk about HC simply because it's such a classic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooTmF4Ow1mE
Ian keeps telling audiences how Eagles must have remembered We Used To Know from the days they toured together. Someone should tell him that the person who "came up with" the chords, was not in the band at that point.

Also, like I've said before, there's an Alice Cooper track from 1971 with pretty much the same chords. The "you never thought you'd be alone" bit in Wasted Time has pretty much the same chord progression. There must be tons of other songs. For those who don't play an instrument, I will show how similar the chords look. To make it clearer I'll put them in the same key.

Hotel California:
Am, E, G, D, F, C, Dm, E

We Used To Know
Am, E, G, D, F, C, B, E

The Charlie Daniel's Band song:
Am, E, G, D, F, C, B, E

The Alice Cooper song (Second Coming):
Am, E, G, D, F, C, E

The bit in Wasted Time (I'm ignoring the descending "bassline"):
Am, E, G, D, F, Em, Dm......It sounds different in Wasted Time, of course, because this drifts slightly away from main key of the song.

It's not the chord progression that is unique and great in HC, it's what Don F did with it. Ian seems to know this better than Don, although he keeps bringing up the similarity in chords.

Slightly off-topic, but that "unusual chromatic line" in the verses that Don mentions in his book is what the chords suggest, and you hear it in Wasted Time too, played by Glenn's left hand. It's common. Also, the movement from verse to chorus in HC is the most logical one you could make chordwise at that point, although in the book Don implies that it's a weird movement. It's called an "interrupted" or "deceptive" cadence - one of the most common features in tonal music (had to Google the English term!).

Overall I think that people in rock/pop music - or their lawyers! - tend to think that their stuff is more unique than it actually is. Then there are/were people like Freddie Mercury who did do different things (for a pop/rock group) now and then, but didn't talk about it like it was special.

So, to get back where I started, I find it a bit weird how Ian Anderson keeps saying that Eagles must have been influenced by his song and then always adds that it's a totally different song and it's a nonissue.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

Thank you for all the info, Chaim! It makes sense to see it written like that.

[chaim]

No problem. I'm not a big fan of Don describing the writing of HC in his book. Stuff like "I played with the chords, teased them, took them where they didn't want to go" is romanticising it a bit! Other people had been there before. In his 12-string part Don emphasizes the "chromatic descent" that can be "found" within the chord progression (like Glenn does in the "You never thought you'd be alone..." bit with his left hand), but there's nothing that unusual there IMO.

Of course, the fourth chord in Don's 12-string part is not just a basic triad, but it's essentially just that - just more notes on top. And Glenn plays it as a triad, and the bass plays the root of the triad.

Anyway, Sebastian is the guy who's more capable of discussing stuff like this, but I'll do my best.
Incidentally, unless I'm very much mistaken, Ian once said that it was Martin Barre - the Jethro Tull guitarist - who pointed this out to Ian. So if I remember correctly, Ian didn't even notice the similarity just by hearing HC!

[Ive always been a dreamer]

Thanks from me too, chaim. That really puts it in perspective. And I agree with everything you said about Ian Anderson. For the Hotel California rip-off thing not to be any big deal, he sure does have a way of making a big deal out of it.

[Jonny Come Lately]

I agree about Ian Anderson's comments - in any case, as others have pointed out, there was no way that Don Felder could have been inspired by Jethro Tull playing the song when the Eagles were supporting them given that he wasn't actually in the band yet, and there's little dispute that the introduction was originated by Felder alone without any input from the other four band members.

I am glad to hear that Ian Anderson acknowledges the quality of Hotel California (by all accounts he usually comes across as a pretty decent guy) - I've read comments before saying that HC was just a Jethro Tull rip-off. This ignores the brilliant and very creative lyrics which bear no resemblance to the Tull song. We Used To Know is a good song, but HC is a total classic and one of the defining songs of classic rock. Of course, this is a good reason for Anderson to mention it as being inspired by his band's music.

Thanks for posting those chord sequences chaim, I had no idea that the first five chords of the section of Wasted Time (a Henley/Frey composition) were quite so similar to the famous HC intro, although fortunately it certainly doesn't sound like self-plagiarism in any case.

[sodascouts]

Ian keeps telling audiences how Eagles must have remembered We Used To Know from the days they toured together. Someone should tell him that the person who "came up with" the chords, was not in the band at that point.

lol! Point well made!

I love reading your informative posts. I learn a lot from them!

[UndertheWire]

This copyright document came up in a random search. It's someone claiming he and his friend came up with the "two-part harmonised guitar solo" (I still don't see how you can have a two-part solo). I can't help wondering if it was a spoof application.
http://www.copyright.gov/docs/sectio..._Michelsen.pdf

[chaim]

"The reputation of the Eagles is at stake" because a few bars of a guitar solo?

And I don't see how the HC chord progression is made of "dominant and subdominant substitutions and alteration of a blues progression". If the bit in the solo he refers to has exactly the same notes for several bars, then it has to be the same chords too.

Anyway, fake, I'd say.

[sodascouts]

Sounds like a crackpot to me.