مهرسد Hearing “Hotel California” for the first time gave Jethro Tull multi-instrumentalist Ian Anderson a serious case of déjà vu. To his ears, the global smash sounded distinctly like his own composition, “We Used to Know,” from the prog-rockers’ 1969 sophomore album, Stand Up. The fact that the Eagles and Jethro Tull toured together in 1972 did little to dispel his belief that, maliciously or not, they lifted elements of the song from him. “Maybe it was just something they kind of picked up on subconsciously, and introduced that chord sequence into their famous song ‘Hotel California’ sometime later,” he said in an interview with Songfacts.
In the Eagles’ defense, the tour took place two years before Felder, the song’s primary composer, officially joined the band in 1974 – though he was a friend of founding guitarist Bernie Leadon at the time and could have conceivably attended one of the performances. Felder himself later denied having ever heard “We Used to Know” at the time he wrote the song, and claimed to know little about Jethro Tull other than that they featured a flautist.
Whatever the case, Anderson takes a magnanimous view of the incident. “It’s just the same chord sequence,” he continues. “It’s in a different time signature, different key, different context. And it’s a very, very fine song that they wrote, so I can’t feel anything other than a sense of happiness for their sake. … There’s certainly no bitterness or any sense of plagiarism attached to my view on it – although I do sometimes allude, in a joking way, to accepting it as a kind of tribute.”
