Despite playing together on ‘The Long Goodbye Tour‘ until Donald Fagen’s health problems forced a change of plans in October, The Eagles and Steely Dan had a musical rivalry in the past.
Having the same management, the two bands made references to each other in their music during the 1970s. Steely Dan established the trend in 1976 with ‘Everything You Did’ from the album ‘The Royal Scam’, but Don Henley took revenge the same year with another song.
How The Eagles Repaid Steely Dan
Many people saw Dan’s ‘Everything You Did‘ lines, ‘Turn up The Eagles, the neighbors are listening,’ as a dig at the ‘New Kid In Town’ players.
With some accounts claiming that Walter Becker’s anger with his girlfriend’s liking of The Eagles inspired the song, speculation regarding its significance continued for years. In an interview with Uncut magazine, Don Henley explained if the lyrics were a ‘piss‘ or an ‘accolade‘.
“It was a bit of both! I know them well, and he was like, ‘Everybody in LA’s playing this f**kin’ record, and I’m sick of it!‘ It was both an acknowledgment and a joke since we had the same management – and still have – but you know, they’re quite droll, especially [Donald] Fagen.”
The artist started returning the gesture with ‘Hotel California‘ and went on:
“We paid them in ‘Hotel California,’ with the phrase ‘They stab it with their steely blades, but they still can’t slay the beast. That was my rejoinder.
The Steely Dan Inspiration And The Backlash Against The Track
Initially, the words to ‘Hotel California‘ directly referenced Steely Dan, but The Eagles eventually opted to be less obvious and modified them. Glenn Frey explained this in an interview:
“We just wanted to allude to Steely Dan rather than mentioning them outright, so ‘Dan’ got changed to ‘knives,’ which is still, you know, a penile metaphor.”
In contrast, the song’s content and topic sparked controversy in the 1970s due to alleged satanic undertones. Frey subsequently emphasized that the song was mainly about artistic independence, which was somewhat inspired by Steely Dan. Talking to BBC, he shared:
“Everyone wants to know what the song’s about, but we don’t. Don and I admired Steely Dan, and they had some courageous and unconventional lyrics, but we’d never done anything out of the ordinary before. Then we took a risk with ‘Hotel California,’ saying, ‘It’s just a movie; it doesn’t have to make sense.'”
Later Relations Between The Two Bands
Despite their history of antagonism, Steely Dan and The Eagles maintained a positive friendship. Indeed, Timothy B. Schmit collaborated on Dan’s albums such as ‘The Royal Scam’ and ‘Aja.’ There was also an attempt to have Don Henley provide backup vocals for 1977’s ‘Peg,’ but it did not work out.
