Yesterday, 2oceansvibe reported that a local man, Guy Hobbs, had accused Elton John of plagiarising and misappropriating lyrics that he had written for John’s hit single, “Nikita”.

This morning, he contacted us for full comment. Read his compelling argument, after the jump.

The song is based on my experiences with a Russian cruise ship waitress in 1982 when I worked as a photographer on a Russian cruise ship. My hook is “Natasha the freedom you’ll never know”. Nikita’s hook is “Nikita you will never know”. In Sept 1984 I sent my lyrics to a publisher called “Big Pig”. I learnt, 17 years later, that Big Pig is Elton John and Bernie Taupin. 4 months after getting my lyrics they wrote a song called Nikita. Similar name, theme, hook, chorus and structure. 50 percent of Nikita can be found to have linguistic roots in my lyrics.

I saw the lyrics in 2001 for the first time and was amazed at the similarities. 2 months later I contacted their lawyers. They did what lawyers do and said I didn’t have a case. In time I got 4 of the world’s leading experts in forensic musicology, forensic linguistics, song writing and copyright infringement to confirm that the 2 lyrics were substantially similar.

A statistical analysis shows that there is more chance of winning the lottery 6 weeks in a row than there is for such similarities to happen by coincidence.

11 years ago, when I first discovered the infringement, I was told it would cost hundreds of thousands of pounds to take the matter to court. This was money I didn’t have. For 11 years I have been trying to work out how a person of limited financial means is meant to get justice from the world’s richest pop star.

Finally a US attorney, impressed by my struggle for justice and my case, has agreed to help me to take this to court in a way I can afford.

This was one of Elton’s most popular songs. He and Bernie won an Ivor Novello award for “best written song of the year” … yet neither Elton nor Bernie have ever talked about it or the roots of the song … I wonder why that would be ?

Notice what Elton plays in the video … a photographer … mmmm… interesting.

Elton and Bernie had a big break in 1967 when a music business insider connected them – this action changed their lives. 16 years later I was also in London looking for a big break into the music business and song writing – this would have been it – Elton and Bernie had a chance to “pass it forward” and acknowledge that I was a co-writer of Nikita. They choose not to – instead they kept all the credit and royalties to themselves. Not cool …

I thought I had failed as a song writer. Instead I had unknowingly been co-writer of the biggest hit of the year.

I thought I would give you guys a few more facts seeing as there is a lot of confusion out there. At the end of the day, the simple fact is, had I never written Natasha, Nikita would simply never have happened.

Spicy.

What do YOU think?