When British singer/songwriter Sam Smith first graced the airwaves of pop radio with his standout single “Stay With Me”, an unlikely theory began to spread throughout the songwriting industry. Smith’s single, when sped up a bit and dropped in tone, sounds eerily like Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” – so much so that Smith will now share 12.5% of the royalties made from “Stay With Me” with Petty and co-writer Jeff Lynne, who are now listed as co-writers on the track on ASCAP’s website.
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Smith’s representatives stated that the similarity was a complete coincidence, but when listening to the Petty/Lynne song, Smith and fellow writers James Napier and William Philips noticed the likeness.
“If you took just the first phrase of the Tom Petty and Sam Smith and compared them, I would say, ‘So what? I can find that in all sorts of music from Cream, Robert Johnson, Debussy,’ ” said Michael Harrington – a professor in musicology who specializes in federal copyright matters – in an interview with USA Today. “The fact that it keeps going and going: there are several phrases, and the rhythms are the same or extremely close to being the same. At some point, the similarity goes on too long.”
The songwriters in question settled out of court this past October. To judge for yourself, take a listen to the two tracks below.
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