This image was posted on Instagram by Sam Smith
Singer Sam Smith says that similarities between his song
Stay With Me and Tom Petty's
I Won't Back Down is just an unfortunate coincidence because he has never heard the 1989 composition. The 23-year-old singer shared his view over the row, while talking to GQ magazine, reports
mirror.co.uk.
The singer was previously ordered to pay the songwriter royalties because of similarities between the track and his own song
Stay With Me.
"It's never going to be fair to me because I sat in a room with two guys and wrote a song. One guy played some beautiful chords and I started singing and wrote a song about a one-night stand. That is genuinely how it was," he said. (Also Read:
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The singer added: "I am 23 years old. Tom Petty's song came out way before I was born and still to this day, people don't know this that I actually haven't listened to the song. I refuse to listen to it. Even now I won't listen to it."
"There are only so many notes on a piano. We were just unfortunate that it happened, but there was no bad intention. Tom Petty wrote me a really nice letter, which I thought was really kind, but I am never going to be happy about it as it's still my song to me," he said.
Mr Petty had previously described the similarities between the two songs as a "musical accident" and insisted that he bears no offence towards Sam.