There’s a lot of speculation that singer Sam Smith is being accused of “plagiarism” all because of Tom Petty getting rewarded some royalties and song credits for Sam’s song “Stay With Me” which sounds like Tom’s song, “I Wont Back Down”. I listened to Sam Smith’s song, “Stay With Me” this morning and I noticed the similarities. Just the chorus of the two songs sound pretty much the same.

There have been all kinds of internet controversy over this. Sam Smith fans were outraged at Tom Petty and there were a lot of speculation that Tom have successful sued Sam Smith.

Tom wants to clear the air that this isn’t a lawsuit and there never was one. There is no heated feud between the two of them. They’re totally cool with each other and agreed with each other that Tom would get some credits for the song.

Tom says it’s just a “musical accident” which I happen to agree with.

These days it’s getting very hard to make “original” music. It’s very hard to make something totally original that doesn’t sound like someone else ’cause everything have been already done over the years, ya know? So it’s not Sam’s fault that he wrote a song that sounds like something else.

It’s the same deal with other bands and artists. Most bands like Led Zep, The Beatles, The Stones, The Who, etc. have all been accused of plagiarism but in my opinion, no. You write a song and next thing you know, someone else already has the same melody when you didn’t know it. Happens all the time. That’s what happened with the whole Coldplay vs. Joe Satriani thing.

I just don’t believe that artists rip off other songs. Stealing ideas is not their intention. A “musical accident” like Tom explained. Sometimes artists like to borrow stuff from other artists, that happens too.

It’s a real shame that the media made Tom look like the bad guy in this — thanks to gossip sites like TMZ and shit, ya know?

Tom is a class act, though. He has always been a nice guy and he responded to this like a real professional. Wish we had more in the music business like him!

Kev