Elvis Costello has confirmed he won’t be suing Olivia Rodrigo over similarities between their songs.
Fans had claimed that a guitar riff on Rodrigo’s song Brutal was a “direct lift” from Costello’s Pump It Up.
However, the 70-year-old artist isn’t bothered by the similarities between the tunes.
“This is fine by me,” he said in 2021 when the claims first emerged. “It’s how rock and roll works. You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand-new toy. That’s what I did.”
Now the singer has spoken out again, explaining why he chose not to involve lawyers in the situation.
“Now, I did not find any reason to go after them legally for that, because I think it would be ludicrous,” he told Vanity Fair. “It’s a shared language of music. Other people clearly felt differently about other songs on that record.”
He was seemingly referring to Oliva’s songs Déjà Vu and Good 4 U, which both featured alongside Brutal on her debut album Sour. On the former song, Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff, and St. Vincent received writing credits as it interpolates Swift’s track Cruel Summer.
In addition, Hayley Williams and Josh Farro from Paramore were retroactively credited as songwriters on Good 4 U due to its similarities with their song Misery Business.
At the time, Olivia, now 21, said, “Every single artist is inspired by artists who have come before them. It’s sort of a fun, beautiful sharing process. Nothing in music is ever new. There’s four chords in every song. That’s the fun part – trying to make that your own.”
