Sam Smith has revealed their regret at not responding to a letter Tom Petty sent them during the songwriting-credit dispute surrounding ‘Stay With Me’.
The singer reflected on the controversy during a recent appearance on Alchemy With Anthony Mason, maintaining that they had never heard Petty’s ‘I Won’t Back Down’ before writing their 2014 breakthrough single.
Petty and Jeff Lynne were added as co-writers of ‘Stay With Me’ in 2015 after the publishers of the 1989 track contacted Smith’s team about similarities between the songs’ choruses.
Smith’s representatives described the resemblance as a “complete coincidence” at the time, with the parties ultimately reaching an amicable agreement.
“You’ve got to understand, ‘Stay With Me’ was written in a basement in London and I’d never ever heard ‘I Won’t Back Down’,” Smith said in the new interview.
“Regretfully, actually. I, as a young kid, just didn’t listen to men, if I’m honest. The only male singers I ever listened to were Stevie Wonder and George Michael. I was a kid that just loved the divas. And girl pop. So I’d never heard it.”
Smith went on to reveal that Petty wrote to them shortly before the 2015 Grammy Awards, where they won four prizes, including Record Of The Year and Song Of The Year for ‘Stay With Me’.
“He wrote me a letter the night before the Grammys and it arrived to my room,” they recalled. “I was so pissed off when I read it.”
They recalled Petty writing that there were “only so many notes on the piano”, which initially left them frustrated. “I was like, ‘You get it, so why is this happening?’” Smith explained.
“Now as I’m older I understand why, I understand that it wasn’t just him,” Smith continued. “I think he was trying to say that I see you and I understand what you’re going through right now and I’m sorry that this is all happening.
“Which was actually very, very sweet and kind of him. I’m so deeply regretful that I never responded to him. I never wrote back to him. I was just a little sassy 22-year-old queer kid. But I definitely should’ve written back to him.”
Following news of the agreement in 2015, Petty released a statement insisting that he held “no hard feelings” towards Smith and considered the similarity a “musical accident”.
“All my years of songwriting have shown me these things can happen,” he wrote. “Sam’s people were very understanding of our predicament and we easily came to an agreement. The word lawsuit was never even said and was never my intention.”
Petty died in October 2017 at the age of 66.
Smith, meanwhile, released their fifth studio album ‘Hazel Eyes’ earlier this month. The record was previewed by ‘My Guy’, ‘Oh Mother’ and ‘When He’s Gone’.
They will support the album with their ‘To Be Free’ UK residencies, beginning with two shows at Manchester’s Albert Hall on September 3 and 4. Smith will then perform at the London Coliseum between September 8 and 19. Any remaining tickets can be found here.
Smith recently announced their engagement to fashion designer Christian Cowan, revealing that their relationship had inspired ‘Hazel Eyes’.
“For me, there’s something radical about being queer in this time, in this world and singing love songs,” they said. “I’m not going to allow the poison that I read and that I see to affect my way of loving.”
