Stella Lefty has explained how Noah Kahan came to receive a songwriting credit on her hit ‘Boston’ and how the songs’ similarities came about.
The track was released in March and has now climbed to a peak of Number Two on the Billboard Hot 100. For some listeners, its chorus bears a close resemblance to Kahan’s 2022 breakout hit ‘Stick Season’, and Kahan is credited as a songwriter on ‘Boston’, alongside Lefty, Grace Enger, Jacob Hindlin and Joe Reeves.
Now, Lefty has spoken to Vanity Fair about how the song came about, explaining that she wrote it about her boyfriend, country musician Vincent Mason, shortly after the pair met in Nashville.
When she became aware that some had likened it to ‘Stick Season’, she said she did not immediately recognise the similarity. “When I was writing this song, I wasn’t thinking about Noah Kahan,” she said. “I was literally thinking about nothing at all.”
Kahan’s representatives contacted Lefty to let her know that they thought the similarities were real, and Lefty has said she decided to give Kahan the songwriting credit before the song was officially released.
“I don’t want to step on anybody’s toes, so I’m like, if this sounds like that, whatever, all good,” she said.
Watch videos for both songs here:
‘Stick Season’ went on to become the biggest song of 2024 in the UK and discussing the meaning of its title with NME in 2023, he said: “‘Stick Season’ is between fall and the snow. It’s a time of transition in the weather, but also in a lot of people’s lives.”
‘Boston’ features on Lefty’s debut album ‘Long Way Home’, which was released last Friday (August 21), and she has also announced an 18-date North American headline tour, which begins in Detroit on January 8 and runs until a Chicago date on February 20. Find any remaining tickets here.
Kahan, meanwhile, is currently touring in support of his fourth album ‘The Great Divide‘, and he recently announced three ‘Last Of The Bugs’ stadium shows in the UK and Ireland for July next year, including the biggest headline concert of his career at London’s Wembley Stadium.
NME awarded Kahan’s 2024 Wembley Arena show five stars, noting: “Having made folk-pop cool again – it was once, perhaps fairly, derided as ‘stomp clap hey’ music – there’s no denying the torch-bearing troubadour was made to play massive stages.”
