In a new interview, Sam Smith says they had never heard “I Won’t Back Down” before writing “Stay With Me,” and now regrets not responding to Tom Petty’s Grammy-week letter.
More than a decade after Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne were awarded a 12.5% writing credit on Sam Smith’s “Stay With Me,” Smith has returned to the story with a more personal account. In an episode of Alchemy With Anthony Mason, Smith said the song was written in a London basement and maintained they had never heard “I Won’t Back Down” at the time.
“The only male singers I ever listened to were Stevie Wonder and George Michael,” Smith said. Petty’s letter arrived the night before the 2015 Grammys, where Smith won four awards for In the Lonely Hour. At 22, Smith read it and was “pissed off.”
Smith now reads that note differently. “He said it himself in the letter to me that there’s only so many notes on the piano,” they recalled. The frustration was that Petty seemed to understand the
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