Rock Genius Editors - Did Tom Petty Steal a Hook of His Own? lyrics

The adult contemporary music world was softly rocked this week by the news that Tom Petty would be getting a writing credit on Sam Smith's 2014 hit "Stay With Me," which turns out to be much the same song as Petty's 1989 "I Won't Back Down." Listen to this mashup if you don't believe it: Stay With Me/I Won't Back Down We applaud. Justice has run down like waters, like a mighty stream. But can Tom Petty really claim the moral high ground here? It could just be our ears, but we've always been nagged by the similarity between Petty's "Here Comes My Girl"—you know, "Here comes my giiiirrrrrlllllllll"— Here Comes My Girl And the Bert Berns cla**ic "Here Comes the Night," made famous by Van Morrison: Here Comes the Night Listen to Van. Now listen to Petty. Is that not the same damn hook with two words changed and half the soul surgically removed? Maybe that's really our beef here: "Here Comes the Night" is a raw ode to lost love, fresh jealousy, and tormented insomnia ("the long, the long, the lonely night"). "Here Comes My Girl" is, well, "Here comes my giiiirrrrrlllllllll..." Nothing against Petty in general; his career has had plenty of finer moments. But now that he's making a little extra money off another artist's sticky fingers, shouldn't he cop to his own? And if that day of reckoning ever comes, can we, as a culture, also find the strength to admit that "Rolling in the Deep" is really a Gnarls Barkley song?