Stella Lefty’s originality is under the spotlight again – it’s been alleged that her song Why Wouldn’t We from her recently released debut album Long Way Home bears an uncanny resemblance – both musically and in subject matter – to a country hit from nine years ago.
That song was Blake Shelton’s I’ll Name The Dogs and social media users have pointed out the similarities. See what you think..
It’s not the first time the 24-year-old singer-songwriter has got into trouble for (presumably, unknowing) plagiarism. Her first big hit Boston, which reached Number Two in the Billboard charts earlier this year, sailed too close to Stick Season. Hardly an obscure cut that Lefty could justifiably claim ignorance of, Noah Kahan’s monster hit has been one of the biggest songs of the decade thus far. To make matters worse, videos then emerged online of Lefty covering the song, and since then Kahan has had to be added to Boston’s credits.
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After that came Summer You Were Mine, another Long Way Home album track, which interpolates The (Dixie) Chicks’ 1998 hit There’s Your Trouble. Embarrassingly, the original writers were missing from credits of the streaming version, though Lefty’s record label, Atlantic, blamed this on a “streaming platform error” and has since rectified the problem.
All in all, it’s not a good look for an artist whose background, let’s say, doesn’t throw a sympathetic light upon her. Lefty is the daughter of a multi-billionaire tech bro: Eric Lefkofsky, the co-founder of Groupon and the current CEO of health tech firm Tempus AI. Phrases like ‘nepo baby’ have been bandied round about Lefty. Some might say that moving fast and breaking stuff probably runs in her blood…
As yet, Shelton and the interested parties regarding I’ll Name The Dogs have yet to comment on the comparisons between the two songs, though you suspect someone will eventually.
