Months after the release of “Sour,” the “Deja Vu” production credits were retroactively updated to list Swift, Antonoff, and Annie Clark (aka St. Vincent), who all worked on “Cruel Summer,” as cowriters alongside Rodrigo and Nigro.
This means that Rodrigo and Nigro split the song’s royalties with the “Cruel Summer” trio.
To be clear: Swift did not sue for credit, as some fans have claimed online. There is no evidence that Swift took legal action against Rodrigo. It’s more likely their teams came to an agreement behind the scenes after Rodrigo publicly cited Swift’s song as inspiration for “Deja Vu.”
The following month, Rodrigo continued sharing the wealth: She gave Paramore frontwoman Hayley Williams and ex-guitarist Josh Farro writing credits on “Good 4 U.” Sources told Variety the revision was made to reflect an interpolation of the band’s 2007 pop-punk hit “Misery Business.”
The retroactive credit is an increasingly common move in the music industry, now that plagiarism lawsuits have become commonplace, pricey, and unpredictable. (See: Robin Thicke and Ed Sheeran, who were both sued over comparisons to Marvin Gaye’s music. Thicke lost, while Sheeran won.)
Williams, however, seemed to disagree with this tack. She reacted to the news on her Instagram Story, writing, “Our publisher is wildin [right now]” — implying that Paramore’s publisher pushed for credit in order to capitalize on Rodrigo’s success. Billboard reported that between “Deja Vu” and “Good 4 U,” Rodrigo gave up millions in publishing royalties.
“It’s not something that I was super involved in,” Rodrigo later told Rolling Stone. “It was more team-on-team.”
Meanwhile, amid comparisons between Rodrigo’s song “Brutal” and Elvis Costello’s 1978 hit “Pump It Up,” the British rocker praised Rodrigo.
“It’s how rock and roll works,” Costello wrote on X. “You take the broken pieces of another thrill and make a brand new toy. That’s what I did.”
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