Sam Smith 'refuses' to listen to Tom Petty's 'I Won't Back Down'

The 23-year-old singer was previously ordered to pay the songwriter royalties because of similarities between the track and his own song 'Stay With Me', but he insists it is just an unfortunate coincidence because he had never even heard the 1989 composition.

He told GQ magazine: "It's never going to be fair to me because I sat in a room with two guys and wrote a song.