Stella Lefty Lifts from The Chicks on New Song “Summer You Were Mine”

Stella Lefty has another familiar-sounding song on her hands. This time, though, everyone involved knew about it before release. “Summer You Were Mine,” a track from Lefty’s debut album Long Way Home, borrows from The Chicks‘ 1998 hit “There’s Your Trouble.” Fans noticed the resemblance after the album arrived on August 21st, but the original songwriters, Tia Sillers and Mark Selby, were initially missing from the credits on streaming services. Atlantic Records says that was a platform error: Lefty’s team had received clearance from Sony Publishing in June, and internal documents listed Sillers and Selby as writers before the album came out. Their names have since been added in the credits. Get Stella Lefty Tickets Here In practical terms, Lefty isn’t using an actual piece of The Chicks’ recording. Instead, “Summer You Were Mine” recreates recognizable aspects of the song. That’s an important distinction in music copyright — sampling uses audio from an existing recording, while this kind of borrowing deals with the melody, lyrics, or other parts of the song itself. Regardless, permission generally needs to be sorted out before release. Sillers, who co-wrote “There’s Your Trouble” w...