Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent land writing credits on Olivia Rodrigo hit 'deja vu'

Olivia Rodrigo and her main collaborator, songwriter-producer Daniel Nigro, have offered Taylor Swift, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent a songwriting credit on 'deja vu'.

The hit track marks the second song from Rodrigo’s global No. 1 debut album Sour to receive such a non-collaborative credit, after '1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back.'

Taylor Swift's influence on Olivia Rodrigo has been unabashed. As well as being a huge Taylor Swift fan, Rodrigo has cited on numerous occasions Swift's influence on her songwriting. The High School Musical: The Series actress has also mentioned in several interviews that her song 'Deja Vu' was heavily influenced by Swift's 2019 song 'Cruel Summer'.

This connection has now been formalised, as Taylor Swift has been added to the song's credits on Spotify and Tidal. By default, Jack Antonoff and St. Vincent have also been added to the song's credit list as they co-wrote 'Cruel Summer' with Swift.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Rodrigo said that she was inspired by the 'Cruel Summer' bridge while writing the same section for 'deja vu'.

“It’s one of my favourite songs ever. I love like the yell-y vocals in it, like the harmonised yells that Swift does, I think they’re like super electric and moving, so I wanted to do something like that,” she says. It's this yelling which Rodrigo borrowed for 'deja vu''s bridge. Whilst this is arguably a stylistic arrangement decision, Swift has received full co-writing credit.

Rodrigo's track '1 Step Forward, 3 Steps Back' interpolates Swift's Reputation song 'New Year’s Day', which was co-written with Antonoff. Whilst there has been no comment on the reason for making the influence official, Swift is known for ensuring all loose ends are tied with her rights to her music. The re-release of the 30-year-old's 2012 album Red is due to land in November.

Copyright infringement cases can be extremely complex, such as the noteworthy lawsuits involving Katy Perry’s 'Dark Horse,' Robin Thicke and Pharrell’s 'Blurred Lines' and even Led Zeppelin’s 'Stairway to Heaven.' Two high-profile situations that were settled out of court include Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars’ 2014 hit 'Uptown Funk' and Sam Smith’s 'Stay With Me,' the writers of which in 2015 made an undisclosed settlement with Tom Petty over their song’s similarity to his 1989 hit 'I Won’t Back Down.'

Check out the Hot Press review of Sour here.