While Sam Smith has figured prominently in my personal internal soundtrack this year (“Latch”, “Good Thing”, his cover of Whitney Houston’s “How Will I Know?”, etc.), other than the generalized vibe of unrequited love, I didn’t really feel any direct personal emotional associations with “Stay with Me” (this despite the fact that I included it on a few playlists, although it has since acquired indirect personal emotional associations….)

In June, it struck me how much “Stay with Me” has the same melodic structure as “I Won’t Back Down” by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and it still cracks me up and even has some vague direct personal meaningfulness to it now.

Some mashups on YouTube:

Well, I won’t back down
No, I won’t back down
You can stand me up at the gates of hell
But I won’t back down
…
Hey baby, there ain’t no easy way out
Hey, I will stand my ground and I won’t back down