News Mania Desk/ Piyal Chatterjee / 17th September 2024
Miley Cyrus, an American singer and songwriter who received her first Grammy Award this year for the song “Flowers,” is being sued in federal court in Los Angeles for allegedly ripping off a part of Bruno Mars’ 2013 hit song “When I Was Your Man.” The complaint names Miley as well as Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack, the co-writers of “Flowers.”
It’s interesting that Bruno Mars isn’t named among the case’s plaintiffs. Rather, the case was brought by Tempo Music Investments, a business that bought a portion of the rights to “When I Was Your Man” from Philip Lawrence, one of the song’s co-writers. Target, Walmart, Apple, Sony Music Publishing, Target, and other businesses are also named in the case for distributing “Flowers.”
The lawsuit states, “Any fan of Bruno Mars’s “When I Was Your Man” knows that Miley Cyrus’s “Flowers” did not achieve all of that success on its own,” according to a report by The Guardian. Many melodic, harmonic, and lyrical aspects of “When I Was Your Man” are repeated in “Flowers,” such as the verse’s melodic pitch design and sequencing, the chorus’s connecting bass line, a few chorus bars, some theatrical music components, lyric elements, and particular chord progressions.
“Flowers” would not exist without “When I Was Your Man,” it went on, based on the mixture and amount of similarities between the two recordings. Without permission, Cyrus, Hein, and Pollack composed a derivative piece called “Flowers” based on “When I Was Your Man.”
Many fans noticed the lyrics of the two songs back in 2023, and some speculated that Miley’s song “Flowers” was a jab at her longtime lover and ex-husband, Liam Hemsworth. There were rumors that Miley had “flipped” the 2013 hit song by Bruno Mars, which Liam had previously dedicated to her while they were dating. It is also noteworthy that Liam’s birthday coincided with the release of “Flowers.” While Bruno’s song reflects a man’s sorrow for not treating his spouse better and his fear of losing her, Miley’s song is all about self-reliance and self-love.
