Songwriter Claims Jason Aldean’s ‘You Make It Easy’ Is Plagiarized

A Canadian songwriter is accusing the writers of Jason Aldean‘s latest single “You Make it Easy” of plagiarism, with Connor Shaw laying out his claims in a recent Twitter thread.

Shaw wrote that he wrote a song called “Easy” in 2015 while he was an amateur songwriter who was mainly writing and recording for classes to earn his music degree.

“This particular song ended up being quite well-received by the instructor in one of my songwriting courses, so I chose to post the song online,” he tweeted.

One year later, Shaw says he received a message on Facebook from a family friend who is a singer/songwriter from Nashville and offered to share his demos, with Shaw writing that the exchange happened in October of 2017.

In February 2018, Shaw wrote that he heard Aldean’s song for the first time and instantly believed it to be similar to his own.

“I thought ‘Hmm, that’s funny.’ My song uses that as the hook for the chorus, I wonder what this sounds like,” he wrote. “After listening for the first minute of the song I came to the shocking realization that “You Make It Easy” uses the same hook and melody as my song.”

“You Make it Easy” was penned by Morgan Wallen, Jordan Schmidt and Florida Georgia Line members Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley, though Shaw claims, “This is false. It’s actually mine.”

He also claimed that the two songs are lyrically similar as well, sharing an image of lyrics from both tracks side by side.

Shaw continued, “In short: the musical structure, lyrical content, and instrumentation used in his song are in a lot of ways identical to what is featured in my song.”

He wrote that after sharing concerns on Facebook, he was put in touch with a Canadian entertainment lawyer who he worked with to send a cease and desist to Florida Georgia Line’s lawyer.

“Essentially their lawyer responded with a long-winded and incredibly condescending letter informing us that no matter what we did we would never have enough money to out-lawyer their team,” Shaw tweeted. “Beyond that, their isn’t much I can do other than watch the song I wrote gain an unbelievable amount of popularity. And for those wondering, I did reach out to my family friend to ask who she sent the song to and she wouldn’t tell me.”

He concluded, “I just can’t shake this feeling that my song was taken from me and I can’t do anything about it. Well played, Jason Aldean. Well played. Have fun with my #1 song.”

Hear the two tracks to compare below.

Photo Credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com