What “Million Years Ago” is—and is not
“Million Years Ago” is the ninth track on Adele’s 2015 album 25. Adele and Greg Kurstin are the credited writers; Kurstin produced the recording and supplied its spare guitar accompaniment. It was officially released with the album on November 20, 2015, as confirmed by XL Recordings’ release listing.
It was not initially issued as a conventional international single. Downloads and prominent television performances nevertheless carried it onto charts in several territories. The Official Charts Company dates its first UK chart appearance to December 3, 2015, but that chart entry does not replace the album-release date or retroactively establish a full UK single campaign.
Nor was an “extended snippet” an official Adele product. In the week of release, alleged excerpts from 25 spread online; The Guardian reported the label’s attempts to contain the premature material. Some reports described two-minute previews accidentally exposed by a retailer. Whatever their precise paths, those fragments were unauthorized or prematurely accessible portions of the album master—not alternate editions, promotional singles or separate compositions.
The sound of looking backward
“Million Years Ago” is one of the least decorated recordings on 25. Adele’s voice occupies the foreground while an acoustic guitar traces a minor-key, European-sounding progression. There is no rhythm section to push the song forward and no large gospel or orchestral climax to soften its loneliness. Kurstin’s production frames the voice almost as a private recital.
Adele’s subject is the cost of an extraordinary life. She looks back toward friendships, familiar streets and the freedom to move through the world without being watched. The title exaggerates elapsed time to express emotional distance: the life she misses is chronologically near but psychologically unreachable.
That theme belongs to 25’s broader reckoning with adulthood. Adele had become a mother and an international celebrity between 21 and 25. In TIME’s extensive 2015 profile, she discussed the gulf between her son’s environment and her own upbringing; the same profile observed her rehearsing and performing “Million Years Ago” during the US promotional campaign. The song’s nostalgia is therefore grounded in a documented transition, though any claim that every scene is literal autobiography would go beyond the evidence.
Her vocal is deliberately exposed. She begins with a close, conversational tone, then permits roughness and pressure to enter as the melody climbs. Because there are few other sounds, breaths and changes in vowel color become structural events. The performance suggests an old torch song, but the loss is not simply a lover. It is anonymity, youth and a former relationship to place.
Public performances made a deep cut visible
Adele sang “Million Years Ago” during several high-profile 25 appearances, including Today and her BBC television special. Those performances mattered because the album was initially unavailable on on-demand streaming. Television supplied a mass audience for a track that lacked a standard video campaign.
The song’s austerity translated well to that setting. Rather than reproduce the maximal drama of “Hello,” Adele could stand almost still and let the melody carry the emotional narrative. Its uncluttered arrangement also invited comparison with older chanson, folk and Mediterranean ballad traditions. Such comparisons describe audible style; they do not, by themselves, establish borrowing from any specific prior work.
Commercially, the song behaved like a prominent album track. It entered the UK rankings after 25 arrived and charted elsewhere through downloads and public exposure. That trajectory should not be mislabeled as proof of a worldwide single release. In the mid-2010s, individual tracks from a blockbuster album could chart without physical manufacture, radio servicing or a dedicated official video.
The scale of the parent album amplified everything around it. Within four days, 25 had broken the modern US weekly-sales record, according to contemporary Nielsen figures reported by TIME. “Million Years Ago” consequently reached millions as part of an album purchase before any later legal controversy reshaped discussion of it.
The first similarity debate
Soon after release, listeners on social media compared the melody with “Acilara Tutunmak,” associated with Kurdish-Turkish singer Ahmet Kaya and released in the 1980s. That was a public allegation, not an adjudicated finding. Kaya’s widow reportedly said she did not believe Adele would intentionally take the melody, and no widely documented court judgment established infringement in that dispute.
The responsible formulation is therefore narrow: listeners identified a resemblance; the credited composition remained Adele and Kurstin’s; and the early comparison did not produce a documented transfer of credit. Melodic familiarity is not automatically evidence of copying. Short descending phrases and minor-key turns recur throughout popular and traditional music, while copyright analysis also considers protectable expression, access and substantial similarity under the relevant law.
That does not make comparisons illegitimate. It means musical impression and legal proof answer different questions.
The Brazilian case over “Mulheres”
A more consequential dispute emerged years later. Brazilian samba composer Toninho Geraes alleged that “Million Years Ago” copied “Mulheres,” his composition made famous by Martinho da Vila in the 1990s. El País reported that Geraes pursued legal action after being alerted to the resemblance, naming Adele, Kurstin and associated music companies.
In December 2024, a Rio de Janeiro court issued a preliminary injunction directing that “Million Years Ago” not be used, reproduced or commercialized without authorization and threatening penalties for noncompliance. The order attracted headlines describing a global removal. Yet the procedural status is essential: an injunction is an interim measure, not necessarily a final judgment after a complete trial on authorship and damages.
Universal challenged the order. In January 2025, CNN Brasil reported that the Rio court maintained the injunction. The defense argued that the shared melodic material was a musical cliché appearing in works older than “Mulheres.” Geraes sought authorship recognition, royalties and compensation. Reporting available through that stage did not justify saying that the complete litigation had reached an irreversible final resolution.
This case is separate from the Ahmet Kaya comparison. Conflating them creates a false story in which one allegation automatically proves another. They involve different songs, countries, claimants and legal histories.
Hearing the song after the dispute
It is possible to hear why “Million Years Ago” attracted comparisons. Its melody is unusually foregrounded, the accompaniment is skeletal, and the phrases move with the inevitability of something half-remembered. That observation is musical interpretation, not a verdict on originality.
The dispute also complicates the song’s cultural meaning. A recording about memory now carries competing memories from listeners in Turkey and Brazil, some of whom hear their own musical histories inside Adele’s melody. Global pop does not circulate in a vacuum; a tune that sounds generically “old world” to one audience may resemble a specific, cherished repertoire to another.
Critically, the ballad sits within 25’s conscious embrace of older adult-pop forms. Pitchfork’s review of the album situated Adele within the tradition of grand, soft-focus twentieth-century vocal music. That context helps explain the recording’s familiarity but cannot settle the Brazilian legal claim.
The verified account therefore has several layers. “Million Years Ago” is an officially released 25 track from November 20, 2015, written and recorded under Adele and Kurstin’s documented credits. Pre-release snippets were unauthorized previews, not separate versions. Early listeners alleged similarity to an Ahmet Kaya song without a documented infringement judgment. A later Brazilian lawsuit over Geraes’s “Mulheres” produced a serious preliminary restriction that survived an initial challenge in January 2025, while the merits remained contested.
The song endures because the controversy does not erase its performance—and the performance does not erase the controversy. Both belong in its history, carefully distinguished.