The American Federation of Musicians defines arranging as, "the art of preparing and adapting an already written composition for presentation in other than its original form. An arrangement may include reharmonization, paraphrasing, and/or development of a composition, so that it fully represents the melodic, harmonic, and rhythmic structure." "Arranging Music for the Real World: Classical and Commercial Aspects," Vince Corozine, 2002, p. 3
Being listed in the liner notes of an album as a "songwriter," doesn't always suggest writing lyrics.
If someone contributed to the arrangement or re-arrangement of a song in any way, then that constitutes a songwriting credit. If Beyonce was actually this notorious thief that so many of you all have convinced yourself that she is, then it wouldn't make sense that the people she's "stolen" from would continue to work with her and it certainly wouldn't make sense that her reputation is completely untarnished considering anyone she's ever worked with has had nothing but positive things to say regarding her musicianship, creativity and work ethic.
Some of you all stan for people who literally have someone else sing their songs and get credited as a lead vocalist. That seems like a more fitting scandal for those libelous blogs that you all bring up as receipts to write about in their articles nobody reads.
There you have nothing. The song, originally recorded by Jon McLaughlin, was called Smack Into You in its demo stages. Beyonce recorded the song, changed the word smack to smash, made changes to the instrumentation and slightly embellished the vocal arrangement. Nobody stole anything from anyone.
