LONDON — The obvious comparison was Lionel Richie, but now music fans have noticed a similarity between Adele's "Hello" and another song: Tom Waits' "Martha."

Listeners on Twitter think that the premise of her song, calling an old friend on the phone, is eerily similar to that of his 1973 track from his album Closing Time.

On "Martha," a 24-year-old Waits imagines himself as an older man, calling an old flame and reminiscing about their times together before revealing that he's still in love with her. On "Hello," a 27-year-old Adele calls an anonymous person (on a flip phone, which Waits is unlikely to have used) to say "I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet."

The new Adele song (which I've finally heard) is essentially just "Martha" by Tom Waits tho isn't it. — Davad (@davadsteel) October 29, 2015

Just copped that Adele's Hello is a copy of Tom Waits' Martha. — Cathal Ó hÚagáin (@CathalWogan) October 29, 2015

Adele's "Hello" is pretty much another version of Tom Waits's "Martha." — B Haley (@GhastlyFop) November 2, 2015

Hear a lot of @tomwaits' Martha in new @Adele. Noice. — sylas (@syyylas) October 23, 2015

I'm sorry, but Adele's Hello was done about a thousand times better when Tom Waits did it back in the 70s...and it was called Martha — Immortan Withers (@ThatOscarGuy) October 25, 2015

Anyone else suspect Adele has been listening to Tom Waits? New tune is basically Martha sung by a woman. She should've called it 'Martin' — Richard Roche (@RRocheNeuro) October 23, 2015

This is how Adele's "Hello" begins:

"Hello, it's me / I was wondering if after all these years you'd like to meet / To go over everything / They say that time's supposed to heal ya, but I ain't done much healing."

And this is a snippet of Waits' "Martha" from 30 seconds in.

"Hello, hello there, is this Martha? This is old Tom Frost / And I am calling long distance, don't worry 'bout the cost / 'Cause it's been forty years or more, now Martha please recall / Meet me out for coffee, where we'll talk about it all."

While Waits' track specifically addresses one person, Adele recently insisted her track wasn't about any single individual.

"It's not about anyone specifically. It's about friends, ex-boyfriends, it's about myself, it's about my family," she said in a recent interview. "It's also about my fans as well. I feel like everyone thinks I'm so far away and I'm not. Everyone thinks I live in fucking America, I don't."

Some were more sceptical about the similarities.

"Tom Waits fans accuse Adele of plagiarising his 1973 track Martha" Hmm. The topics are similar, but come on. — Sue Kirk (@SueKirk) November 3, 2015

However, producer and songwriter Greg Kurstin, who worked with Adele on the track, specifically named Tom Waits as an inspiration in an interview with Entertainment Weekly last month.

“She didn’t want to just go through and write a pop song with any particular formula,” he said. “We talked about Tom Waits, and different storytellers like that. I think that was the idea, that we wanted to do something that was very honest about where she was at right now, and she wanted to do something that was real and believable.”

The track has been a massive success, selling more than 1.1 million digital copies in the first week and becoming the first song to break the 1 million mark on the Billboard album charts. In the UK, its opening week sales were 333,000, comprising 259,000 downloads and a record-breaking 7.32 million streams (with 100 streams equating one sale), according to the Official Charts Company. The track also shattered Vevo's record for views in a single day, amassing 27.7 million in 24 hours.

"Hello" is the first track from Adele's highly anticipated third album, 25, which is out Nov. 20 on XL Recordings.