Why Mick Jagger and Keith Richards Once Had Writing Credits on The Verve’s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’

TL;DR:

• The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” was inspired by The Rolling Stones and doo-wop.
• The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had writing credits on the song.
• They gave up those credits.

The Rolling Stones‘ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards used to have writing credits on The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony.” Subsequently, Jagger and Richards came to a magnanimous agreement with a member of The Verve. Here’s a look at one of the most unusual legal cases in the history of classic rock.

The Temptations and The Rolling Stones inspired The Verve’s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’

Richard Ashcroft was the lead singer of The Verve. During a 1998 interview with Rolling Stone, he explained the origin of the song. “I wanted something that opened up into a prairie-music kind of sound, a modern-day Ennio Morricone kind of thing,” Ashcroft said. “Then after a while, the song started morphing into this wall of sound, a concise piece of incredible pop music.

“There are three or four vocals in there,” he continues. “It’s like an outro to a Temptations record, except I’m the four guys in a row: the rhythm one underneath, the sex and violence voices, like a doo-wop thing. You can hear that a lot on [the album] Urban Hymns — two, three, four voices.”

Then, he sampled part of an orchestral version of The Rolling Stones’ “The Last Time” to create the song.  “We sampled four bars,” Ashcroft recalled. “That was on one track. Then we did 47 tracks of music beyond that little piece. We’ve got our own string players, our own percussion on it. Guitars. We’re talking about a four-bar sample turning into ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ — and they’re still claiming it’s the same song.”

How The Verve’s Richard Ashcroft got Mick Jagger and Keith Richards’ publishing rights

“Bitter Sweet Symphony” was credited to Jagger, Richards, Ashcroft, and the Andrew Oldham Orchestra. ABKCO Music, which owned the rights to many 1960s Rolling Stones songs, had all the publishing rights to the song.

The BBC reports that Jagger and Richards handed their publishing rights to the song to Ashcroft in 2019. Ashcroft called the move “a truly kind and magnanimous thing for them to do.” Afterward, he could earn royalties from “Bitter Sweet Symphony.”

How ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ performed on the charts in the United Kingdom

The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” became one of the band’s biggest hits in their native United Kingdom. The Official Charts Company reports the tune reached No. 2 in the U.K., staying on the chart for 56 weeks. Whale The Verve produced one song that charted higher (“The Drugs Don’t Work”), they never released another song that remained on the charts as long as “Bitter Sweet Symphony.”

The Verve included “Bitter Sweet Symphony” on the album Urban Hymns. That record reached No. 1 for a single week, remaining on the chart for 162 weeks. Urban Hymns was the band’s only chart-topper in the United Kingdom. 

The Verve’s “Bitter Sweet Symphony” is a great song even if it doesn’t have a Jagger-Richards writing credit anymore.