The Bitter Sweet Symphony saga: how the Rolling Stones made millions by doing nothing

One of the longest running royalty disputes in rock music has finally been resolved. Back in 1997, The Verve were forced to forfeit the rights to their song, Bitter Sweet Symphony, because it featured a four second sample from the orchestral version of The Rolling Stones’ number, The Last Time.

The sample was a short, memorable string sequence, recorded in 1965 by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra. For this small snippet, Bitter Sweet Symphony’s writer Richard Ashcroft would lose his royalties to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, despite the fact that the segment didn’t even sound like the original Stones’ hit. For the last 22 years, Ashcroft hasn’t earned a penny from the popular number he penned.

What many perceived as a deep musical injustice has now been remedied. Future royalties from the Bitter Sweet Symphony will go to Ashcroft; the legal battle has finally been concluded. But how did it take so long to get here?

Speaking about the overdue resolution, the singing and songwriter explained: “As of last month, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards signed over all their publishing for Bitter Sweet Symphony, which was a truly kind and magnanimous thing for them to do.”

“I never had a personal beef with the Stones,” Ashcroft told the BBC. “They’ve always have been the greatest rock and roll band in the world.”

The person he blames for the lengthy dispute is neither Jagger nor Richards – it’s the Stones’ late manager, Allen Klein.

An American businessman, music publisher, writers’ representative and record label executive, Klein is credited with revolutionising the earning potential of recording artists. Managing the biggest bands of the 1960s, he took on the Beatles and the Stones simultaneously, making him one of the most powerful executives in the industry.

Klein’s now infamous negotiation, that resulted in The Verve losing their rights to Bitter Sweet Symphony, is explained in Fred Goodman’s book Allen Klein: The Man Who Bailed Out the Beatles, Made the Stones and Transformed Rock and Roll.

In an extract published on ultimateclassicrock.com, Goodman describes how Klein executed this “last big kill” for the Stones.

Klein’s company ABKCO had an issue with the practice of sampling. According to Goodman, the situation with Ashcroft was an opportunity to set an example – discouraging artists from using samples and then “negotiating retroactively.” So, when Jazz Summers, The Verve’s manager, got in touch with ABKCO about Bitter Sweet Symphony, Klein was ready to play hard-ball.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, the Stones originally agreed to license a five-note segment of the recording for 50 per cent of the royalties. The Verve’s bassist Simon Jones confirmed that the band were offered a 50/50 split, before the tables turned. “Then they saw how well the record was doing,” he recounted, “they rung up and said, ‘We want 100 percent or take it out of the shops, you don’t have much choice.’” Ashcroft was paid exactly $1,000.

Klein had apparently claimed that The Verve voided the deal by using a larger section of the track than had been agreed. ABKCO then filed a plagiarism suit on behalf of Klein, Jagger and Richards. The song was the lead single on The Verve’s already completed album Urban Hymns – it was imperative for the band that ABKCO grant the license. In these strained circumstances, the implausible deal was struck: Ashcroft lost his rights as lyricist and ABKCO became the sole publisher of Bitter Sweet Symphony.

“I was held to ransom”, Ashcroft told Vogue in 2017. “I don’t know how much I’ve lost, but it’s a huge sum of money. I had this small flat with my wife, and I smashed my fist through about two doors, proper-like… [but] all those legal wrangles still don’t take away the hours I put into it in the studio to create an incredible piece of pop art. It’s almost a self-fulfilling thing with the song’s lyrics … You’re not going to just sing about it and be a rock ’n’ roll star and make loads of money without dealing with the reality that there’s vipers and snakes and vampires all around trying to suck your blood.”

So the agreement was made, leaving Ashcroft with no control over his song. As we know now, it went on to become a huge hit. Keen to exploit its earning potential, the ABKCO let the melodic, soft-rock song be used in several adverts. It remains one of ABKCO’s highest-earning compositions, selling over 1.2 million copies in the UK. It even brought Jagger and Richards a Grammy nomination.

But now, Ashcroft will finally share in the plenty. According to the BBC, he was able to reach an agreement with Klein’s son and the Stones’ current manager Joyce Smyth, restoring his rights over the massively successful song.

Ashcroft described the “fantastic development” as “life-affirming”. In a characteristic, off-kilter comment, he mentioned that he’s now able to enjoy England football games. “They play it [Bitter Sweet Symphony] before England play,” he explained. “So I can sit back and watch England ... and finally just enjoy the moment."

The Rolling Stones have now officially acknowledged that Ashcroft was denied the rights to “one of his most iconic songs”.

In a statement, they wrote: “Of course there was a huge financial cost but any songwriter will know that there is a huge emotional price greater than the money in having to surrender the composition of one of your own songs. Richard has endured that loss for many years.”

Ashcroft received an  Outstanding Contribution to British Music award at yesterday’s Ivor Novellos. It was there that he announced the conclusion to the dramatic saga, saying “now Mick and Keith have given me the royalties back for Bittersweet, it’s even more sweeter than it was before.” After over two decades of dispute, the bitterness has finally been dropped.