Mick Jagger and Keith Richards give Bitter Sweet Symphony royalty back to The Verve

The Rolling Stones have given full credit to The Verve’s ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ back to The Verve after 20 years.

The Verve song was based on the orchestrated version of The Rolling Stones ‘The Last Time’, not by the Stones but the recorded version by then Stones manager Andrew Loog Oldham.

The Verve initially had permission to use 6 seconds of the Oldham track but after its release Allen Klein who was by that stage managing copyrights for pre-70s Stones decided to take action and grab 100% of the royalties made payable to his company ABKCO Records or The Verve had to delete what was by then the number one song in the world.

The Verve – Bitter Sweet Symphony

Andrew Oldham Orchestra – The Last Time

In a statement Richard Ashcroft announced:

“It gives me great pleasure to announce as of last month Mick Jagger and Keith Richards agreed to give me their share of the song Bitter Sweet Symphony.

“The life-affirming turn of events made possible by a kind and magnanimous gesture from Mick and Keith, who have also agreed that they are happy for the writing credit to exclude their names and all their royalties derived from the song will now pass to me”.

Bitter Sweet Press Release. ✌? pic.twitter.com/NnmiGf8e6C

— Richard Ashcroft (@richardashcroft) May 23, 2019

Allen Klein, the former Stones manager who initiated the Ashcroft legal woes was also the sneaky bastard who tried to rip off George Harrison over the ‘My Sweet Lord’.

In the 90s George Harrison explained to Noise11 the legal bullshit Allen Klien caused over ‘My Sweet Lord’ and ‘He’s So Fine’.

“The thing that really disappoints me is when you have a relationship with one person and they turn out to betray you. Because the whole story of “My Sweet Lord” is based upon this fellow, Allan Klein, who managed the Beatles from about 1968 or ’69, through until 1973. When they issued a complaint about “My Sweet Lord”, he was my business manager. He was the one who put out “My Sweet Lord” and collected 20 per cent commission on the record. And he was the one who got the lawyers to defend me and did an interview in Playboy where he talked about how the song was nothing like the other song. Later, when the judge in court told me to settle with them because he didn’t think I’d consciously stolen their song, they were doing a settlement deal with me when they suddenly stopped the settlement. Some time elapsed, and I found out that this guy Klein had gone around the back door. In the meantime, we’d fired him. He went around the back door and bought the rights to the one song, “He’s So Fine,” in order to continue a lawsuit against me. He, on one hand, was defending me, then he switched sides and continued the lawsuit. And every time the judge said what the result was, he’d appeal. And he kept appealing and appealing until it got to the Supreme Court. I mean this thing went on for 16 years or something … 18 years. And finally, it’s all over with, and the result of it is I own “My Sweet Lord,” and I now own “He’s So Fine,” and Allan Klein owes me like three or four hundred thousand dollars ’cause he took all the money on both songs. It’s really a joke. It’s a total joke”.