Bitter sweet symphony
| Bitter sweet symphony | |
|---|---|
| The Verve | |
| publication | June 16, 1997 |
| Genre (s) | Britpop |
| Author (s) | Richard Ashcroft |
| Producer (s) | Chris Potter, Martin "Youth" Glover |
| Publisher (s) | ABKCO Music & Records Inc., Westminster Music Ltd. |
| Label | Hat records |
| album | Urban hymns |
Bitter Sweet Symphony ( English ; "Bittersweet Symphony ") is a song by the northern English rock band The Verve and was first released on June 16, 1997 as an official single in the form of two parallel EPs . It also appeared on the 1997 album Urban Hymns of the band and was in England the summer hit of 1997. In addition, the title gained notoriety by using the soundtrack of the successful Hollywood film Cruel Intentions .
description
composition
Bitter Sweet Symphony is a Britpop production. The song is essentially based on an instrumental version of the Rolling Stones' song The Last Time ("The Last Time") published in 1965 by the Andrew Loog Oldham Orchestra , which is itself a rather monotonous and very vaguely worded adaptation of the Stones song (hardly more than one update). The Verve take this processing as a background (like a loop) for their own, for their part only vaguely formulated vocal phrases , thus reducing the already thin structure of the easy listening template. It can be argued that apart from the visual presentation and the text, The Verve has no other share in the disproportionate sales success of the recording. The essential achievement of ideas, the relatively unchanged repetition of a progression, comes from Oldham.
The chorus doesn't stand out much from the verses - the song ends as it begins. Composition , text and also the music video form a self-contained unit.
Text and meaning
The song is about the uniformity of life, the indifference in the world and the marked out paths from which one as an individual cannot escape. Everyone could change something, but actually everyone is trapped in their rut and in the end the same death awaits everyone. On the occasion of an appearance at the Live 8 charity event in 2005, Richard Ashcroft , the front man of The Verve , sang Bitter Sweet Symphony with the English band Coldplay and added the line “ It's a Bitter Sweet Symphony - my life, your life, their lives ”( Eng. “ It's a bittersweet symphony - my life, your life, their life ”). In doing so, he wanted to establish a reference to the people in Africa below the poverty line, who, due to political, economic and social circumstances, cannot escape their fate without outside help.
Authors of the song
The lyrics of the song are from Richard Ashcroft. Martin "Youth" Glover and Chris Potter arranged , recorded and produced the song with The Verve . The composition and exploitation rights were attributed to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards of the Rolling Stones by court order after a protracted legal battle .
Context and background
Story of a symphony
The story told by the song ultimately lived through it itself. The instrumental structure of the song (bass, guitar, drums) comes from the first rehearsal room sessions, which Simon Jones and Pete Salisbury held with Simon Tong as the new guitarist after the first separation from The Verve in 1995 ( see MSG on the Lucky Man EP ). The lyrics and title of Bitter Sweet Symphony come from a song that Richard Ashcroft initially composed with James Lavelle and DJ Shadow for the first UNKLE album, Psyence Fiction . The completion of the song they took an orchestral version of the Rolling Stones - classic The Last Time a string sequence as a sample , inverted and loopten them. Andrew Loog Oldham had released an entire album of instrumental string versions of the Rolling Stones' great hits in 1966 .
After The Verve finally reunited, Richard Ashcroft decided in early 1997, with UNKLE's approval, to use Bitter Sweet Symphony as the Verve song on the Urban Hymns . Based on MSG, the song was finally rearranged into a rock song by The Verve. To compensate, James Lavelle was allowed to publish an adapted version of the result of the collaboration with Ashcroft as the preliminary club single for Bitter Sweet Symphony. For the following UNKLE debut, Ashcroft finally contributed the song Lonely Soul .
License dispute
The Verve received permission to use the sample from the Decca Records label . After The Verve had published the song as a single, was Bittersweet Symphony her biggest success and the summer hit of 1997. He arrived in the United Kingdom went straight to number two in the charts. The song also achieved great success in the USA through its use in the film Eiskalte Engel and in a Nike commercial (not agreed with The Verve) . However, The Verve and the management of Hut Recordings ignored the fact that the exploitation rights of all Stones songs until 1969 also belong to the music publisher ABKCO Records. Allen Klein , the manager of ABKCO , finally successfully went to court - with the result that the rights and all proceeds of the song ABKCO were awarded.
Ultimately, this means that all Bitter Sweet Symphony releases and uses in films, commercials, samplers and other public media must have The Verve as interpreters, but Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as authors. Any exploitation requires approval from both The Verve and the Rolling Stones. During the process, the usage rights were unclear, which is why Nike was able to use the song as an advertising jingle without any consent or fees. All proceeds from the sale of the singles and all uses went to the former management of the Rolling Stones. The Verve also had to pay a not inconsiderable share of the sales proceeds from the Urban Hymns and the Best-Of to them.
In May 2019, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards renounced the composition rights and thereby transferred all royalties for the future to Ashcroft.
Original and cover versions
The curious thing about the story is that the publication of the (court-ruled) original The Last Time was also accompanied by litigation. The Rolling Stones were accused of having used a North American folk song called This May Be The Last Time , which has already been interpreted by James Brown and The Staple Singers , among others . However, they initiated a lawsuit themselves at that time and finally obtained the complete rights to the song.
The DJ Marc Van Dale wanted to cover Bitter Sweet Symphony in 1997 and initially released it under the single title Water Verve . As a result of the legal dispute between The Verve and Allen Klein , he finally had to delete the Verve reference and initially take the single off the market. Eventually he republished the piece under the name Water Wave . Was released in 1998 under the name No Worries a cover of Vervehits the Dutch hardcore techno - Act Body Lotion, also known as Neophyte . In 2017 a cover version by DJ MOUNT was released in collaboration with the music project illian .
Music video
The video for the song also caused a stir when it was released . Walter Stern - who directed it - made Richard Ashcroft run dead straight through Hoxton Street in London's bohemian Shoreditch district , seemingly indifferent to run over or jump over all the obstacles (people and cars) coming towards him. The singer's wife - Kate Radley, former keyboard player for the band Spiritualized - also played in the video . Ashcroft jumps over her car, whereupon she runs after him and curses him. The camera focuses on the visually shabby, spindly protagonist and thus supports the message of the song. The coolness described in the text is also visualized using a blue color filter .
On closer inspection, an error becomes apparent, which is due to the license dispute. The video was originally shot for the original version with the backward-playing sample The Last Time . After the strings were re-recorded, the song became a little shorter in a re-production. In the video, Ashcroft sings - after pushing himself through between two male passers-by - although the song does not contain any lyrics at this point.
In the video for Music Is Power from the album Keys to the World (2006) Richard Ashcroft bumped into a woman, but then apologized with a grand gesture . Because Music Is Power also contains a sample, this time by Curtis Mayfield . However, the license issues were clearly clarified from the start.
Publications
Releases on "The Verve" records
- Bitter Sweet Symphony (promo single from June 2, 1997; with the original version with original sample by Andrew Oldham )
- Bitter Sweet Symphony (Single # 1 & # 2, released June 16, 1997; with radio version, without sample )
- The Drugs Don't Work (Single # 2, released September 1, 1997; with James Lavelle version by BSS )
- Urban Hymns (album, released: September 29, 1997; sample removed for album version and re-recorded with orchestra )
- Lucky Man (Single # 1, released November 24, 1997; with original instrumental variant )
- This Is Music - The Singles: 1992–1998 (Best-Of-Compilation, released: October 29, 2004; album version )
Cover versions by other artists
- 1998: Marc Van Dale & Enrico - Water Verve or Water Wave (dance version of the string motif)
- 2004: Something Corporate - Bitter Sweet Symphony (Live, concert in Charleston)
- 2004: Sugar Daddy - Sweet Soca Music
- 2005: Coldplay feat. Richard Ashcroft - Bitter Sweet Symphony ( Live 8 Concert)
- 2005: Limp Bizkit - Bittersweet Home (text excerpts and chord progression adopted, mixed with Home Sweet Home by Mötley Crüe )
- 2009: David May - Superstar (DE # 54)
- 2010: Jason Derulo - Ridin 'Solo (DE # 24)
- 2012: bond - Last Time (aka Bittersweet) (instrumental version on the album Play )
- 2017: Axwell Λ Ingrosso feat. Kid Ink - I Love You
- 2017: The Eastblock Bitches - The Dab Is Dead
- 2017: Kontra K - soldiers 2.0 (DE # 16)
- 2017: Mount. feat. illian - Bitter Sweet Symphony
- 2017: London Grammar - Bitter Sweet Symphony (Live at Maida Vale) (on the album Truth Is a Beautiful Thing (Deluxe edition bonus disc) )
- 2019: Gamper & Dadoni feat. Emily Roberts - Bittersweet Symphony (DE # 53)
swell
- ↑ Single Release - Bitter Sweet Symphony . ( Memento of March 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Official The Verve Information Archive, The-Raft.com, 1997
- ↑ The Verve - Urban Hymns Booklet: Track 1 Credits - Bitter Sweet Symphony , 1997
- ↑ Andrew Loog Oldham . BR , Zündfunk Manuscripts, December 10, 1997, Popalphabet
- ↑ New Music Express: The Rolling Stones have given Richard Ashcroft back 'Bitter Sweet Symphony' royalties , May 23, 2019
- ↑ Mine is the revenge ( Memento of August 7, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) KulturNews.de, 2006; Interview with Richard Ashcroft .
- ↑ Mount. Bitter Sweet Symphony (feat. Illian). In: Soundcloud. Retrieved January 9, 2018 .