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bittersweet symphony


audioslave

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I hope someone out there knows the answer to this - when I first heard this on the movie "cruel intentions" I was told it was a cover of a rolling stones tune - I really don't remember the stones doing it though, I have searched all over the internet to see who wrote it - most credit the verve who did the song on their album - one site even credited God. Does anyone know? :doh:

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Here is what I found on the internet:

The Verve*

"Bittersweet Symphony"

This hit pop song uses a sample from a string arrangement of "The Last Time" by the Rolling Stones. The Verve had trouble getting a licensing agreement from the Stones? publisher, Alan Klein, who said, "I don?t agree with sampling as a matter of principle, and certainly not on a Stones song." (This is a strange stance, given that the Stones launched their career with covers of blues songs without compensating the original artists.) Eventually Klein gave in, but only after the Verve agreed to sign over all royalties to "Bittersweet Symphony" to the Stones. Later, when Nike approached the Verve about using the song in a commercial, the band refused. Nike then approached Klein about recording a cover version, since he owned the publishing rights. When members of the Verve found out about this, they agreed to let Nike use their version and donated their fee to charity. "The last thing in the world I wanted was for one of my songs to be used in a commercial," said Richard Ashcroft of the Verve. "I?m still sick about it. But it could have been worse. If we didn?t fight for the song, ?Symphony? would have ended up in a cheeseburger ad and no one could ever have taken our record seriously again."

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I just want to clear up an issue here. Per pdxchump's post: (This is a strange stance, given that the Stones launched their career with covers of blues songs without compensating the original artists).

Partially untrue. Have the Stones covered old Blues songs? Yes. Did they steal from the authors? No. Covering a song and sampling a song are two totally different things. An example of covering is the Stones recording a Muddy Waters song. Many famous and creative musicians have covered other artists songs. The list is endless. The fact is that the Stones have always credited the original songwriters of these covers. They've never claimed they've written something that they haven't. Even as recent as their last album, they credited k.d. lang as a co-author of Anybody Seen My Baby because they realized it sounded like her song Constant Craving. Nobody asked them to do it, there were no lawsuits.

An example of sampling is The Verve taking an actual previous recording of the song (The Last Time), and sticking into their song (Bittersweet Symphony). They didn't write it, they didn't perform it, they didn't "cover" it, they sampled it.

The bad guy in this situation is Allen Klein. Klein was the Stones former manager in the late 60's and he screwed the Stones out quite a bit of money in song royalties. He owns the publishing rights to The Last Time and he makes most of the money off of the song. It may be credited to Jagger and Richards but Klein gets the money. He's the one who gave the Verve a hard time about sampling The Last Time. He's the one who had to approve the release of Bittersweet Symphony. He's the one who demanded the royalties from The Verve. He's the one who sold the song to be used in a Nike commercial. The actual members of The Rolling Stones had no part of the dispute between Klein and The Verve.

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