Unfinished Symphony

Three years ago to the day I was writing about the Verve’s 1997 song ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, searching for the author who had been most deprived. Famously, the composition has been attributed to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards as a result of the inclusion of a looped sample of their song ‘The Last Time’, as recorded by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra in 1965.

            There have been developments. Richard Ashcroft, the singer of the Verve who wrote the main body of ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ (i.e the 'unsampled' parts of the song) has become increasingly outraged at his lack of royalties. In November last year he declared, ‘I’m coming for that money. Someone stole god knows how many million dollars off me in 1997, and they’ve still got it’. He was pointing towards Jody Klein, the son of Allen Klein and inheritor of his publishing company, ABKCO. It is ABKCO who control the Rolling Stones' early repertoire and who had demanded 100% of the publishing royalties for ‘Bittersweet Symphony’.

There are reasons for Ashcroft’s intensified fury. Firstly, he was promoting his new album, Natural Rebel and this publicity was good publicity. Secondly, as I pointed out in my original blog entry, in the days of physical products he would not, ultimately, have been deprived. He may not have had the publishing for the Verve’s ‘Bittersweet Symphony’, but he did write the majority of the songs on its parent album, Urban Hymns, and would have received nearly 70% of the songwriting royalties each time a copy was sold. Urban Hymns is a platinum selling record in America and it is the 17^th best-selling album of all time in the UK. Unfortunately for Ashcroft, streaming has taken us to a world where it is singles rather than albums that rule. ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ is his most successful song and he receives nothing for it when it stands on its own. He suggests that it is worth $50 million and that this money has been stolen from him.

            Jagger and Richards appear to have listened. Last week Ashcroft received the Outstanding Contribution to British Music prize at the Ivor Novello Awards. He used the occasion to announce:

As of last month Mick Jagger and Keith Richards agreed to give me their share of the song ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’. This remarkable and life affirming turn of events was 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 they will now pass to me.

I’m not sure if this is a happy ending. In the first instance, the copyright details for ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ have not yet been changed. The money, at present, is still going ABKCO. In addition, if the song is to be credited to Ashcroft, this might ruffle feathers elsewhere. Ashcroft believes he should have the sole credit for the song and has justified this as follows:

I was saying to myself, ‘look, rock n roll is a spirit, and if I want to sample something and make it into a hip hop/rock n roll anthem, it’s still rock n roll. And it’s even more rock n roll because it’s another white English kid, influenced by hip hop, sampling some fucking white English guys, influenced by black blues guys, and it goes on and on and on. But sonically what I’m saying at the end with “Money Money” is that you lot are just a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of a Xerox of Xerox of a Xerox’.

What he’s attempting to state here is that, while the Rolling Stones took much of the inspiration for their song from the Staple Singers’ ‘This May Be the Last Time’, the Staple Singers in turn had drawn upon traditional music of no fixed authorship. It is only Ashcroft who is an originating author.

            This is dubious enough in itself, but what Ashcroft fails to mention is that the riff in the Andrew Oldham Orchestra sample does have an author and that it is not Jagger or Richards. The motif in the sample is only loosely based on Keith Richards' guitar playing. The main credit for it should instead reside with David Whitaker, who composed and arranged the orchestral score.

            One of things about rethinks is that they prompt further rethinks. Popular music has always had multiple authors – writers, arrangers, musicians, singers, producers, engineers, mixers – and it has always been unfair with its attributions of credits and royalties. Traditionally, many songwriting disputes have been settled out of court. This has suited publishers, as they do not want legal precedents to be set. It has also suited the victorious authors, as they have not want it known who is receiving shares of income and who is being deprived. Ashcroft might wish he had been quieter. If he has been successful in his pursuit of stolen dollars, then it might prompt the Staple Singers and the estate of David Whitaker to think about the money that is being taken from them.

Bitter Sweet Sympathy

I have been reading Fred Goodman’s interesting Allen Klein bibliography, which includes a section on the Verve ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ sampling dispute. There were winners and losers amongst the publishers, record companies, writers, musicians and arrangers who were involved in this case. This has set me thinking: who amongst these players deserves our sympathy the most?

            It is certainly not Allen Klein. Although the Verve made unauthorised use of the Rolling Stones' song ‘The Last Time’, which was published by his company ABKCO, he made sure that he was recompensed. In return for granting permission for the use of the sampled tune, Klein insisted that Richard Ashcroft, who had written the lyrics to ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’, sell the rights to them to ABKCO for just $1,000. As a result, the entire song came under the control of Klein’s publishing company. In addition to making publishing money from the sales of the Verve recording, Klein licensed the song for use in commercials. It has advertised products such as Nike shoes and Opel automobiles. According to Goodman, ‘“Bitter Sweet Symphony” remains one of ABKCO’s best-earning compositions’.

            Mick Jagger and Keith Richards aren’t due much sympathy either. The Verve had taken part of one of their songs, but they gained the whole of the Verve’s song in return. Although Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Richard Ashcroft are credited on the record label as the joint authors of 'Bitter Sweet Symphony', Klein’s deal means that only Jagger and Richards receive royalties: the songwriting splits are 50% Jagger/50% Richards/0% Ashcroft. Most of the Rolling Stones’ income comes from the sales and live performance of songs that they first recorded in the sixties and seventies. ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ is the exception. It is the most successful Jagger/Richards composition of the last 35 years. It even earned them a Grammy nomination. With the ghosts of Milli Vanilli howling in their bones, they were finalists for the Best Song category in 1999.

            What about the Verve: do they deserve our sympathy? Here it should be noted that Klein’s deal was concerned solely with the publishing of their song. The Verve messed up in respect of these composition rights, with the net effect that they had to concede ownership to ABKCO. They were more efficient in clearing the sounding recording rights to the sampled version of ‘The Last Time’. These were purchased for a one-off fee from Decca Records. Although this money has probably been paid for from the band’s advances, they will have received their usual royalty rate from their record company as artists for sales of ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’. They will also have received royalties for public performances and broadcasts of their sound recording. As musicians, the band has not lost out, it is the songwriting that has been affected.

            And so we turn to Richard Ashcroft, the Verve’s singer and the only member of the band who had a (potential) writer’s share in ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’. He signed away his songwriting royalties for a paltry sum. He has failed to earn any songwriting royalties for single sales. He has missed out on the songwriting income for the public performances, licensing and airplay of this track. And so, is he the main victim?

Here we have to contemplate why he accepted Klein’s deal. Ashcroft’s decision could be considered odd in light of the fact that his record company expected ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ to be a hit. In addition, according to Goodman, it was this hit potential that encouraged Klein to press for and gain the maximum return. However, while Ashcroft would have therefore known that he had much to lose, he would also have realised there was more to gain.

‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ was issued as a single in the late 1990s. This was an era in which singles were loss leaders: the record industry made its main profits from CD album purchases. The Verve’s 1997 album Urban Hymns is a platinum selling record in America and it is the 17^th best-selling album of all time in the UK. This album includes ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ and it is this track, primarily, that has driven its sales. ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ doesn’t earn any more royalties from these sales than any of the other tracks on the album, however. In accordance with standard practice in the UK, the songwriting royalties are divided equally between each song. There are thirteen tracks on this album. Ashcroft is the sole writer of eight of them and he has a share in another four, which are group compositions. Making a rough calculation, it would appear that Ashcroft earns nearly 70% of the songwriting royalties for the album as a whole. In contrast, Jagger and Richards receive less than 5%. Ashcroft has done OK.

            But what about the Staple Singers? The Rolling Stones’ song ‘The Last Time’ is heavily indebted to their 1958 recording ‘This May Be the Last Time’. Keith Richards has acknowledged the debt, stating that the Rolling Stones’ recording ‘was basically re-adapting ... the Staple Singers’. He nevertheless stressed that the Staples Singers’ record is based on a ‘traditional’ gospel song and that ‘luckily the song itself goes back into the mists of time’. Roebuck Staples is, however, credited as the composer, rather than the arranger, of the Staples Singers’ version. According to Goodman, it is not the traditional nature of ‘This May Be The Last Time’ that has thwarted the Staple Singers’ claims to royalties, but rather the fact that they ‘weren’t managed by Allen Klein’.

Roebuck Staples does deserve some sympathy, but this is not a cut and dried case. There are differences between the two versions of ‘The Last Time’. The Rolling Stones composed their own verses to the song; they also wrote the guitar riff that dominates their recording. Moreover, the element of the song that is sampled for ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ is not present in the Staple Singers original.

It is not present in the Rolling Stones record either. ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ does not feature their recording of ‘The Last Time’; it instead samples the version by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra. It is the opening orchestral riff that is featured. This motif is only loosely based on Keith Richard’s guitar playing. The main credit for it should instead reside with David Whitaker, who composed and arranged the orchestral score. Whitaker will have received a one-off session fee for his work. He will have received no royalties for ‘The Last Time’ and none for ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ either. Have we finally found our man?