Heres a good lesson for all young bands out there: If youre going to borrow part of a song, dont take it from the Rolling Stones. Theyre a little litigious. They have good lawyers. They will destroy you. The Verve learned this the hard way when used a symphonic version of the Stones 1965 hit, The Last Time, on their 1998 hit, Bitter Sweet Symphony. The band eventually settled out of court and handed over 100 percent of their songwriting royalties. As if things couldn’t have gotten worse, they were then sued by another old Rolling Stones manager, Andrew Loog Oldham. They totally lost everything. Not only couldn’t the Verve earn money from their biggest hit, they were stripped of control of their song. “The last thing in the world I wanted was for one of my songs to be used in a commercial,” the despondent lead vocalist Richard Ashcroft said. “I’m still sick about it.” In one final kick in the groin, “Bittersweet Symphony” was nominated for a Grammy in the Best Song category, which honors songwriters. Because the unfavorable settlement transferred the Verve’s copyright and songwriting credit to Klein and the Rolling Stones, the Grammy nomination went to “Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.” Ashcroft quipped that it was “the best song Jagger and Richards have written in twenty years.” He then suffered from a nervous breakdown...
Posted on: Wed, 17 Sep 2014 03:02:47 +0000
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