Steve Adams Music HQ

"Bitter Sweet Symphony" earned almost $5 million in publishing, Billboard estimated, and Richard Ashcroft, who wrote it, got $1,000. Asked in 1999 whether the deal was fair, Keith Richards said: "If the Verve can write a better song, they can keep the money." Once it sold, the band says, the demand became 100% or the record came out of the shops. 22 years later, sunglasses on, in front of the Ivor Novello Awards press wall, Ashcroft says Mick and Keith have given him the royalties back. In June 1997 Ashcroft was 25. The Verve had looped 4 bars of an old orchestral cover of the Stones' "The Last Time" and built a new song on top, with 24 string players and his words. Virgin had cleared the recording with Decca, but the composition belonged to ABKCO, the company of former Stones manager Allen Klein. Klein refused clearance, saying the band had used more than agreed. The settlement gave ABKCO 100% of the publishing and put Jagger and Richards on the writing credit. In 1998 Nike ran the song in a TV ad, which the band's management said it would never have agreed to. In 2018 Ashcroft said someone stole "God-knows-how-many million dollars" off him in 1997. The 1998 Songwriter of the Year statuette is solid bronze. The publishing on his biggest song sat in New York for 22 years. In April 2019, after his managers asked, Jagger and Richards signed over their future songwriter royalties. The 22 years before stayed where they were. If your song had paid someone else for 22 years, would you thank them on stage when they stopped?