1997 Hit Kick-Started a Rocking Legal Battle With the Rolling Stones
How can one be sued on behalf of The Rolling Stones and have the Stones on one's side? The Verve found out when they were subject to a lawsuit by the fellow rock band's infamous former manager, Allen Klein, over their beloved hit, "Bitter Sweet Symphony."
Klein is best known as the nucleus for The Beatles' break-up in 1970, with Paul McCartney divided against John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, and their desire to make the American businessman the manager of the group, following the death of Brian Epstein years prior. However, Klein made much of his earlier fortune as the Rolling Stones' manager from 1965 to 1970.
The businessman's financial misguidance and an overbearing creative presence prompted the Stones' frontman, Mick Jagger, to warn The Beatles about Klein's destructive nature, a caution only McCartney listened to at the time. Klein continued to amass a powerful social and economic standing in music, despite being eventually sued by both The Beatles (namely Lennon, Harrison, and Starr) and The Rolling Stones, and serving a prison sentence for in 1980 for tax evasion.
Even by 1997, Klein was powerful enough to embroil The Verve in a court battle for so long that it continued for a decade after his death in 2009. While songwriter Richard Ashcroft was given the green light from Virgin Records to sample a string sequence from The Andrew Oldham Orchestra's 1965 cover of "The Last Time" by The Rolling Stones, Klein, then the head of ABKCO Records, filed a lawsuit over Ashcroft's failure to secure his permission, as he still owned the composition rights to the song.
As a result, The Verve reliquinished 100% of their royalties for "Bitter Sweet Symphony," with Mick Jagger and Stones' guitarist Keith Richards being granted songwriting credit. However, Jagger and Richards weren't exactly clamoring for credit for the Britpop hit, with the latter telling Q Magazine, "I'm out of whack here. This is some serious lawyer sh*t," concluding, "If The Verve can write a better song, they can keep the money." Ashcroft even opened for The Stones on their 2018 No Filter Tour, hardly the result of a bitter 20-year legal battle between the bands.
By 2019, a decade after Allen Klein's death and under the control of his son Jody Klein, The Verve were granted the rights by ABKCO, agreed upon by Richards and Jagger, to their gargantuan hit, selling tens of millions of copies and billions of Spotify streams, in addition to the honor of being named one of the greatest songs of all time by - somewhat ironically - Rolling Stone.
"Of course there was a huge financial cost but any songwriter will know that there is a huge emotional price greater than the money in having to surrender the composition of one of your own songs," a statement from The Rolling Stones said of the agreement, perhaps the final olive branch needed between the two. "Richard has endured that loss for many years."
This story was originally published by Men's Journal on May 14, 2026, where it first appeared in the News section. Add Men's Journal as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
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This story was originally published May 14, 2026 at 4:10 PM.