Production Breakdown: Wale’s Bittersweet Symphony

Since it's pretty hard to get Internet hooked up when you're living under a rock, I'm going to assume that those who listened to Wale's latest DJBooth.net feature, unreleased track “Bittersweet,” instantly recognized the central sample of DJ Toomp's beat as originating from “Bitter Sweet Symphony”, the once-ubiquitous lead single off The Verve's '97 LP, Urban Hymns. In the reader reviews for the Colin Munroe-assisted record, one poster noted that the Verve's original cut was itself sampled from a Rolling Stones track – which is true on one level, but not the full story. Thus, I was inspired to turn this column into a mini-history lesson on how “Symphony” became one of the most bittersweet hits in pop history.

That unmistakable violin melody running through “Bittersweet” is the work of Verve frontman Richard Ashcroft – not a Stones sample. What you're not hearing on Wale's record – and the reason “Bittersweet” will remain unreleased – is 'Symphony's background string arrangement, replaced here by Toomp's synths. The origin of that four-bar passage? Andrew Oldman's nigh-unrecognizable orchestral cover version of the Stones' '65 single, “The Last Time.”

Though the Verve had indeed negotiated the rights to borrow a portion of the Oldham recording prior to dropping their album, that changed soon after “Symphony' began to see chart success, and it was argued that Ashcroft had run afoul of the agreement by including “too much” of the sample. The upshot off this seemingly opportunistic, but successful move was that the Verve had to give up 100% of the track's royalties. To add insult to injury, songwriting credits were transferred to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards – and they, not Ashcroft, were named as nominees when “Symphony” was up for several Grammy awards

It would be easy to paint the Stones as the villains in this case, except for one fact: they didn't own the rights to “The Last Time,”Allen Klein did A talent agent/label exec infamous for his shrewd, somewhat cutthroat approach to the music business, Klein co-managed the group for a time in the '60s, and won much of their early catalog as part of a legal settlement following his firing due to suspicions of untrustworthiness (his abrasive, unpredictable behavior also led to a falling-out with The Beatles). It was Klein's firm, ABKCO, that filed suit against the Verve and, through 'Symphony's placement in ads for Nike sneakers and Vauxhall Motors (against Ashcroft's wishes), he profited most from the record.

This story's a bitter one, but at its center lies a core of sweetness: not even several generations of litigation and industry politics could stop “The Last Time,” which itself drew heavily from gospel standard “This Will Be the Last Time,” from doing what music does best: evolving, from the 'original' track to Oldham's orchestral version, to “Bitter Sweet Symphony,” to, most recently, “Bittersweet.” Though there are still legal limits on artistic freedom, the popularity and marketability of mixtapes, combined with the exposure granted by sites like DJBooth and RefinedHype means that musicians have more opportunities than ever before to build on one another's work and share their creations without fear of retribution. As a result, more and more are beginning to realize what hip-hop has known all along: creativity never happens in a vacuum. And that, my friends, is one sweet victory.