A major · Camelot 11B · 172 BPM
Bitter Sweet Symphony
by The Verve
- 172
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 39
- Danceability
- 5
- Acousticness
By 1997, the Verve had already weathered break-ups, line-up changes and lawsuits on their way from Wigan to becoming one of Britain's biggest rock bands. Their third album, Urban Hymns, was about to make that commercial breakthrough complete, and "Bitter Sweet Symphony" arrived on 16 June 1997 as its lead single, released by Hut Recordings and Virgin Records. Richard Ashcroft had heard a version of the Rolling Stones' "The Last Time" by the Andrew Oldham Orchestra and thought it could be "turned into something outrageous". The band sampled and looped four bars of the recording, then added dozens more tracks, including guitar, percussion, strings and layers of Ashcroft's vocals, working with producer Youth at Olympic Studios in London.
The single reached number two on the UK singles chart and stayed on the chart for three months, while in the US it climbed to number 12 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was named Single of the Year by both Rolling Stone and NME and was nominated for Best Rock Song at the 1999 Grammy Awards.
Success brought a legal fight. The label had cleared the sample with Decca Records but not with Allen Klein, who owned the composition rights, and a lawsuit followed. The Verve relinquished all royalties, and the writing credits were changed to Jagger–Richards; Ashcroft received $1,000. Only in 2019, a decade after Klein's death, did Jagger, Richards and Klein's son cede the rights to Ashcroft.
Bitter Sweet Symphony runs at 172 BPM, the tempo of drum and bass and jungle. In classical terms it sits in vivace territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 1.4 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 349 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.