BITTER SWEET BATTLE ENDS

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards have handed back the rights to Bitter Sweet Symphony to Richard Ashcroft.

The Verve frontman lost the rights to the song after sampling The Rolling Stones’ The Last Time, using a composition by their longtime manager and producer Andrew Loog Oldham. Now, more than 20 years after the song was released, Jagger, shown, and Richards have signed off on the song.

“This remarkable and life-affirming turn of events was made possible by a kind and magnanimous gesture from Mick and Keith, who have also agreed that they are happy for the writing credit to exclude their names and all their royalties derived from the song they will now pass to me,” Ashcroft said. “Thank you so much Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, for acknowledging me as the writer of a f--king masterpiece. It’ll live forever.”