One hit band...
This was the only hit for The Verve, who never released another album. Their previous albums were A Northern Soul, which was released in 1995 and featured a darker side; A Storm In Heaven, released in 1993 was a psychedelic rocker; and No Come Down is a collection of the B-sides from A Storm in Heaven. After Urban Hymns, their lead singer, Richard Ashcroft, launched a successful solo career.

The video featured Ashcroft bumping into people as he walked down Hoxton Street, a crowded shopping area in London. It was inspired by the video for Massive Attack's 1991 song "Unfinished Sympathy," which was showed the singer walking down a street in a similar manner.

This samples an obscure orchestral version of "The Last Time," a 1965 song by the Rolling Stones. This was recorded before they got permission from the Stones to use the riff, so The Verve had to sign away most of the royalties from this in order to release it.

The publishing rights to this went to Allen Klein, The Rolling Stones' former manager. The Stones signed a very lopsided contract with Klein early in their career, and had to make huge concessions in order to get out of it. Part of the deal gave Klein the publishing rights to all of the Stones' songs through 1969. He made, and continues to make, far more money than anyone else from this song. Nike used this in commercials. Klein got royalties from those.

Upset that he lost the royalties, Ashcroft said this was "The best song Jagger and Richards have written in 20 years."

But what is truly funny is that the song was inspired by a 1955 Gospel song of the same name by The Staples Singers. Many Gospel fans felt The Stones ripped it off, since The Staples Singers never got any royalties from it. Since it is a traditional song (meaning no one owns the rights to it), many artists have recorded it, but The Stones were a very high-profile band that had success reworking songs by black artists into hits. Many people believe The Stones should have compensated The Staples Singers because it was based on their version of the song.



-to be continued-