The Verve Finally Owns 'Bitter Sweet Symphony'

After more than 20 years, the Rolling Stones and The Verve have resolved a sour dispute over the authorship of the song "Bitter Sweet Symphony." The Verve's frontman and co-founder, Richard Ashcroft, announced on Wednesday that the situation has finally been laid to rest.

Ashcroft explained the change as he received a lifetime achievement honor — an Ivor Novello Award, a British prize for songwriting and composition. "As of last month," Ashcroft said in comments reported by the BBC, "Mick Jagger and Keith Richards signed over all their publishing for 'Bitter Sweet Symphony,' which was a truly kind and magnanimous thing for them to do." A rep for the Rolling Stones confirmed the change to NPR.

Last November, however, Ashcroft struck a clangingly different chord about the financial dispute in an interview for the Consequence of Sound podcast Kyle Meredith With.... At the time he said, "I'm coming for that money. Someone stole God-knows-how-many million dollars off me in 1997, and they've still got it."