Don’t Tell Me and The Last Time

Madonna Tribe visitor Hubert would like to give our readers more info on the story behind Bittersweet Symphony, the song sampled on Don’t tell me in the re-Invention tour.

By reading what Hubert writes in his article you will discover that actually Madonna is not sampling the Verve‘ song, but the original tune that the Verve sampled themselves. Let’s hear it from Hubert now:
“I’ve read a lot about Don’t Tell Me (one of this tour’s highlights in my opinion), with the Eiffel tour background, the French music, the London background, and… the “Bittersweet Symphony” sample. Ok, let’s get it clear.

In 1997, The Verve had a huge hit with a song they called “Bittersweet Symphony”, based on a very strong melody carried by strings.
In 1997, The Verve and Richard Ashcroft got into trouble with some old guys named “The Rolling Stones“.

Just because they had forgotten to tell everyone that this “symphony” had been sampled on an old tune from 1967, “The Last Time“, whose strings arragements had been written by one of Britain’s greatest composers and arrangers, David Whitaker. This artist has worked with Marianne Faithfull, Nico, Lee Hazelwood, Serge Gainsbourg, The Eurythmics, even Simply Red and Air. He also composed movie scores. He can be compared to his all-time rival, the better known Michel Colombier.

After The Verve success, they came to an agreement with The Rolling Stones and “The Last Time“. But I have read nowhere anything about this original song being sampled for Madonna’s “Don’t Tell Me” live version.”

Special thanks to Hubert for sharing his musical knowledge with the Tribe with this article.