(TMT – Manchester) Nineties alt-rock legends The Verve are set to release upcoming album Forth via the band’s own imprint, On Your Own, August 26. Frontman Richard Ashcroft publicly confirmed today that a cover of “Bitter Sweet Symphony” will in no way be included on the album, contrary to the daunting and ridicule-laden expectations of the consumer public and/or former Nineties Kids! that are now slightly overweight disc jockeys at top 40s stations in and around the Midwest.
“‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ was a really sweet jam, but it isn’t on our new album,” said Ashcroft at a press event. “I’m a million different people from one day to the next,” he added, trailing off in a raspy half-mumble.
Ashcroft then launched into an unprompted discussion of the song, named the 382nd best of all time by Rolling Stone.
“You see, what I was trying to get across [in ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’] through the powerful force that is music is that being a slave to money is, like, very bad,” he explained. “It’s sort of a complex grappling with existence that will live on until the end of time as, like, the benevolent pressure of life and love and consumerism. It’s like Damn The Man!, but it’s also like just being a slave to money till you die, you know. That’s what I was getting at lyrically, you know,” he said.
“I can confirm that the tracklisting for Forth in no way includes a reference to ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony,” he said, pausing in thought to contradict himself: “Okay, maybe tangentially.”
Friend and contemporary Noel Gallagher agreed. “Yeah, maybe tangentially, sort of,” he said in a phone interview.
Forth tracklisting:
