The Verve Bitter Sweet Symphony is one of the most famous songs of all time, especially in the U.K. The song was recorded by English rock band The Verve. The song contains a sample of Andrew Oldham Orchestra’s performance of “The Last Time” which was originally a song by The Rolling Stones.

Prior to May of 2019 the songwriting credits for Bitter Sweet Symphony belonged to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. However, in May of 2019 they officially signed over songwriting credits to Richard Ashcroft.

The music video was as iconic as the song itself. The music video was directed by Walter A. Stern and released on June 11, 1997. Ashcroft starts walking from the southeast corner of the intersection of Hoxton and Falkirk Streets in Hoxton in the East End of London, subsequently proceeding north along the east side of Hoxton Street until he reaches Hoxton Gardens. He then crosses to the corner of Purcell Street and walks back toward his starting point before being joined by the rest of the band at the corner of Crondall Street, across the street from where he had started.

The video is a homage to the single continuous shot docu-fiction music video for Massive Attack’s “Unfinished Sympathy” and shows Richard Ashcroft miming the lyrics while walking down a busy London pavement, without changing his stride or direction throughout, except for one instance when he is forced to stop for a moving car and views his reflection in the car’s tinted window. He narrowly avoids being hit by a car as he starts his walk, repeatedly bumping into passersby (causing one young woman to lose balance and fall), and he also jumps on top of the bonnet of another vehicle stopped in his path (the driver gets out of her car and proceeds to confront him, while he continues unflinchingly). At the end of the video, the rest of the Verve join Ashcroft, and the final shot sees them walking down the street into the distance. This then leads into the beginning of the video for “The Drugs Don’t Work”.

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