The Last Time (Rolling Stones song)
| "The Last Time" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| B-side | "Play with Fire" |
"The Last Time" is a song by the British rock band The Rolling Stones. This was The Rolling Stones' first UK single written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It was the band's third UK single to reach No. 1 there, spending for four straight weeks at the top on most of the numerous UK music charts (there was no one UK chart at the time considered to be an absolute and definitive authority) in March and early April 1965. "The Last Time" was recorded at RCA Studios in Hollywood, California in January 1965.
Footage still exists of a number of performances of this song by the Rolling Stones in 1965: from the popular BBC-TV music show Top of the Pops, the 1965 New Musical Express Poll Winners Concert and American TV shows including The Ed Sullivan Show, Shindig! and Hollywood A Go-Go. The footage establishes that the distinctive guitar riff was played by Brian Jones.
Although the song is credited to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Richards has mentioned that it was based on a traditional gospel song called "This May Be The Last Time", recorded by The Staple Singers in 1955.[1][2]
In 1967, The Who rush-recorded a version of this song and "Under My Thumb" to show support for Jagger and Richards, who had been sentenced to prison terms on drug charges.[2]
In 1997, former Rolling Stones business manager Allen Klein, whose company ABKCO Records owns the rights to all Rolling Stones material from the 1960s, sued English rock band The Verve for using a sample of The Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of "The Last Time" in their hit song "Bitter Sweet Symphony". The Verve had obtained a license to use the sample, but Klein successfully argued that the band used more than the license covered. The Verve were required to relinquish their royalties to ABKCO and the songwriting credit was changed to Jagger/Richards. This led to Andrew Loog Oldham, who owns the copyright on the orchestral rendition that was sampled, also suing The Verve.[3]
The same hook was sampled in several other subsequent recordings by other artists, most notably in Number 1 by Tinchy Stryder featuring N-Dubz, which reached number one in the UK singles chart[4] in the week of its official release on 20 April 2009.
A fan favourite and popular song in the Stones' canon, it was regularly performed in concert during the band's 1965, 1966 and 1967 tours. It was then left off their concert setlists until 1997-98, when it was dusted off for the Bridges to Babylon Tour.
References
- ^ The Staple Singers, Maybe The Last Time
- ^ a b "The Last Time" - at SongFacts.com
- ^ "The Verve Sued Again over "Bitter Sweet Symphony" VH1, 11 January 1999
- ^ UK Singles Chart[1]
