Sweet Birthday, Not Bitter

Today is my birthday! Woot!

I was going to write a post about Birthday Songs or something like that, but that seemed cliche, so I ruled against it. And then I was going to write a post about famous musicians with birthdays on October 6th, but the only two I could find were the lead singer of The Charlatans and MC Lars (whoever that is) so I decided not to do that. Then I was going to write a post about songs that are about getting old, but that was kind of depressing, so that's not happening. Instead, I'm going with the "Birthdays are exciting and so are these songs" post!

Don't be fooled by the fact that all three of these tracks center on The Verve's "Bittersweet Symphony". I'm not bittersweet in the least - another great year is about to start and autumn in Boston is wonderful. As are these songs.

Enough about all that muckity muck and on to the tunes.

I caught this first tune via Pigeons and Planes, and it's quite the baller track. It features Colin Munroe and Wale, two artists have received mentions on this here site in the past. It's a pretty dope song that samples The Verve's iconic hit and features a) chopped up Verve vocals, b) Colin Munroe faking Verve vocals, and c) Wale dropping some fly verses, per usual. Dig it.

Wale f. Colin Munroe - Bittersweet (YSI) (filesavr)

Perhaps the most famous Verve samplation (just made that word, Happy Birthday me!) is the ubiquitous mashup of Jay-Z's "Dirt Off Your Shoulder" with the aforementioned track. It has a hiccup in the middle that bugs me a little bit, but other than that it's a pretty money mashup. If you haven't already checked it out, you've probably never been to a college party - but that's fine. No judgment on you or your parties. Enjoy.

Jay-Z vs. The Verve - Bittersweet Dirt Off Your Shoulder (YSI) (filesavr)

Finally, the smallest sample of them all - Girl Talk's brief homage in his tune "Once Again". As you may or may not know, "Bittersweet Symphony" was the subject of a pretty famous sampling lawsuit. As my good friend Wikipedia sums it up: "Although the song's lyrics were written by Verve vocalist Richard Ashcroft, it has been credited to Keith Richards and Mick Jagger after charges by the original copyright owners that the song was plagiarized from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra recording of The Rolling Stones' 1965 song "The Last Time". Originally, The Verve had negotiated a license to use a sample from the Oldham recording, but it was successfully argued that the Verve had used 'too much' of the sample."

Anyway, needless to say, the modern king of pop sampling (much respect to DJ Shadow) threw in a quick tip of the hat to Verve on "Once Again", and it's dope.

Girl Talk - Once Again (YSI) (filesavr)

Hope you like the tunes, here's to many more.