Politician won't drop Stones hit

GERMANY'S conservatives said today they would continue to play the Rolling Stones song Angie on their leader Angela Merkel's campaign trail despite complaints from the band and requests from a record company to stop.

"The song will be played tonight" at a rally in Hamburg, said a spokeswoman for Ms Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) which is tipped to win September elections, paving the way for her to become Germany's first woman chancellor.

She said that the party had been assured by the German music copyright group GEMA that they were allowed to use the Stones' 1973 hit.

The European edition of Time magazine yesterday reported that the legendary rock band believes Ms Merkel should have sought their permission to use their bittersweet love song but would have refused if she had done so.

"We did not grant permission. We are surprised that permission was not requested. If it had been requested we would have said no," it quoted a spokesman for the Stones as saying.

The CDU has regularly played Angie at Ms Merkel's rallies, ignoring the irony of lyrics like "Will all our dreams go up in smoke?", and did so again last night when she addressed a crowd in Warnemuende in north-eastern Germany.

Today a Hamburg-based record company which holds the rights to the song in Germany said they were not taking legal action for now, but asked the CDU to stop playing the song.

"At the moment we are not looking at taking any legal action. But things may still change. Anything is possible," said Jan Ehlers, the head of tj musicservice.

"The way the song is being used now is not acceptable, neither for the authors nor for the original record company," he said.

The Rolling Stones have raised eyebrows with a song on their latest album, Sweet Neo-Con, which is seen as a critique of conservative US President George W. Bush.

And now you know...THE REST OF THE STORY:

PROFILE: “Layla”’s real name was Patti Boyd -- or more accurately, Patti Boyd Harrison. She was the wife of Beatle George Harrison when Eric Clapton began pursuing her. Harrison first met her on the set of A Hard Day’s Night in 1964. A stunning nineteen-year-old blonde model, she was only supposed to make a brief appearance in the film and leave; instead, she and George fell in love and eventually married. George and Eric were close friends. They’d known each other since the days when the Beatles and the Yardbirds (Eric’s group at the time) were becoming popular. As they both became superstars, they hung out together more and more. They even contributed to each other’s recordings. Eric played a magnificent solo on “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” George co-wrote and played on Cream’s “Badge:’ George wrote “Here Comes the Sun” while sitting in Eric’s garden; he wrote “Savoy Truffle” specifically for Eric, who was having dental problems but still couldn’t resist chocolates. George joined Eric on the Delaney and Bonnie tour; etc.

George didn’t realize, however, that over the years Eric had quietly fallen in love with his wife. Eric told Patti (but not George) about his feelings, but she wouldn’t hear anything of it. She remained dedicated to the man who had written “Something” for her. Already a tortured soul, Eric was plunged into despair. In an outburst of emotion, he wrote “Layla.” Later, when people asked him who he was singing for, all he would say was, “‘Layla’ was about a woman I felt really deeply about and who turned me down, and I had to pour it out in some way.” You may be wondering how “Patti” became “Layla.” The answer: Clapton lifted the name “Layla” from a Persian love story called “Layla and Mashoun.” The tale had little similarity to the Eric/Patti/George love triangle. Clapton just liked the title. The song was recorded and released in 1970, with Bobby Whitlock, Jim Gordon, Carl Radle, and Duane Allman, of the Allman Brothers’ Band, playing on it. But it flopped. The record was attributed to Derek and the Dominoes, and no one knew it was Clapton. So Eric, who had poured his heart and soul into the record, threw in the towel. He gave up music and took up heroin. He withdrew for several years-during which the record was re-released and became one of the all-time FM favorites, and a Top 10 single.

A few years later, Clapton kicked the habit and reemerged with “I Shot the Sheriff:’ his first #l song. The story has a happy ending for Eric. Patti eventually divorced George and, in a secret ceremony in Tucson, Arizona, in 1979, married Clapton. Ultimate irony: Patti and Eric later joined George in a recording of the Everly Brothers’ old hit, “Bye, Bye Love.”

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