Grateful Dead Grant First Official Sample to Animal Collective

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Animal Collective, who earlier this year released the magnificent Merriweather Post Pavilion, have become the first artists to ever receive approval from the Grateful Dead to sample the jam band's catalog, Gorilla Vs. Bear reports. Animal Collective's management company Leg Up confirmed that the band had the "first officially licensed Grateful Dead sample" for a song AC's Avey Tare wrote called "What Would I Want Sky," a track the band has performed recently in concert. As "GvB" points out, the song chopped-up and sampled a line from the Grateful Dead's Mars Hotel cut "Unbroken Chain."

According to Leg Up, in a Twitter message that has since been deleted, Phil Lesh — who wrote "Unbroken Chain" — "loved the track ["WWIWS"]." In a second message posted on the Leg Up Twitter, the company wrote, "Remember, just because its approved, doesn't guarantee its going to be used..." As of right now, the fate of "WWIWS" is unclear. It wasn't on the band's Merriweather Post Pavilion, even though it surfaced around the time when the band was promoting their new album, nor did it appear as a b-side to any of the MPP singles thus far. AC fans are speculating that the studio version of "WWIWS" might appear on a rumored Brothersport EP later in the year.

In other Animal Collective-related news, courtesy of The Fader, the group's Panda Bear (real name Noah Lennox) features on a new song by Atlas Sound, the side project of Deerhunter frontman Bradford Cox. The track is called "Walkabout," and samples the Dovers' "What Am I Going To Do." Atlas Sound's new album Logos, which leaked in an embryonic form last year, is out October 20th.

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Song Stories

“He Will Break Your Heart”

Jerry Butler | 1960

A lightly swinging Latin-influenced, almost cha-cha groove and close harmonies decorated Jerry Butler's early soul hit "He Will Break Your Heart," delivering a stately warning that his rival would never love his girl like he did. The melody came to Butler as he was driving on the highway from Atlantic City, New Jersey, to Philadelphia with Curtis Mayfield, and as Butler told Rolling Stone, "I just sang the melody and Curtis put the chords to it." The song's premise, Butler added, "was something that I'd lived ...The lyric was an experience rather than a revelation. Whereas music is usually a revelation."

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