"Grateful When You're Dead / Jerry Was There" is a song by the English rock band

Kula Shaker Kula Shaker are an English psychedelic rock band. Led by frontman Crispian Mills, the band came to prominence during the Post-Britpop era of the late 1990s. The band enjoyed commercial success in the UK between 1996 and 1999, notching up a numb ...

, taken from their first album '' K''. The song's title is a reference to the American rock band

Grateful Dead The Grateful Dead was an American rock music, rock band formed in Palo Alto, California, in 1965. Known for their eclectic style that fused elements of rock, blues, jazz, Folk music, folk, country music, country, bluegrass music, bluegrass, roc ...

and their lead guitarist

Jerry Garcia Jerome John Garcia (August 1, 1942 – August 9, 1995) was an American musician who was the lead guitarist and a vocalist with the rock band Grateful Dead, which he co-founded and which came to prominence during the counterculture of the 196 ...

. The song is in two parts: the GWYD part, which is a standard rock song, and the JWT part, which is more drifting with dark and ethnic sounds. The single was released on 22 April 1996, both as a 7" and a CD, and reached number 35 on the UK singles chart. In ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'', critic

Neil Kulkarni Neil Kulkarni (26 July 1972 – 22 January 2024) was a British music journalist, author and musician from Coventry, England. Upon his death, ''Clash'' magazine called him "one of the sharpest pens of his generation". He primarily focused on hip ...

declared "Grateful When You're Dead" and previous release "

Tattva According to various Indian schools of philosophy, ''tattvas'' () are the elements or aspects of reality that constitute human experience. In some traditions, they are conceived as an aspect of the Indian deities. Although the number of ''tat ...

" to be "the two worst singles of '96".

Track listing in both formats

# "Grateful When You're Dead/Jerry Was There" # "Another Life" # "Under the Hammer" *Catalogue number CD: KulaCD2 *Catalogue number 7": Kula 72

References

1996 singles Kula Shaker songs Columbia Records singles 1996 songs Song recordings produced by John Leckie Songs written by Crispian Mills {{1990s-rock-song-stub