Did you know Avicii’s “Levels” sampled a gospel song from 1962?

When people think about the golden era of EDM, one song almost always comes up. Levels by Avicii. The melody, the drop, and especially that vocal became instantly recognizable at festivals around the world.

What many listeners don’t realize is that the famous vocal in the track is much older than the song itself.

The line everyone knows, “Oh, sometimes I get a good feeling… yeah,” was originally recorded decades earlier. The voice belongs to legendary soul singer Etta James, taken from her 1962 song Something’s Got a Hold on Me.

The original recording came from a completely different era of music. The song blended gospel energy with rhythm and blues and became one of the standout tracks of Etta James’ early career. Her powerful delivery is what made that vocal line so memorable, and decades later it would end up at the center of one of electronic music’s biggest anthems.

When Avicii came across the vocal, he built the entire track around it. Instead of hiding the sample in the background, he let it lead the song. The vocal opens the track and sets the emotional tone before the melody and synths take over. That contrast between an old soul recording and modern progressive house production became one of the reasons the track connected so strongly with listeners.

Before its official release, Avicii started playing the song in his sets. Early festival videos quickly began circulating online. People didn’t even know the name of the track yet, but they were already asking for “that Avicii song with the good feeling vocal.”

When the song was finally released in 2011, it spread fast across the global dance scene. Clubs, festivals, radio stations and YouTube all pushed the track into massive rotation. Within months it had become one of the most recognizable songs in electronic music.

More than a decade later, Levels still feels timeless. The melody is simple, the drop is powerful, and that vocal from a 1962 soul recording still hits the same way every time it comes in.

A gospel inspired performance recorded in the early sixties ended up becoming the emotional core of one of the most iconic EDM tracks ever made.