I’ve been on a real Funkadelic tear for a couple of weeks now. The whole Maggot Brain album is basically flawless.
It doesn’t matter how many times this song shows up on my iPod. Chances are, I’ll still listen to it all the way through. Savor the time signature jolts, the female vocalists singing along with the main riff, and the drummer’s absolutely jarring use of the hi-hat. I’m totally absorbed every time. Soak in the Bernie Worrell organ solo with the ladies singing, “I want you to hit it and quit it,” ever-so-slightly out of tune with each other on that evocative seventh scale degree. Dig the Eddie Hazel ray-gun guitar solo on the outro.
It’s an amazing four minutes (nearly) of weird, funky early-70s goodness.
I have no idea how they decided to structure the intro, which begins with two wah-soaked guitars and the organ playing the riff in unison (the bass and drums are present in the background, if you listen carefully, but then pulled out of the mix). Then, THUMP, on the accent directly after the riff ends, and “I want you to HIT IT.” It doesn’t make much rhythmic sense, but after having listened to it now for years, it’s part of what makes the song so damn compelling every time I hear it.
Another morsel: listen to how Hazel uses the wah pedal throughout, but especially in the intro, where he fully rolls it forward ONLY at the turnaround of the main riff (about 0:09 into the song).
Key lyrics: “You can shake it to the east, shake it to the west.”
Happy Friday.
Album: Maggot Brain (1971).
