David Bowie’s ‘Fame’ inspired two forefathers of funk. James Brown took that song’s guitar riff for his ‘Hot (I Need to Be Loved, Loved, Loved, Loved)’. (All three tracks—Parliament’s, Bowie’s, and Brown’s—were released in 1975.)
George Clinton heard Bowie’s tune on the radio. He told new drummer Jerome Brailey, “Remember that beat for me,” as per his thoroughly entertaining memoir. Brailey remembered the beat and got a cowriting credit. The new Parliament tune “incorporated chants that we were already doing in concert”, wrote Clinton.
Parliament’s ‘Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)’ was one of the P-Funk universe’s biggest hits. The prolonged “Weeee want the funk” was inspired by the “Faaaame”. (All three tracks—Bowie’s, Brown’s, and Parliament’s—were released in 1975.)
Bootsy Collins’s emphasis of the One is key, as it is across most of Mothership Connection. As he recalled in an interview with Mitch Gallagher (and others), Bootsy had learnt of the importance of that beat from James Brown, who told the young bassist, “You can play anything you wanna play, but just give me the One.”
Clinton initially struggled with the concept. Bootsy said that George “couldn’t count” and would come in on the wrong beat. But when Clinton understood the One, “he took that and ran with it.”
Over 40 years later, Clinton relished the lead up to the One during ‘Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)’ at NPR’s Tiny Desk. He was performing with his grandkids and Garrett Shider, son of Garry Shider, one of the singers and guitarists on Mothership. ‘Give Up the Funk’ starts at 6:50.
Clinton raises his arms in anticipation of the “Weeee” on the One. (Although he seems a couple of beats early with the “You gotta” at 9:16.) Clinton has never claimed to be an expert musician (“Man, I don’t play shit. Never have. I know what I need to hear, though, and I know how to get players to do it.”). He wrote in his memoir:
“People don’t have a clear idea of what they can and can’t do as artists. I knew my limits. I knew what I couldn’t do. I couldn’t play an instrument. I couldn’t sing as well as some and I couldn’t arrange as well as some others. But I could see the whole picture from altitude, and that let me land the planes.”
And the Mothership. ‘Give Up the Funk’ formed the foundation of the LP, along with the title track and ‘P-Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)’. From there, Clinton visited his vault of tracks to “retrofit the strongest ones” to fit the space funk concept. (‘Unfunky UFO’ and ‘Night of the Thumpasaurus Peoples’ fit handily enough. Clinton writes that ‘Handcuffs’, a leftover from Chocolate City, was updated with “alien accents, accelerated voices and such”, though this seems easy to miss.)
Although ‘P-Funk’ was picked as the lead single, radio stations took a liking to ‘Give Up the Funk’, which Clinton attributes to its “catchy pop melody”, “memorable catchphrase”, and “light and bouncy chant”.
Pop programmers didn’t like the “mothersucker” chant at the start. The band agreed to take it off and the song went to no. 15 on the pop chart. As Clinton recalls, 1975 was the year of Paul McCartney and Wings’ ‘Silly Love Songs’ and Elton John and Kiki Dee’s ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’. Parliament “were right there with them.”
“Weeee want the funk!”
Top image from NPR Music.