MOTHER EARTH IN TROUBLE

Many people consider Maggot Brain, released in July 1971, the pinnacle of Funkadelic’s varied discography. It is a firecracker of an album, a prismatic spray of funky rock sparks that lights up George Clinton’s career. But before you get to the lyrical barbs and serious beats of the music, there’s that cover.

Buried to the neck in earth strewn with wire thorns a woman screams soundlessly, her curly black hair a halo of darkness. Like an angel imprisoned in some sadistic underworld, this is an image of decay, of degradation, of torture. On the back cover, all that is left of her is a skull. Welcome to George Clinton’s confronting world view.

Dropping the stylus onto the epic opening track, things don’t immediately get more cheerful. Here’s George, intoning an anti-benediction:

“Mother Earth is pregnant for the third time / For y’all have knocked her up

I have tasted the maggots in the mind of the universe / I was not offended

For I knew I had to rise above it all / Or drown in my own shit”

Has Clinton got your attention yet? Not quite? That’s OK, there’s more on the way.

Starting the LP with "Maggot brain" is bold. Seductive. Moving. Legend has it that Clinton told Eddie Hazel to play "like your Momma just died", and the guitarist unfurled one of the greatest solos of all time. Later, producer Clinton pulled back the other instrumentation and layered the guitar using echoplex, transforming an already great solo into an extraordinary journey of cosmic psychedelia. And here’s the thing. Despite the instruction the overall message of the piece is one affirming life: ebbing and flowing but always rebounding. Resurgent, unstoppable.

Balancing "Maggot Brain" at the other end of the album is Funkadelic’s "Revolution #9", "Wars of Armageddon". A freak-out collage of unhinged proportions, this ten minute trip does rather support the notion that copious quantities of Class A substances were consumed during the sessions. Cowbell, explosions and a vamping organ lead a merry dance through chanting protesters, guitar squalls, pattering percussion and tannoy announcements. Sounds crazy—and when you hear the cuckoo clock and the animal noises you’ll surely agree—but there is a funky groove underpinning the dark magic. Miles Davis, amongst others, was definitely listening. "Wars of Armageddon" also loosely ties in with the tract printed on the inner sleeve of the album, a treatise on "Fear" that underpins the apocalyptic feel of the opening monologue and closing track.

In between, however, all is far from dark. There’s the soul-funk of "Can you get to that", some libidinous sweat in "Hit it and quit it" (featuring a super keyboard interlude from Bernie Worrell), a slice of Sly And The Family Stone on ""You and your folks, me and my folks", and the Zeppelin-esque rock strut of "Super stupid".

To wrap it all up, Maggot Brain is one of the great rock albums of the 1970s. It is an outré classic that feels unsettlingly relevant half a century after its creation. Essential listening.

© Bruce Jenkins—September 2022