2874. Parliament - ‘Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)’ (1975)
There’s a whole lot of rhythm going down
from the album Mothership Connection
The collective legacy of George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic recordings is as large and as all-encompassing as outer space itself, and I would be foolish to attempt anything comprehensive here. Maybe I’ll just say this: everyone in post-1970s pop, dance, R&B and hip-hop probably owes something to Clinton, including many of the artists who are now considered among the greatest of all time (to cite one of the more obvious examples, Prince would be a very different prospect without George Clinton’s influence).
Clinton stated that one of his aims was to portray black people in situations that the media rarely placed them in, and Mothership Connection took the band and their grooves right into space. ‘Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)’ must have sounded suitably otherworldly at the time - if there was ever evidence needed that disco evolved from funk, this is it, and with its deceptively simple lyrics and overlapping hooks, this track helped to anticipate the next big wave of popular music.
This was a hit - how could it not be? - and became one of the most famous tracks from any of George Clinton’s projects. Accordingly, ‘Give Up The Funk’ has been referenced, covered, and sampled countless times, but there’s no recreating the urgency of the original. The first Mothership single, ‘P-Funk (Wants To Get Funked Up)’, had seen the horns, guitars, and vocals subdued for much of the song in order to facilitate an explosion in the chorus, but ‘Give Up The Funk’ bursts right out of the gate - if ‘P-Funk’ was a suggestion, ‘Give Up’ is a demand. We need the funk. We gotta have that funk.
‘Give Up The Funk (Tear The Roof Off The Sucker)’ audio:
Chart peak: US #15
Written by Richard Eric, 10/7/17
