Funkadelic - Maggot Brain
- Abigail Devoe
- Feb 10
- 16 min read
Updated: Feb 17
“For I knew I had to rise above it all...”
art by Joel Brodsky
Funkadelic:
Eddie Hazel: guitar, lead vocals on “Super Stupid”
Tawl Ross: rhythm guitar
Bernie Worrell: key
Billy Bass Nelson: bass, lead vox on “You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks”
Tiki Fulwood: drums
George Clinton: bandleader, spoken word on “Maggot Brain”
The Parliaments:
Grady Thomas, Fuzzy Haskins, Calvin Simon, and Stingray Davis
Guests: Garry Shider, backing vocals; Hot Buttered Soul (Rose Williams, Pat Lewis, and Dianne Lewis,) backing vocals
Produced by George Clinton
If you were to make Mount Funkmore – the Mount Rushmore of funk – it’d be James Brown, Jimi Hendrix, Sly Stone, and George Clinton. Two men to establish the fundamentals, one to exalt them, and one to tear them all down.
While Sly and the Family Stone were able to cross over, playing Woodstock and having hits on the popcharts, Funkadelic did not. It’s 1970, and George Clinton is too damn busy to try to cross over. On top of running Parliament as its own separate entity, Maggot Brain was Funkadelic’s 3rd album in 2 years. It’s got a lot to respond to, both outside and inside the mothership. On the outside, 1970 was the year the Mansonfamily was put on trial. Thanks to them, the media gladly demonized hippies and anyone who looked like them. The heroin epidemic took hold; hitting the Black community especially hard. The draft already targeted young men of color, who had less opportunities to go to college than their white peers. Black men were disproportionately represented on the front lines. According to The New York Times, 16.3% of men drafted and 23% of Vietnam troops were Black; despite only 11% of the American population at the time being Black.
Speaking of Vietnam, the Kent State shooting in May turned the public’s perception of the war. Opposing the war went from a radical young people’s issue to an everyone’s issue. The National Guard firing on students? That was a reeeeally bad look. Distrust in the government once reserved for radical counterculture groups was becoming maninstream. Speaking of radical counterculture groups: the Black Panthers reached their all-time peak membership by the turn of the new decade. P-Funk was based out of Detroit at this time; which never quite recovered from the riots in ’67. That adds a whole other layer to the social context of Maggot Brain.
On the inside: George forged a reputation of unbelievable debauchery, not paying his band members, and overindulgence.
...maybe the costumes had something to do with it.
Biographer Ricky Vincent said drugs were “as integral to the P-Funk experience as perspiration is...everything had to do with a higher consciousness in some way, shape, or form.” (quoted from: Parliament Funkadelic: One Nation Under A Groove. dir. Yvonne Smith, 2005)
Come 1970, Sly and Co.'s fantastic inefficiency left the playing field wide open. Funkadelic became Dr. Funkenstein's monster: they were tight like James Brown's men, energetic like Sly, and, thanks to some unlikely allies, they had the volume of Hendrix. As the story goes, Funkadelic shared the bill with Vanilla Fudge. The van carrying Funkadelic’s gear crashed…“so they say.” Billy Bass didn't sound convinced in PBS's One Nation Under A Groove documentary. Whatever happened, Vanilla Fudge nice enough to loan out their stuff for the night...on the condition they didn’t destroy it. It was a very real possibility: Funkadelic often shared the bill with disaster masters The Stooges and the MC5.
That night with Vanilla Fudge was Funkadelic’s a-ha moment: this sound had grit. Flair. Most importantly, it was LOUD. Their next LP would be a genre-busting spectacular: 10+ minute jams like Iron Butterfly and the Grateful Dead, Motown roots, psych rock volume, the body of funk, and the spirit of Lightnin' Hopkins and Elmore James.
Sadly, this sweet spot wouldn't last long. By the time psych-funk landmark Maggot Brain was born, Eddie, Billy Bass, Bernie, and Tiki had all jumped ship!
It’s not every day I cover a group with a whole genre named after them. P-funk has influenced countless heavyweights: NWA, De La Soul, Questlove, Childish Gambino, even Ween and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. On top of that, I had no idea just how expansive the P-Funkiverse is. A lot of very talented guys and gals have boarded the mothership over the years – Bootsy Collins to the front! The clear MVPs of Maggot Brainare the unbelievably talented Bernie Worrell and the late, great Eddie Hazel.
I’m not sure why the “classic rock” community hasn’t given Funkadelic their flowers, especially for Maggot Brain. The letters may look a little different, but as I’ll show you through this review, it’s written in our language.
Funkadelic was no stranger to the ten-minute opening track with a spoken-word introduction and freaky sci-fi sound effects. See “Mommy, What’s A Funkadelic?” and the title track of Free Your Mind (and your Ass Will Follow.) The first two are playful, zany, involving the whole band. This one’s solitary, and dead serious. A Rare Earth-esque crack bounces off invisible walls before the voice of all-powerful funk god George Clinton emerges. He has an ominous message for us earthlings:
“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.”
Funkadelic’s iconic stream-of-consciousness quips came from the drugs. George has said as much! That’s how we got this opening monologue; George dropped some ’cid and stood right in front of the mic. And I mean right in front of the mic. Despite George panning himself all the way to the right and putting crazy delay on, you can hear feedback and ambient buzz. It’s the natural outcome of shoving a lot of equipment into a little space. Look at the photos, United Sound Systems wasn’t a big place! George feels close, but far away.
According to the man himself in his book, “tasting the maggots in the mind of the universe” means “all of it: the lack of self-knowledge outlined in Free Your Mind, the consumerism and short-sightedness in ‘Eulogy and Light.’”
Now that we know the meaning of “tasting the maggots,” let’s do some lyrical analysis on the rest.
Mother earth is pregnant for the third time: What were the first two pregnancies? One was the human race. Maybe the one before was life itself; the primordial soup that everything – humans, animals, and maggots – evolved from.
For y’all have knocked her up: that speaks for itself. Humans created terrible things: greed, pride, and fear with which to destroy each other. Like an “oops kid,” we may not have intended for this outcome, but actions have consequences!
What do maggots do? You find them in dumpsters, roadkill, sometimes bodies. Before religion – funeral homes, building pyramids, lighting rafts on fire – that’s how bodies decomposed. Maggots feed on rot.
I was not offended: Given this is George talking, it’s safe to say this is a product of ego death! Realizing theuniverse doesn’t center around man like we’ve always been taught. No man is infallible. Even George overindulged in earthly delights.
For I had to rise above it all, or drown in my own shit: Setting it all aside: greed, lack of self-awareness, fear, your ego, or else you’ll be your own undoing.
This monologue sets the stage for Eddie’s pulsing, dramatic, ten-minute marathon of a guitar solo. If there’s any one story from Maggot Brain sessions everyone knows – and every essayist will remind you of ad nauseum – it’s this one. The details have shifted over the years, but George tells the basic premise in his book:
“Eddie and I were in the studio, tripping like crazy but also trying to focus our emotions. I told him to play like his mother had died, to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him and let it out thought his guitar...I knew immediately that he understood what I meant.”
quoted from: George Clinton with Ben Greenman, Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You? (2014)
As Garry Shider described, “‘Maggot Brain’ is a brother crying his soul out...Maggot Brain is a state of mind...to get you out of heroin.” It was originally a full-band track, but quite frankly Eddie shredded so hard George mixed everyone else way down. The rhythm part, played by Tawl Ross, is minor chords against majors. They form an uneasy lullaby while Eddie embarks on his cosmic adventure; like the clammy sleep of being under the influence. Consider the idea that Maggot Brain mourns the death of the hippie humanist ’60s. In sound, its title track eulogizes the decade’s ultimate cosmic man: Jimi Hendrix. Sure, Eddie’s tone, reverb, note placement, and use of feedback all invoke Jimi. But the strongest call to him is in the subtlest details. We hail Jimi’s solos to the high heavens, and just so. He was an intuitive, expressive soloist beyond what any player has been able to reach since. Eddie is a bit more reserved on “Maggot Brain,” but no less expressive. In feeling, he traverses loneliness, sorrow, a tinge of bitterness. Feeling flows from each bend of a string. Eddie was barely in his forties when he left our mortal plane for the one beyond us. When I hear his fingertips on the fretboard, he’s immortal.
What made Jimi remarkable was how different his approach to rhythm was. Expression is all about the contrast. You just don’t hit every letter of every word with the same inflection. Seven minutes into “Maggot Brain,” Eddie tremolo-picks double stops in G and B before returning to the core solo. That has Jimi written all over it. It’s the tonal shift; the moment that finds hope in hopelessness. It sets the tone for the rest of the album: existing in spite of it all.
The strongest evidence lending itself to Maggot Brain’s “death of the ’60s” interpretation is Can You Get To That. For a modern listener, this song a glimpse at the widespread disillusionment after peace and love flopped. It beginsreminiscing on detachment from the self in favor of the collective that the ’60s touted: “I once had a life, or rather, life had me.” We’re not the architects of our own destinies, man, we’re just along for the ride. The repeated “Can you get to that?” invokes the iconic ’60s catchphrase, “can you dig it?” But the ’70s were a return to the I after so much we. “I was one among many/Or, at least, I seemed to be.” A whole generation mourned theirlost potential, felt used, or were left paranoid. They questioned each other’s and their own intentions. “I recollect with mixed emotions the good times we used to have/But you were making preparations for the coming separation/And you blew everything we had.” That’s perhaps the thing about the death of the hippies. These kids pointed the finger at each other instead The Man (or realizing the movement failed because they had no plan.) “Can You Get To That”is a rewrite of an earlier Parliaments song, 1968’s “What You Been Growing.” (The Parliaments were, of course, the doo-wop quintet George sang with before the contractual dispute that birthed Funkadelic.)
One line in particular modernizes the track for a cynical 1971: “Checks you signed with love and kisses/Later come back signed ‘insufficient funds.’” In a world of beggars, borrowers, businessmen, and thieves, peace and love just isn’t enough to bank on. Truth hurts.
As far as the music goes, I call “Can You Get To That” proto-funk. This fresh-cut grass acoustic guitar part isn’t unlike something Pete Townsend would’ve played on Tommy or Who’s Next. This very British rock-oriented part is set against funk’s trademark emphasis on the downbeat. The towering vocal showcase spanning three octaves is lifted from doo-wop and gospel churches. “Get To That” plods along slow, as if to reluctantly trudge through mud to an uncertain future. It’s a cool, kind of foreboding groove. But these guys aren’t gonna cut their hair and live the “straight” life just yet.
It eases us into our first true “funk” track, Hit It And Quit It; titled after a phrase made famous by none other than James Brown.
Strong ties to psych rock remain – this is Funkadelic, after all! Bernie’s keys mess around with dramatic swoops of Richie Blackmore Deep Purple organ. He plays an energetic solo that wouldn’t be out of place on “Hush.” Eddie whips out his first truly searing solo, stretched out with plenty of reverb. When he plays on his own, his style is more sensitive. When he’s locked into the band, it’s flashy and loud. It proves how adaptable a player he was. Adaptability is the best tool any guitarist can have in his toolbox. It beats any effects pedal, loop, or flashy technique, because it shows heart. No one likes a heartless guitarist.
“Hit It And Quit It” kicks off with fat, rubbery, wah-wah guitar, and delightfully ’70s keys before building into nothing short of an extravaganza. If you listen really hard, you’ll hear evidence of studio wizardry. Tiki’s drums were mixed waaay down through Eddie and Bernie’s intro before CRACK! An extra beat was spliced in before the groove takes over.
At its core, “Hit It” is funk as funk can be. It’s just a song about moving your body. Shaking it to the east. Subsequently shaking it to the west. The syncopation – doo-doo-doo-DOO! Doo-doo-doo-DOO! Doo-doo-doo-DOO! – encourages that. In typical P-funk fashion, “Hit It” is completely uninhibited (of course there’s bells.)A funky Uncle Sam commands us, “I want you to hit it and quit it!”
I love how the sounds of Maggot Brain get progressively darker as we get to the spinning heart of the star…or the label in the center of the disc. It’s not the darkest of subject matter (we’ll get to that!) but You and Your Folks, Me and My Folks sounds dark. Jesus, the effects on the rhythm section are weird! The drumsand keys have a fractured drag, as if they’re blasting apart in 8-bit. Meanwhile, the bass is buried in so much gunk it sounds like little more than the buzz of a subwoofer. It’s remarkable to think these sounds werecreated in the age of analog recording technology. They’re so digital! Eddie fights to be heard over the rhythm section’s sheer dominance. He tries in vain to inject some life into all this, but fails to tear through the curtain. This song sounds dead, but in a really cool way, and Eddie is the conscience screaming for life. Bernie sounds like he’s fighting against the music too; fending off dissonant chords.
This is an interesting set of sounds to backdrop lyrics saying “Hey, maybe the ’60s ideal of, ‘Come on people ’round, smile on your brother everybody get together tryin’ to love one another right now’ had some merit.” Funkadelic’sacknowledgment is neither stale nor flowery. Every good music listener knows funk is about the power of thebeat. No other music makes you move like it. Even the most uncoordinated of white people like me can feel it! However, not everyone knows funk is also about the power of the voice. Everyone gets a turn on the mic; often there was no designated frontman. Though once upon a time he could sing and write his ass off,nowadays George is bandleader for his sheer presence. For “Your Folks,” Billy was awarded the mic. It’s a good thing: he absolutely kills this vocal. He sounds like he could be at a podium, shouting himself hoarse,“Hey! You want peace? I want peace!/They want peace, and the kids need peace.” Hot Buttered Soul and Co. respond,“Yeah, yeah, yeah!” Despite what the powers that be will have you believe, we all want peace! But as long as the rich are getting richer and poor are stuck with their roaches and rats, there won’t be no peace. When the ladies precisely hit every syllable of, “If you and your folks like me and my folks like me and my folks like you and your folks,” it makes an infectious, head-bobbing sub-groove. Unfortunately, the bridge warning that hate is the greatest divider feels preachy set against the key change. I’m not sure how this would’ve been remedied. The key change is necessary for this song structure; something has to plop us back down into the yeah-yeah-yeah! groove.
Kicking off side two is a lightning rod called Super Stupid. Our narrator thinks he’s doing cocaine when it’s really heroin. According to Bernie’s book and Harvey McGee, this actually happened to Eddie...which makes it so funny that he’s singing this. He’s calling himself a dumbass! As the story goes, the Maggot Brain title came from one of his nicknames.
It’s not the lyrics taking up space. They kinda drop off after (insert Eddie’s very Hendrix ad-libbing here.) The music takes the space, as it should. This song pitches your stomach like a roller coaster ride. It feels one and only time the hard stuff was good. After this, it’s heaving hell. These guys’ fervor pushes the song into gear. You’ll notice the beginning is much slower than the end; there is no metronome. This is what happens when players feel each other, they hop on the wavelength and ride it fast. We’re nearly halfway through Maggot Brain and we finally have a composition that allows us to hear Eddie and Tawl’s interplay as lead and backing guitarist. For the first half of the song, Eddie dips into Jimi’s rhythm-lead hybrid as Tawl plays astraight rhythm. After Bernie’s dizzying circus keys, creeping up on us, Eddie launches into a solo that has us gripping the safety bar. Tawl does not worship the altar of the original riff. Instead, he forges a new one; digging his heels in the dirt. It’s the only semblance of brakes we’ve got. A song as wild, heavy, and charismatic as “Super Stupid” makes me think, “This is it!! THIS is what Hendrix was trying to do with Ladyland but the technology didn’t exist yet!”
“Back in our minds again”...are we sure about that?
Written by Fuzzy Haskins, this is the most out-there lyrical track on Maggot Brain. (Important distinction.) It bears drunken percussion, stoned beat, and a loopy vocal delivery. If you ask me, there’s a reason most every publication artfully avoids spotlighting “Back In Our Minds.” It’s only funny for about 30 seconds. I get it, “Spaced Cowboy” isn’t much better in this respect. But at least Sly’s mic clip yodelling is consistently funny.
No one really knew what to make of Funkadelic in the Maggot Brain days. As so succinctly described by George to NPR, they were “too Black for white folks and too white for Black folks.” Too funk for rock-and-rollers and too rock for funk purists. It’s in the name: Funkadelic. Even outside the diaper-wearing shenanigans, these guys caused a fair amount of cognitive dissonance. Vince Aletti was caught up in this confusion; he tries so hard not to admit to himself he liked the music in his review for Rolling Stone. The one and only point I see eye-to-eye with him on, though, is his observation that “funk for funk’s sake” isn’t very good. “Back In Our Minds” is proof that funk for no sake is even worse.
Closing out the record is Wars of Armageddon. What in the whole grain hell is happening here?
This is completely and totally berserk. Like “Monster Magnet”-levels of berserk, toilet humor sound effects and all. You have to wonder what the thought process was that lead to George transforming a nine-minute jam into a cartoony apocalyptic sound collage.
“Armageddon” starts and ends with an explosion. While I think it would be more effective if it just ended with an explosion, this way we get to hear all the things that lead up to the moment of the blast; and a little bit of what happens after. Lucky for us, a whole lot happens! The cowbell and straight, percussive keys create an anxious base for Tiki to fire away on top of. One can’t help but imagine an alarm-clock-induced panic. Running late for work or the end of the world? We pass through all these scenes: a baby crying, which turns into a meowing cat, which turns into someone yelling to shut that damn cat up. It’s like running to catch our bus and hearing our neighbors’ lives through their open windows. The mad dash interrupted by an air raid siren and protests demanding freedom NOW! This piece is absolutely crazy on a surround sound system or with headphones. Eddie zooms around us while the cowbell openly fucks with our minds. We’re soon diverted to an airport – or maybe that’s where we were rushing to the whole time. Muddled intercom voices pre-“On The Run” rattle the rafters of a cavernous terminal, and we hear the gentle roar of takeoff. Whether that’s in a plane or a rocket to escape the end of days, I’m not sure. Whatever it is, it’s like we’re in the Wizard of Oz tornado. Things fly by us: a train crossing, a fat lady, a cuckoo clock. Even a damn cow! Asthe earth is scrambled up. A woman’s screams pierce through the commotion; a chilling addition to the flight. As I look at the Maggot Brain cover, I can’t help but fill them in as the screams of covergirl Barbara Cheeseborough.
It’s only fitting for this cacophony to be ended by a nuclear blast. However, in keeping with George Clinton’s humor, someone managed to sleep through it! He comes to with a sleepy, “Goddamn!” Then a heartbeat, and a quick burst of music before the needle hits dead wax. Though it may be armageddon for humans, it’s not the end for the planet. It’ll look different, but new life will emerge. Death and life are central to Maggot Brain. Though its title track is technically a eulogy, it sounds like a little green shoot unfurling its leaves for the first time. It feels like the birth of a new star. It expands through side one, adding more players and planets to its orbit, contracts through side two, and bursts apart on “Armageddon” so the cycle starts again. I could entertain the argument that Maggot Brain is a never-ending loop.
Of the two iconic funk albums of 1971, it’s ironic the album with “Riot” in the title sounds like death and decay, and the album titled after creatures that eat rot is so full of life.
“There’s something about that ’70s Black music that felt like they were trying to start a revolution.” - Donald Glover
quoted from: Christopher R. Weingarten, “Before & After ‘Maggot Brain.’” The New York Times, 7/11/2021
My best friend told me that I could not have picked a better time to feature Maggot Brain. Me, I can’t tell if it was the best time or the worst. It’s a vibrant album. It bursts with personality, not so much “in spite of its all” as it is to spite it all specifically. This album was born from a chillingly similar place in time to ours; one wheresimply existing was an act of rebellion. That’s the spirit of a revolution. On Maggot Brain, in their own freaky and special way, Funkadelic questioned if America was still on track or if the hippie movement’s ideals had gone up in a puff of reefer smoke. Their answer? Christ, party amongst the wreckage until they condemn the place! Shine while you can. It’s your right as a human with a booty to shake. It was Funkadelic’s right to make this groovy, vibrant, wild, genre-busting experience. It was their right as Black Americans to transform the hurt, pain, and confusion into brilliant defiant existence; outside any confines of class or genre. Is it soul? Is it funk? Is it rock-and-roll? “What is soul? I don’t know!” What is funk, or rock-and-roll?
Maggot Brain challenges us to find that point where one genre ends and the other begins, if there one at all.
Personal favorites: “Maggot Brain,” “Can You Get To That,” “Hit It And Quit It,” “Super Stupid”
– AD ☆
Watch the full episode above!
Aletti, Vince. “Funkadelic: Maggot Brain.” Rolling Stone, 9/30/1971.https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/maggot-brain-186353/
Clinton, George, with Ben Greenman. Brothas Be, Yo Like George, Ain’t That Funkin’ Kinda Hard on You?. New York, Atria Books, 2014.
Deggans, Eric. “Funkadelic's 'Maggot Brain' At 50: R&B, Psychedelic Rock And A Black Guitarist's Cry.” Morning Edition, NPR, 7/22/2021. https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/993084954/making-funkadelic-maggot-brain
Duncan, Garrett Albert. “Black Panther Party.” Encyclopedia Brittanica, 1/14/2025. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party
Fricke, David. “George Clinton: The Rolling Stone Interview.” Rolling Stone, 9/20/1990.https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/george-clinton-the-rolling-stone-interview-230616/
Goodwin, Gerald F. "Black and White in Vietnam." The New York Times, 7/18/2017. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/18/opinion/racism-vietnam-war.html
Pearson, Vince, and Michael May. “George Clinton and Killer Mike: Talking (Barber) Shop.” Morning Edition, NPR, 4/20/2017. https://www.npr.org/2017/04/20/524701804/george-clinton-and-killer-mike-talking-barber-shop?utm_campaign=storyshare&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social
Segal, David. “Maggot Brain.” Pitchfork, 6/21/2020.
Smith, Yvonne, dir. Parliament Funkadelic: One Nation Under A Groove. PBS, 10/11/2005.
Thompson, Dave. Funk. Backbeat Books, San Fransisco, 2001. eBook. https://books.google.com/books?id=RIEjkWXZdrMC&pg=PA140#v=onepage&q&f=false
Vincent, Ricky. Funk: The Music, The People, and the Rhythm of the One. New York, St. Martin’s Griffin, 1996.
Weingarten, Christopher R. “Before & After ‘Maggot Brain.’” The New York Times, 7/11/2021.https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/07/11/arts/music/funkadelic-maggot-brain.html
PS: If there’s any source from the above bibliography you should check out, it’s absolutely Weingarten’s NYT feature. It lays out exactly what artists/tracks came into and out of each Maggot Brain cut. It’s carefully-crafted, its design nothing short of eye candy. In short, it’s fucking fantastic. That's what music writing should look like.
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