This song is silly. This song is a commentary on appropriation. This song IS appropriative. This song is also just an excuse to play some slap bass over some cool samples. Please bear with me through this eleven-hundred-word multi-part essay on all of that, or just scroll on by, which is totally fine.
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Also, this now also has a mix with @cts singing, and it's very WOW. Same music, totally different vibe:
https://fawm.org/songs/131704/
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Our narrator here is a Julliard-trained actor. Times are a little tough though... with theaters shut down, and still juggling the debt from his third self-published book of pastoral sonnets, he has reluctantly taken on some voice-over work. This isn't completely new territory... he recorded the readings of his poetry a few years back, sitting in a closet and using a USB mic borrowed from an ex-boyfriend. Those "audiobooks" have been downloaded a total of 16 times, three of which he suspects were his mother. He only vaguely understands this assignment; his agent was vague, but it appears to be a PBSish retrospective on the poetry of the African American experience of the 1970s, with a focus on the expressive use of urban vernacular within popular music. He has no idea why he's been hired. He grew up in Dayton, Ohio, and feels uniquely unqualified for this role. But it's a job.
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James Brown is, for my money, the most influential American songwriter of the 20th century. The Godfather of Soul birthed funk, which led to hip-hop and rap, arguably the two biggest influences on pop music today, fifty years after his peak. He was intensely prolific; he put out 16 studio albums between 1968 and 1971. He was one of the initial inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. I first encountered him when I was 7, watching The Blues Brothers. The indelible image of James Brown in my head will always be him pointing at Jake Blues, emphatically asking "Do you SEE the light?" He may have been the coolest thing I'd seen to that point in my life, and I was a Weird Al Yankovic fan, so my bar for cool was super high.
Many of his lyrics are aggressively dumb, in the absolute coolest of ways. "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine (Part 1)" is an amazing song. It is perfect funk; an incredible work of American Art. The lyrics are ludicrous and feel like they might have been improvised in the bathroom before the recording session. And they are PERFECT. They fit the song like a glove. They are a pure form of poetry, delivered by an artist at his peak, in a way no other artist could manage. James Brown is, musically, THE MAN. (James Brown the man is also a HYPER-problematic domestic abuser, which shouldn't be left out of his legacy.)
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The first time I heard Bootsy Collins my head exploded. I'd heard slap bass before, mostly through Les Claypool, who is a beast unto himself. But I came across Bootsy on some MTV thing in 1993, and like the Grinch, my thumb grew three sizes and I would dream of slap bass for the rest of my life. William "Bootsy" Collins (who played on Sex Machine and later with Parliament-Funkadelic) does not appear to come from planet Earth, either as a musician or a person. His right hand does ungodly things. I wish I could play with a fraction of the soul he brings to a straight eighth-note groove. Bootsy Collins is the bassist I dream I could be. My first bands were mostly grunge bands, but I did whatever I could to work in slap bass. It's a bad combo, don't try it at home. But in the comfort of my basement, I'd slap and pop away, dreaming of the day I could do something with it. FAWM is a fun outlet.
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Which comes around to this song. It's FAWM. I wanted to play some slap bass, dammit! But, ya know, with something else added. I did not want to try to sing like James Brown... as white guy, I am unable to do that without sounding racist AF. I've tried. It's a bad look. So, our disinterested narrator was born, framing the funk as the white American experience of trying to understand and claim African American art and transform it into a more palatable version for our own consumption. In this case, an NPR reading. Our narrator has some self-awareness that this isn't his role. But our narrator is also driven by money, as is all commercial art. NPR (or PBS, or [insert organization here]) is not just complicit, but a driving force in the justification of this appropriation. Worship while othering; Taking ownership without context.
To further the appropriative commentary (and the appropriation itself), I decided to base the track on the most sampled drum track of all time, Clyde Stubblefield playing "Funky Drummer" from James Brown's 1970 album "Into the Jungle Groove". It has been used (without compensation to Brown or Stubblefield) many hundreds of times through the decades. (Side note: Clyde Stubblefield lived in Madison, WI. I met him at a happy hour once. He is exactly as badass as you might imagine.) (Note, I am now name-dropping to credential myself. I am part of the problem.) But in the spirit of appropriative sound, I wanted to blend it with something whiter and more palatable. In this case, I picked the opening drum loop from Genesis' 1986 "Tonight Tonight Tonight", which is just a straight up banger. (I'm not dragging Genesis or Phil Collins into this discussion... It's just a killer drum loop that works with about anything because of its syncopated toms.) It's literal, and intentional, whitewashing of the drum part.
And lyrically, I wanted to capture the ludicrous manic energy of Sex Machine's lyrics, so I pinged my buddy Jordan and asked him to write something appropriate. And he delivered. "Stick it in a bowl of soup" is the perfect James Brown lyric that James Brown never wrote. My hats off to Jordan for this lyrical masterpiece. Which is, again, an appropriative reinterpretation and recontextualization of the source material. We set ourselves a trap, walked right into it, and I love it.
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So, drums by Clyde Stubblefield and Phil Collins, horns from NI Kontakt arranged by me, lyrics by Jordan, bass, guitar, vocals, and lengthy exposition by me, and a special shoutout to my neighbor Jeff (@snort) for the acting role of the guy producing the recording session.
That's a lot of writing for a silly song that's just an excuse for me to play some slap bass. It clearly took you longer to read this than it did to listen to the song. But it's also an intellectual rabbit hole of a journey into why it's silly, and why that may or may not be good. I hope you dig it. I hope you find it fun rather than either appropriative or insulting. I hope you spin up a James Brown record later today and appreciate his sonic legacy.
It's time!
I said it's time!
It's absolutely time
Time to get loose
Get it!
Huh!
Do it!
Uh!
Bring it!
Drop it!
Stick it in a bowl of soup!
Time to get funky
Time to go crazy
Time to LOSE CONTROL (uh!)
Time to let it alllllllll go (huh! huh!)
Take it to the bridge!
Drop it off the bridge (UH)!
Live under the bridge like a troll (HUH)!
Kidnap goats off the bridge!!!
Get it!
Huh!
Do it!
Uh!
Bring it!
Drop it!
Stick it in a bowl of soup!
Let the bass drop you down
Let the bass drop you off!
Let the bass drop you off at the mall with your friends (uh!) and come back later, say round about 3:30 (uh huh!) cuz you know you got homework to do tonight, girl (HUH!)
Let's get sexy!
Let's get WILD (huh huh!)
Let's get absolutely, positively, no turning back INTERSTELLAR!
Let's throw the beat into the heart of the sun and watch it bake (UH!)
Get it!
Huh!
Do it!
Uh!
Bring it!
Drop it!
Stick it in a bowl of soup!
Bring it!
Drop it!
Stick it in a bowl of soup!
@liz561 Mar 2022
I just can't stop laughing-all the tropes mashed into one glorious bowl of soup!!!
@ahumburg Mar 2022
I was dropped off by the bass. Probably going to hang around. Nice production and arrangement. :D
@lindarling Feb 2022
It DID take me longer to read the liner notes to listen to the song. But it's cool because I just listened twice. And then another time when it was done because holy crap what IS that? I'm pretty sure it's genius.
@davidtaro Feb 2022
Brilliant. Truly brilliant. With a clever and thought-provoking underbelly. That is one hard trick to pull off. I loved the concept, loved the delivery, loved the flagrant appropriation. I've found my way here via the @cts alt version, and I can't decide which I prefer, they are both absolutely - as I said at the outset - brilliant. I'm going to be telling colleagues to 'stick it in a bowl of soup' today, and they are going to think I've lost my mind...
@leepat Feb 2022
man, that analysis couldn't be whiter. as if slapping the bass wouldn't suffice.
that said, appropriative or not, this is an excellent comedic exercise, I mean, bowl of soup.
music AND lyrics rock, if you'll excuse the wrong idiom.
@mikeskliar Feb 2022
ha, that deadpan delivery is so hilarious with this- so different then the cts version but entertaining as hell, too, and yeah, quite the cultural exploration so to speak...
@jaydaniels Feb 2022
I can't tell you how much I love this (well, I guess I just did!). So, so, so much fun.
@tseaver Feb 2022
Fun write, and a great excuse to play some slap bass.
@kahlo2013 Feb 2022
This is absolutely delicious and absolutely delightful and fun!!! What a wonderful collaboration! Makes me smile?!!?
@gardeningangel1 Feb 2022
I wasn't sure how the song could live up to those epic liner notes like a lecture from that one cool teacher who's class you actually look forward to. I listened once just stunned by the self-aware humor of it, then again trying to focus on the musical tapestry happening but got distracted by how damn funny the lyrics are... funk it, I'm just going to download it. Kidnap goats off the bridge!
@rayboneor Feb 2022
Ha...I love it. Great concept and great execution. I love the sort of dorky voiceover and the conceit of it all. I, too, have urged someone in my imaginary band to take it to the bridge in the least funky way possible. Hats off, this is huge fun
@majormajormajormajor Feb 2022
Jesus Christmas, why isn't this blowing up? Certainly the funniest thing I've heard this year, and then some. Now on third listen, and 'singing' along, if you can imagine that. On second thought, don't.
Pacing is perfect. The breaks along with variations in the narration, just spot on. It takes the kind of care evident in your manifesto to create something that works on multiple levels.
As might be apparent by my recent behavior, I love appropriation, and would go so far as to say all culture is appropriation. As it comes closer to representing shared experience the jumps are smaller and reinforcing, but just as necessary are the larger non-contextual appropriations which are the genesis(hey!) of cross-pollination. I'm sure that's exactly what NPR is doing, right? :D
Sheesh I read the notes and got carried away. This has been kind of an unfocused comment. I dig the tune man. Funky.
@nadine Feb 2022
A collab of @dasbinky and @tfish77 is usually silly and weird, that's why I love you guys! If you ever decide to start a music comedy show I'll watch! Lmao!
Not kidding I know people who sing like this for real and don't know what they're doing wrong!
I want to hear a version with @cts. Wanna now how he would perform these vocals, cause he has insane skills in funk music.
@markg Feb 2022
I love the deadpan white-boy vocals. "let's get sexy, lets' get wild"
---maybe after the stock market report on NPR?
Nonetheless, the music is grooving and funky. And so much fun.
@sph Feb 2022
Wow, you made me read all that stuff...
I knew I had heard some of the sounds in the 80s but didn't think of Genesis.
That bowl of soup lyric us great as is the bass and the rest of the tune
@tomslatter Feb 2022
"This song is also just an excuse to play some slap bass over some cool samples" - Is there a better reason for a song to exist?
This is well funky. Love it.
@wrenarcher Feb 2022
Oh yeahhhhh. Bringin' the funk.
I think if you wanted to you could just sing jibberish over a funky beat like this. I love it!!!
UH! Kidnap goats
off the bridge!
@sapient Feb 2022
H.O.L.Y.F.U.N.K.A.D.E.L.I.C.C.R.A.P.B.A.T.M.A.N
Was roughly what was going through my brain as it strugggled to absorb the layered enormity of this song.
It is both hellishly funky and desperately funny. The into essay alone is worth the price of admission. You two have my undying gratitude for making me laugh *this* hard on a Tuesday evening :D
@spazsquatch Feb 2022
AMAZING! I've gotta got hit those liner notes now, but this is the best. Gotta make "Stick it in a bowl of soup" a thing.
Edit: Whoa, killer liner notes. I might have enjoyed them as much as the song, and I really, really like the song.