The P-Funk mythology is a group of recurring characters, themes, and ideas primarily contained in the output of
George Clinton's bands
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: Representation (politics), representing the Election#Suffrage, electorate, making laws, and overseeing ...
and
Funkadelic
Funkadelic was an American funk rock band formed in Plainfield, New Jersey in 1968 and active until 1982. The band and its sister act Parliament, both led by George Clinton, pioneered the funk music culture of the 1970s.John, Bush. Funkadeli ...
. This "funkology" was outlined in album liner notes and song lyrics, in addition to album artwork, costumes, advertisements, and stage banter.
[Bauer, Kurt.]
The Mothership Connection: Mythscape and Unity in the Music of Parliament
, ''Folklore Forum''. November 22, 2012. P-Funk's "
Dr. Seuss
Theodor Seuss Geisel (;["Seuss"](_blank)
'' Afrofuturism
Afrofuturism is a cultural aesthetic, and philosophy of science and history that explores the intersection of the African diaspora culture with science and technology. It addresses themes and concerns of the African diaspora through technocu ...
movement.
Background
George Clinton's space-age mythology began to emerge with the release of Funkadelic's self-titled
debut album in 1970. Later that same year, Parliament released their debut album ''
Osmium
Osmium (from Greek grc, ὀσμή, osme, smell, label=none) is a chemical element with the symbol Os and atomic number 76. It is a hard, brittle, bluish-white transition metal in the platinum group that is found as a trace element in alloys, mos ...
''. Clinton's cosmology was largely absent from the latter release, and it took longer to blossom in Parliament's output. Generally speaking, Parliament was a dance-oriented band, while Funkadelic was more serious and psychedelic.
[Hacker, Scot.]
Can You Get to That? The Cosmology of P-Funk
" ''Platforms: A Microwaved Cultural Chronicle of the 70s'', edited by Pagan Kennedy
Pagan Kennedy (born c. 1963) is an American citizen, American columnist and author, and pioneer of the 1990s zine movement.
She has written ten books in a variety of genres, was a regular contributor to the ''Boston Globe'', and has published ar ...
. St Martin's Press, 1994.
The two bands shared personnel, and Clinton blurred the lines between them both by referring to his touring band as "A Parliafunkadelicment Thang". The shorthand for this conglomerate became "P-Funk", and it grew to include offshoots like
P-Funk All Stars
Parliament-Funkadelic (abbreviated as P-Funk) is an American music collective of rotating musicians headed by George Clinton, primarily consisting of the funk bands Parliament and Funkadelic, both active since the 1960s. Their distinctive fu ...
,
Bootsy's Rubber Band
A group is a number of persons or things that are located, gathered, or classed together.
Groups of people
* Cultural group, a group whose members share the same cultural identity
* Ethnic group, a group whose members share the same ethnic ide ...
,
Parlet
Parlet was a female spinoff group from P-Funk formed by veteran background vocalists Mallia Franklin, Jeanette Washington and Debbie Wright. Washington and Wright were the first female members in Parliament-Funkadelic
Parliament-Funkadeli ...
,
The Brides of Funkenstein
The Brides of Funkenstein were an American Soul and Funk girl band, originally composed of singers Dawn Silva and Lynn Mabry.
History
Previously background singers for Sly Stone, singer of Sly and the Family Stone, Lynn Mabry and Dawn Silva jo ...
,
The Horny Horns The Horny Horns were a horn section associated with Parliament-Funkadelic and Bootsy's Rubber Band led by trombonist Fred Wesley. The group also featured saxophonist Maceo Parker and Rick Gardner and Richard "Kush" Griffith on trumpets.
While th ...
, and solo albums by
Eddie Hazel
Edward Earl Hazel (April 10, 1950 – December 23, 1992) was an American guitarist and singer in early funk music who played lead guitar with Parliament-Funkadelic. Hazel was a posthumous inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, inducted in ...
and
Bernie Worrell
George Bernard Worrell, Jr. (April 19, 1944 – June 24, 2016) was an American keyboardist and record producer best known as a founding member of Parliament-Funkadelic and for his work with Talking Heads. He is a member of the Rock and Roll ...
.
[ Tate, Greg. "Doin' It In Your Earhole", ''Tear the Roof Off, 1974-1980''. New York, N.Y: Casablanca, 1993. Liner notes.] By the mid 70s, P-Funk was a massively successful group of acts. A ranking of the top live acts of 1977 included three bands from the conglomerate in the top fifteen slots.
After the bands' earlier releases, Clinton began to feel that something more conceptual was in order, and he expressed deep admiration for
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in London in 1964. Their classic lineup consisted of lead singer Roger Daltrey, guitarist and singer Pete Townshend, bass guitarist and singer John Entwistle, and drummer Keith Moon. They are considered ...
's ''
Tommy
Tommy may refer to:
People
* Tommy (given name)
* Tommy Atkins, or just Tommy, a slang term for a common soldier in the British Army
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Tommy'' (1931 film), a Soviet drama film
* ''Tommy'' (1975 fil ...
'' and
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatles, most influential band of al ...
' ''
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'' as "the classiest two pieces of music I had ever seen where everything related to each other. So I wanted to do one of those kinds of things." Clinton settled on the extraterrestrial concept because of its originality, saying, "Put niggas in places that you don't usually see 'em. And ''nobody'' had seen 'em on no spaceships! Once you seen 'em sittin' on spaceships like it was
Cadillac
The Cadillac Motor Car Division () is a division of the American automobile manufacturer General Motors (GM) that designs and builds luxury vehicles. Its major markets are the United States, Canada, and China. Cadillac models are distributed i ...
then it was funny, cool."
The primary author of the P-Funk mythology aside from George Clinton was
Pedro Bell
Pedro Bell (June 11, 1950 – August 27, 2019) was an American artist and illustrator, best known for his elaborate album cover designs and other artwork for numerous Funkadelic and George Clinton solo albums. Bell also wrote many of the liner n ...
, who illustrated the liners for many of P-Funk's releases. Bell's
felt-tip illustrations included prolonged essays that expanded the mythos of Clinton's lyrics with a complementary syntax that "forged a new realm of black language". Though Bell coined terms like "Rumpasaurus" and made extensive contributions to the P-Funk mythology, his work has been largely overlooked.
Clinton has pointed to the show ''
The Outer Limits'' as an influence in his elaborate narrative, but more importantly, he and Bootsy Collins allegedly encountered a UFO together while driving to Detroit. Clinton recalls light bouncing from one side of the street to the other, and remarking to Collins, "The Mothership was angry with us for giving up the funk without permission." The bouncing light eventually focused on their car, and Clinton asked Collins to "step on it".
The P-Funk mythology was just one tool in the conglomerate's arsenal. By the mid-1970s, Clinton was rebranding funk as many things at once, "an aesthetic, a marketing ploy, a black cultural nationalist battle-plan and a way of being if not a spiritual discipline." He was drawing on everything from "hipster lingo of the beboppers, early black radio deejays and the apocalyptic anti-slavemassa edicts of the
Nation of Islam
The Nation of Islam (NOI) is a religious and political organization founded in the United States by Wallace Fard Muhammad in 1930.
A black nationalist organization, the NOI focuses its attention on the African diaspora, especially on African ...
" as well as the
Yippies
The Youth International Party (YIP), whose members were commonly called Yippies, was an American youth-oriented radical and countercultural revolutionary offshoot of the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s. It was founded on De ...
and the
Black Panthers
The Black Panther Party (BPP), originally the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, was a Marxism-Leninism, Marxist-Leninist and Black Power movement, black power political organization founded by college students Bobby Seale and Huey P. New ...
. Clinton was positioning P-Funk as a "radical response to the American police state" and "the antithesis of everything that was sterile, one-dimensional, monochromatic, arhythmic and otherwise against freedom of bodily expression in the known universe."
In its simplest iteration, Clinton posited that "funk" was equivalent with the "truth".
Funkadelic
Funkadelic albums are generally more abstract than Parliament's. Rather than tell the story of a cast of characters, the mythology of Funkadelic is defined as a socially conscious spiritualism. One of the defining traits of the P-Funk mythology is that it is indeed a form of social commentary in that it "took all the cheese America had to offer and ran with it, taking the fashions and technology of the day to their ultimate, preposterous conclusions, amplifying the aesthetics of the 70s into a throbbing, fish-eyed cartoon of itself, and in so doing glorified American culture and their role in its continuing evolution."
On "
Mommy, What's a Funkadelic?", the opening track of Funkadelic's 1970
self-titled debut album, Clinton's cosmology starts to emerge with the lines, "By the way, my name is Funk...I am not of your world...Hold still, baby, I won't do you no harm...I am Funkadelic, dedicated to the feeling of good.'" The same introduction of "Funkadelic" is repeated at the outset of the album's closing track "What Is Soul".
On Funkadelic's second album, ''
Free Your Mind... And Your Ass Will Follow'' (1970), funk is posited as a path to enlightenment in the title track: "Open up your funky mind and you can fly...Free your mind and your ass will follow...The kingdom of heaven is within". This sentiment is echoed in subsequent songs like "Standing on the Verge of Getting It On" (1974) which contains the verse, "Music is designed to free your funky mind. We have come to help you cope out into another reality". A more scatological iteration comes in the song "Promentalshitbackwashpsychosis Enema Squad (The Doo Doo Chasers)" (1978) where "funk" is defined as "the P-Preparation, The prune juice of the mind, A mental, musical bowel movement, Groove-lax...A psychological turd remover, A neurological enema".
Many of the lyrics in P-Funk songs imply that the band is merely a medium for a
godhead that takes the form of funk.
At other times, the band or Clinton are cast as priestly beings tasked with guiding humanity through music. In the song "Phunklords", they sing, "We are the Phunklords...Sent to you from eons away
just to spread some funk your way". At the beginning of "The Electronic Spanking of War Babies", Clinton explains that he was "adopted by aliens" at the age of 17, and that "they have long since programmed me to return with this message." The liner notes of ''Standing on the Verge of Getting It On'' explain that, "On the Eighth Day, the Cosmic Strumpet of
Mother Nature was spawned to envelope this Third Planet in FUNKADELICAL VIBRATIONS. And she birthed Apostles
Ra,
Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
,
Stone
In geology, rock (or stone) is any naturally occurring solid mass or aggregate of minerals or mineraloid matter. It is categorized by the minerals included, its Chemical compound, chemical composition, and the way in which it is formed. Rocks ...
, and CLINTON to preserve all funkiness of man unto eternity... But! Fraudulent forces of obnoxious JIVATION grew...only seedling GEORGE remained! As it came to be, he did indeed begat FUNKADELIC to restore Order Within the Universe."
The title of the band's third album, ''
Maggot Brain
''Maggot Brain'' is the third studio album by the American funk rock band Funkadelic, released by Westbound Records in July 1971. It was produced by band leader George Clinton and recorded at United Sound Systems in Detroit during late 1970 an ...
'' (1971), became a lasting concept in the P-Funk mythology. The title track opens the album with the incantation, "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."
[Hazel, Edward, and George Clinton.]
Maggot Brain
, ''Maggot Brain''. Westbound, 1971. Maggot brain is a "state of mind" with potentially disastrous consequences if nothing is done about it. The incantation on "Maggot Brain" concludes, "I knew I had to rise above it all or drown in my own shit."
["Funkencyclo-P-dia", ''Tear the Roof Off'', 1974-1980. New York, N.Y: Casablanca, 1993. Liner notes.] The song "Super Stupid" links maggot brain to fear with lyrics about a protagonist who snorts
heroin
Heroin, also known as diacetylmorphine and diamorphine among other names, is a potent opioid mainly used as a recreational drug for its euphoric effects. Medical grade diamorphine is used as a pure hydrochloride salt. Various white and brow ...
thinking it is
cocaine
Cocaine (from , from , ultimately from Quechuan languages, Quechua: ''kúka'') is a central nervous system (CNS) stimulant mainly recreational drug use, used recreationally for its euphoria, euphoric effects. It is primarily obtained from t ...
. Super Stupid is said to have a "maggot brain" and to have "lost the fight and the winner is fear". The album's liner notes reinforce the connection between maggot brain and fear by quoting from the writing of
Robert de Grimston
Robert de Grimston (also known as Robert Moor and The Teacher; born 10 August 1935) is a British occultist who was founder of The Process Church of The Final Judgment (popularly referred to as The Process) in the 1960s. He was born in Shanghai, ...
, "Fear is the root of man's destruction of himself. Without Fear there is no blame. Without blame there is no conflict. Without conflict there is no destruction."
The liner notes for ''
One Nation Under a Groove
''One Nation Under a Groove'' is the tenth studio album by American funk rock band Funkadelic, released on September 22, 1978 on Warner Bros. Records. Recording sessions took place at United Sound Studio in Detroit, Michigan, with one song reco ...
'' (1978) are a typical example of how the P-Funk mythology expanded on song lyrics to develop a sprawling, satirical narrative. The liner includes a summary of "The Funk Wars 1984 B.C.", which is a parody of ''
Star Wars
''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera multimedia franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop-culture Cultural impact of S ...
''. Just like
George Lucas' movie, the Funk Wars take place "ONCE UPON A TIME... in a faraway parallel universe". Instead of
Darth Vader
Darth Vader is a fictional character in the ''Star Wars'' franchise. The character is the central antagonist of the original trilogy and, as Anakin Skywalker, is one of the main protagonists in the prequel trilogy. ''Star Wars'' creator George ...
, the villain is "BARFT VADA", and his soldiers wield "Blight Sabers". VADA has outlawed funk in favor of disco to "maintain mental constipation" and prevent Funkadelica from "deprogramming the population". The hero, JASPER SPATIC, has invented a Throb Gun, which he unleashes at a disco, triggering an epic battle and defeat for Barft Vada. The story ends with Jasper pondering what would happen the next time Barft Vada caused trouble, hoping that someone would warn people to "THINK! IT AIN'T ILLEGAL YET!", which is a chant heard in the live version of "Maggot Brain" that closes the album.
Parliament
Four years after their debut album, Parliament released their
second album which makes the first direct reference to the mythology that had taken root in Funkadelic's early albums. On "I Just Got Back (From the Fantasy, Ahead of Our Time in the Four Lands of Ellet)", the narrator announces "I just got back from another world". It is located "across the mountain and through the seas, past the moon, beyond all the things that we've dreamed about". The place was so beautiful that the narrator did not want to leave, but felt that he must return to help the listener be a parent and to "show you the way, the right way, I feel you gotta live". Though the song was written by a street performer named Peter Chase, it bears all the narrative hallmarks of the P-Funk cosmology, with its voyage to a distant planet and a return after a long absence bearing enlightenment for a suffering audience.
''Mothership Connection''
The P-Funk mythology begins in earnest on Parliament's 1975 album ''
Mothership Connection
''Mothership Connection'' is the fourth album by American funk band Parliament, released on December 15, 1975 on Casablanca Records. This concept album is often rated among the best Parliament-Funkadelic releases, and was the first to feature horn ...
'', which features Clinton emerging from a spaceship on the cover. The first track, "
P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)
"P. Funk (Wants to Get Funked Up)" is a funk song by Parliament. It is the first track on their 1975 album '' Mothership Connection'' and was the first single to be released from the album. It was also released as the B-side of the album's seco ...
" begins in the same way as the title track from ''
Chocolate City'', the band's previous album. A
DJ talks directly to the audience as if he is on the radio, but on this album, the station
call sign
In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally assigne ...
is announced as "WEFUNK". It is broadcasting from outer space "directly from the Mothership". The DJ reveals his name as "The Lollipop Man, alias the Long-Haired Sucker." He exhorts the listener to lay their body on the radio in order to be healed by the music because "Funk not only moves, it can re-move".
In the next song, "
Mothership Connection (Star Child)
"Mothership Connection (Star Child)" is a funk song by Parliament. It was the third and last single released from the group's 1975 album ''Mothership Connection''. The song introduces George Clinton's messianic alien alter ego Star Child ...
", the titular Starchild explains, "I ''am'' the Mothership Connection" and that "we have returned to claim the Pyramids." Starchild invites the listener to "come on up to the Mothership". He later asks, "Are you hip to Easter Island? The Bermuda Triangle?", reinforcing the
ancient aliens
''Ancient Aliens'' is an American television series that explores the pseudohistorical and pseudoarchaeological ancient astronauts hypothesis, past human- extraterrestrial contact, UFOs, government conspiracies and related pseudoscientific top ...
imagery of the song.
"Unfunky UFO" depicts a spaceship full of people from "a dying world" who sing, "We're unfunky and we're obsolete". They are desperate for some funk, wanting to "take your funk and make it mine" and begging the listener to "show me how to funk like you do". This primal need for funk is echoed in the highest-charting song from the album, "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)", with its pleas of "Give up the funk...we gotta have that funk". The album's closing track introduces an important concept in the P-Funk mythology with its title: "Night Of The Thumpasorous Peoples". The lyrics are primarily "gaga googoo", but the Thumpasorous lineage is a recurring feature in subsequent releases.
Parliament's follow-up album, ''
The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein'', is the motherlode for the narrative of their legendary
stage show
A theatrical production is any work of theatre, such as a staged play, musical, comedy or drama produced from a written book or script. Theatrical productions also extend to other performance designations such as Dramatic and Nondramatic theatre, a ...
. The first half of the album introduces key characters like Dr. Funkenstein and expands on terms like "Thumpasorous".
''Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome''
With the P-Funk Earth Tour in high gear, Parliament released ''
Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome'' in 1977. The first track, "
Bop Gun (Endangered Species)
"Bop Gun (Endangered Species)" is a song by the funk band Parliament, the lead track on their 1977 album '' Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome''. It was released as the album's first single. The song's lead vocal is performed by Glenn Goins, ...
", weaponizes funk as a self-protection device: "When the syndrome is around, don't let your guard down. All you got to do is call on the funk...to dance is a protection...On guard! Protect yourself!...Shoot them with the bop gun" The next song, "Sir Nose d'Voidoffunk (Pay Attention - B3M)", introduces the title character who claims to be "the subliminal seducer" and "devoid of funk". Sir Nose claims that Starchild may have won a battle, but that he will return. Later in the song, Starchild appears, "chasing noses away", and proclaims himself "Protector of the Pleasure Principle". "Nose" instantly became a recurring term for negativity in the P-Funk mythology, prompting lines like "a funk a day keeps the Nose away".
[Clinton, George, and Bootsy Collins.]
Funkentelechy
, ''Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome''. Casablanca, 1977. The concept for the character originated in "
The Pinocchio Theory
"The Pinocchio Theory" is a 1977 single by the American Funk band Bootsy's Rubber Band. It was released by Warner Bros. Records on February 9, 1977. The single first charted in Billboard magazine's Hot Soul Singles chart in March 1977 where it p ...
" by Bootsy's Rubber Band, which asserts that if "you fake the funk; your nose got to grow". Sir Nose is "Cro-Nasal", predating the
Cro-Magnon
Early European modern humans (EEMH), or Cro-Magnons, were the first early modern humans (''Homo sapiens'') to settle in Europe, migrating from Western Asia, continuously occupying the continent possibly from as early as 56,800 years ago. They ...
and the
Neanderthal
Neanderthals (, also ''Homo neanderthalensis'' and erroneously ''Homo sapiens neanderthalensis''), also written as Neandertals, are an extinct species or subspecies of archaic humans who lived in Eurasia until about 40,000 years ago. While th ...
.
"Funkentelechy" sees a return of DJ Lollipop as he narrates a free-association meditation on overstimulation, which he terms "
urge overkill
Urge Overkill is an American alternative rock band, formed in Chicago, Illinois, United States, consisting of Nathan Kaatrud, who took the stage name Nash Kato (vocals/guitar), and Eddie "King" Roeser (vocals/guitar/bass guitar). They are widely ...
", from things like pills and commercial jingles for
Big Macs and
Whoppers
Whoppers are malted milk balls covered with an artificially flavored "chocolatey coating" produced by The Hershey Company. The candy is a small, round ball about in diameter. They are typically sold either in a small cardboard candy box, in a l ...
. Playing off
Aristotle's
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...
concept of
entelechy
In philosophy, potentiality and actuality are a pair of closely connected principles which Aristotle used to analyze motion, causality, ethics, and physiology in his ''Physics'', ''Metaphysics'', ''Nicomachean Ethics'', and ''De Anima''.
The c ...
, DJ Lollipop, who also claims the name of "Mr. Prolong" during the song, reassures the listener that "this is mood de-control" and the "pleasure principle has been rescued".
The last song on the album, "
Flash Light
A flashlight ( US, Canada) or torch ( UK, Australia) is a portable hand-held electric lamp. Formerly, the light source typically was a miniature incandescent light bulb, but these have been displaced by light-emitting diodes (LEDs) since the ...
", was Parliament's first #1 single. It contains a glancing reference to the P-Funk mythology when the Nose finds the funk, with the aid of the titular device, and begins to "Get on down". The ethos of the song, and Parliament as well, is that even the Nose can become funky because "Everybody's got a little light under the sun".
Later albums
Parliament's 1978 album ''
Motor Booty Affair
''Motor Booty Affair'' is the seventh album by funk band Parliament. Released on November 20, 1978. It contains two of the group's most popular tracks, "Rumpofsteelskin" and "Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" which went to numbe ...
'' begins with "Mr. Wiggles". The titular character is a variation on DJ Lollipop. Now, WEFUNK is located in
Emerald City
The Emerald City (sometimes called the City of Emeralds) is the capital city of the fictional Land of Oz in L. Frank Baum's Oz books, first described in ''The Wonderful Wizard of Oz'' (1900).
Fictional description
Located in the center of the La ...
in downtown
Atlantis
Atlantis ( grc, Ἀτλαντὶς νῆσος, , island of Atlas (mythology), Atlas) is a fictional island mentioned in an allegory on the hubris of nations in Plato's works ''Timaeus (dialogue), Timaeus'' and ''Critias (dialogue), Critias'' ...
. The title character of the second song is "Rumpofsteelskin" who is so unfunky that "he don't rust and he don't bend". With the album set underwater, swimming becomes akin to dancing, and in "
Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)
"Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop)" is a song by funk band Parliament. The track was released from their 1978 album, ''Motor Booty Affair''. The song describes being compelled to learn to swim despite the persistent fear of water ...
" Sir Nose returns to announce that he cannot swim and hates water. Overton Loyd's album art depicted the motto "We got ta raise Atlantis to the top", signifying the need for upward social mobility among African-Americans.
On ''
Gloryhallastoopid
''Gloryhallastoopid (Or Pin the Tale on the Funky)'' is the eighth album by the funk ensemble Parliament (band), Parliament. It was their penultimate album on the Casablanca Records label, and is another concept album which tries to explain that ...
'' (1979), Sir Nose defeats Starchild and turns him into a mule in "Theme From The Black Hole". While gloating over his victory, Sir Nose alludes to multiple songs from ''Funkentelechy'' and ''Clones'' with taunts like "Where's your flashlight? Where's your bop gun? Where's the Doctor (Funkenstein), Starchild?".
Stage show
By the mid-1970s, Clinton had flooded the market with P-Funk and sought to capitalize by mounting a stage show he called "Mothership Connection", also known as the
P-Funk Earth Tour
The P-Funk Earth Tour was a concert tour by Parliament-Funkadelic in 1976-1977, featuring absurd costumes, lavish staging and special effects, and music from both the Parliament (band), Parliament and Funkadelic repertoires.
The P-Funk Earth To ...
.
The stage show employed the techniques of glam rock productions like
David Bowie's
David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...
Diamond Dogs Tour
The Diamond Dogs Tour was a concert tour by English singer-songwriter David Bowie in North America in 1974 to promote the studio album '' Diamond Dogs'' (1974). The first leg of the tour utilized a rock opera-style stage show format with mult ...
.
[Needs, Kris. ]
George Clinton & The Cosmic Odyssey of the P-Funk Empire
'. Omnibus Press
Omnibus Press is a publisher of music-related books. It publishes around 30 new titles a year to add to a backlist of over 250 titles currently in print.
History
Omnibus Press was launched in 1972 as a general non-fiction publisher to complem ...
, 2014. P-Funk even used
KISS' rehearsal hangar in
Newburgh, NY
Newburgh is a city in the U.S. state of New York, within Orange County. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Poughkeepsie–Newburgh–Middletown metropolitan area. Located north of New York City, and ...
to prepare for the tour. One of the recurring highlights of the show was the arrival of the Mothership, a prop designed by
Jules Fisher
Jules Fisher (born November 12, 1937) is an American lighting designer and producer. He is credited with lighting designs for more than 300 productions over the course of his 50-year career in Broadway and off-Broadway shows, as well extensive ...
.
[ p. 90.] Casablanca Records underwrote the $200,000 budget for the show, which featured intergalactic outfits and space-age imagery. Clinton viewed the show as an antidote to the "placebo syndrome" of anodyne mass market music.
[Brown, Matthew. "Funk music as genre: Black aesthetics, apocalyptic thinking and urban protest in post-1965 African-American pop", '']Cultural Studies
Cultural studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the political dynamics of contemporary culture (including popular culture) and its historical foundations. Cultural studies researchers generally investigate how cultural practices re ...
'', Vol. 8 , Iss. 3,1994. p. 491.
The film of P-Funk's Halloween 1976 concert at the Houston Summit provides an excellent snapshot of what the Earth Tour production was like. The incantation from "Prelude" from ''The Clones of Dr. Funkenstein'' plays in darkness as spotlights illuminate a pyramid with the
Eye of Providence
The Eye of Providence (or the All-Seeing Eye of God) is a symbol that depicts an eye, often enclosed in a triangle and surrounded by Ray (optics), rays of light or Glory (optical phenomenon), glory, meant to represent divine providence, whereby ...
at its summit, echoing the
official seal of the United States:
::Funk upon a time, in the days of the Funkapus, the concept of specially-designed Afronauts capable of funkatizing galaxies was first laid on man-child.
::But was later repossessed, and placed among the secrets of the pyramids until a more positive attitude towards this most sacred phenomenon, Clone Funk, could be acquired...
::...It would wait, along with its co-inhabitants of kings and pharaohs, like sleeping beauties with a kiss that would release them to multiply in the image of the chosen one: Dr Funkenstein...
The show is loosely structured around preparing the pyramid for the resurrection of the Afronauts, with dim oblations paid by members of the troupe during the first half of the set. Occasionally, an animated film based on Pedro Bell's album art would be shown during the concerts. The film loosely follows the plot of ''Funkentelechy Vs. The Placebo Syndrome'' with Starchild and his Bop Gun facing off against Sir Nose and his Snooze Gun. During the film, band members would encourage the audience to shine their flashlights to help the Mothership return. Concertgoers could purchase customized flashlights as part of the tour's merchandising.
A half hour later, the band plays "Children of Production" which expands on the clone imagery of "Prelude". The song is sung by the titular "children" who explain that Dr. Funkenstein "forenotioned the shortcomings of your condition" and cloned the children to "blow the cobwebs out your mind". The band launches into "Mothership Connection" which explicitly links back to the concepts of "Prelude" in its introduction, "Citizens of the Universe, Recording Angels, we have returned to claim the pyramids, partying on the Mothership."
[Clinton, George, and Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell.]
Mothership Connection
, ''Mothership Connection''. Casablanca, 1975. The band vamps over the closing mantra of the song, "Swing down, sweet chariot. Stop, and let me ride" as guitarist
Glenn Goins
Glenn Lamonte Goins (January 2, 1954 – July 29, 1978), also known as Glen Goins, was a singer and guitarist for Parliament-Funkadelic in the mid-1970s. Goins is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, posthumously inducted in 1997 with fift ...
exhorts the audience to sing along. Other members of the band warn that the mothership will not come if the audience does not do its part. Goins starts to repeatedly wail, "I see the Mothership coming!" as the spaceship finally comes into view, shrouded in smoke and shooting off a fusillade of magnesium sparks.
After the Mothership lands, Clinton appears at the top of a staircase as if he has emerged from the spaceship. He is dressed as Dr. Funkenstein, and the band launches into his titular song where he sings, "...call me the big pill, Dr. Funkenstein, the disco fiend with the monster sound, the cool ghoul with the bump transplant". Dr. Funkenstein proclaims that he is "preoccupied and dedicated to the preservation of the motion of hips", to which the Children of Production reply, "We love to funk you, Funkenstein. Your funk is the best!"
The parody of "
Swing Down Sweet Chariot
"Swing Down Sweet Chariot" (sometimes "Swing Down, Ezekiel" or "Swing Down Chariot") is an American spiritual song. It tells the story of Ezekiel's vision of the chariot. The title and lyrics are very similar to the spiritual song " Swing Low, S ...
" is in line with so much of P-Funk's work, which relies heavily on appropriation. That this particular song is reworked to herald the arrival of the Mothership, which offers salvation from an unfunky existence, also aligns with the provenance of the song. Like many spirituals, "Swing Down Sweet Chariot" read superficially about deliverance to Heaven on a chariot like
Elijah
Elijah ( ; he, אֵלִיָּהוּ, ʾĒlīyyāhū, meaning "My God is Yahweh/YHWH"; Greek form: Elias, ''Elías''; syr, ܐܸܠܝܼܵܐ, ''Elyāe''; Arabic: إلياس or إليا, ''Ilyās'' or ''Ilyā''. ) was, according to the Books of ...
, but it also contained coded messages about escape to the North. By appropriating the song to score the arrival of the Mothership, it becomes a modern-day chariot sent to deliver the audience not back home to Africa, but to Outer Space. Clinton's stage show created a narrative link from the Egyptian pyramids, which often were used to symbolize black pride in a past achievements, to a Utopian vision of existence off-world. P-Funk was telling a tale of once and future greatness to a marginalized audience in a time of intense social upheaval. Their music afforded the black community an alternative to their oppressive environment with tales of the potential for black wealth and power.
[Wright, Amy Nathan.]
A Philosophy of Funk
, The Funk Era and Beyond: New Perspectives on Black Popular Culture. Edited by Tony Bolden. Springer, 2016.
P-Funk mythology in popular culture
* The 2004 video game ''
Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas'' features George Clinton as the Funktipus, the DJ of the in-game
funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in African American communities in the mid-1960s when musicians created a rhythmic, danceable new form of music through a mixture of various music genres that were popular among African Americans in the m ...
radio station Bounce FM, which is apparently broadcast from the Party Ship.
* Adult Swim's 2010 animated special ''
Freaknik: The Musical'' featured psychedelic aliens voiced by George Clinton and Bootsy Collins.
* Playing on the storyline of ''Mothership Connection'', an episode of ''
The Mighty Boosh
The Mighty Boosh is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Developed from three stage shows and a six-episode radio series, it has since spanned a total of 20 television episodes for BBC Three which aire ...
'', "The Legend of Old Gregg" (season 2, episode 5), depicts the Funk as a living, multi-breasted extraterrestrial entity accidentally tossed overboard the Mothership by George Clinton.
"The Mighty Boosh: The Legend of Old Gregg"
TV.com The episode further contains a sly reference to mythology with offerings of maggot-laced items at the local pub frequented by stodgy local fishermen. Near the episode's end, transformed by milk from the Funk, characters Howard Moon
''The Mighty Boosh'' is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Recurring characters from the The Mighty Boosh, television series, the The Mighty Boosh (radio series), radio series, and the various stage sho ...
and Vince Noir
''The Mighty Boosh'' is a British comedy troupe featuring comedians Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding. Recurring characters from the The Mighty Boosh, television series, the The Mighty Boosh (radio series), radio series, and the various stage sho ...
perform a maritime parody of "Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)
"Give Up the Funk (Tear the Roof off the Sucker)" is a funk song by Parliament. It was released as a single under the name "Tear the Roof off the Sucker (Give Up the Funk)". It was the second single to be released from Parliament's 1975 album '' ...
".
* Filmmaker Yvonne Smith created an animated segment for her documentary, '' Parliament-Funkadelic: One Nation Under a Groove'', featuring a P-Funk mythology-inspired character, "Afronaut."[Eric Olsen]
"Tear the Roof Off the Sucker Tonight on PBS with PARLIAMENT FUNKADELIC: One Nation Under a Groove"
BC Blogcritics, 11 October 2005. Retrieved 1 January 2010. The character was voiced by comedian Eddie Griffin
Edward Rubin Griffin (born July 15, 1968) is an American comedian and actor. He is best known for portraying Eddie Sherman in the sitcom '' Malcolm & Eddie'', the title character in the 2002 comedy film '' Undercover Brother'', and Tiberius Jef ...
. The documentary first aired on PBS
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...
in October 2005 as part of the ''Independent Lens
''Independent Lens'' is a weekly television series airing on PBS featuring documentary films made by independent filmmakers. Past seasons of ''Independent Lens'' were hosted by Angela Bassett, Don Cheadle, Susan Sarandon, Edie Falco, Terrence Ho ...
'' series.
* In the 2015 episode of Doctor Who
''Doctor Who'' is a British science fiction television series broadcast by the BBC since 1963. The series depicts the adventures of a Time Lord called the Doctor, an extraterrestrial being who appears to be human. The Doctor explores the u ...
, "The Zygon Invasion
"The Zygon Invasion" is the seventh episode of the ninth series of the British science fiction television series ''Doctor Who''. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 31 October 2015, and written by Peter Harness and directed by Daniel Nettheim. T ...
," the Doctor refers to himself as 'Doctor Funkenstein'.
References
External links
Funkcyclopedia: A Bass-ic Speak Primer, A Starter Kit to Help You Learn To Stop Fronting and Love the Bomb
* Jules Fisher'
design sketch
for the Mothership stage prop from th
Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Library & Archives
{{P-Funk
P-Funk
Concept album series
Fictional characters invented for recorded music
Afrofuturism
Mythopoeia