the unbearable lightness of freakiness

There’s an old (now….it’s a golden oldie, really) Rick James song that I like even though it’s kind of nasty.

If my children modeled their lives around the lyrics or adopted it as their theme song, I’d be pretty disappointed.

But it’s a pretty funky song.

In my head, I remember it as being one of the heaviest slices of funk around.

Here it is…I’ll let you decide…

Anyway, like I said…in my head it was all BAHBUHBUHBEHBUHBUHBEHBEH…really loud and aggressive and super funky and the ultimate aggressive funky music that ever was on the face of the planet and…

I really thought it rocked hard.

And then I heard it again and I realized it was really pretty light…Rick James had a light touch on this nasty slice of funk.

They say in some music circles that’s it’s not the notes, it’s the space between the notes that gives music it’s tension and power.

There’s a lot of space between these notes…lots of room to create funkiness.

On the other hand, I saw Metallica on the Colbert Report last night and it was a different approach completely…and it left me with a different feeling.

The bass player did play the lead theme…and that was pretty unusual and cool….but the rest of it left me feeling kind of bored.

Now, I’ve never been a real Metallica fan…I don’t get really excited about any of their music…but it just seemed kind of lame to me.

Staccato rhythms and aggressive posturing….loud, loud, loud….grimace and grunt and strut and…I was pretty bored.

It was OK…but all that effort should leave me feeling like I’d seen something that was a little more than just OK.

But back to Rick James…

In 1981, I suppose that this song was pretty funky…and the video was pretty shocking.

Now, it’s just kind of goofy.

I like goofy, though.  Give me some funk that’s not scary or threatening…that’s a good soundtrack to my day.

About Peter Rorvig

I'm a non-practicing artist, a mailman, a husband, a father...not listed in order of importance. I believe that things can always get better....and that things are usually better than we think.

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