While some of his comedy may have not aged that well, there’s something to looking back at Eddie Murphy’s stand-up career and seeing visceral energy. He was cognizant of a moment, managing to brutally eviscerate his targets while establishing himself as “delirious.” Among his targets was “The Godfather of Soul” himself, Mr. James Brown. The audience was so aware of the legendary singer at this point that all it took was Murphy saying that he doesn’t know what the hell Brown is talking about. If you listen to the routine, it devolves into a series of loud yowls and mumbling calls to the back-up band.
Despite the flippant language, was the joke really an attack on Brown? Nobody thought so. Not even the man himself, who claimed that it was the funniest routine in the world. That may be because Brown could poke fun at himself. It was also because we all had THAT perception of him by the early 1980s.
But what if I were to tell you that there was a cut-off point, where he went from this elegant singer to something more experimental? Would you even believe me? It’s hard to do, but there is a focus to his early hits like “I Feel Good” that are absent with his later work. What caused this? Maybe drugs, but it was more because he gained enough confidence to follow his own vision.
He was first and foremost an entertainer. He wanted to get the crowd moving, and it wasn’t going to happen imitating other artists. Over the course of the late 60s, he stopped making sense. No, I’m not talking about that time he got into a police chase after somebody used his washroom, using the line “I was high on love” as an alibi. I’m talking about the time that he got really obsessed with popcorn.
Over the course of 1969, he released four records and quadruple as many singles. The output included a single called “The Popcorn,” which was an instrumental that also helped to introduce a dance of the same name. The man who was known for busting moves on stage had come up with a new dance and he was going to get the kids to dance to it whether they wanted to or not. If your parents in the YouTube comments sections are to be believed, “Mother Popcorn Part 1 & 2” was a highlight of their youth because they could dance “The Popcorn” to it for six wonderful minutes.
That tracks, especially since it topped the R&B Charts.
But what’s fascinating is not that Brown released so many songs with popcorn in the title (see also “Lowdown Popcorn,” “Let a Man Come In and Do the Popcorn,” etc.), but that it manages to be both revolutionary and a rehash of what he’s done before. Just on a lyrical basis, “Mother Popcorn” is a combination of songs “The Popcorn” and “You Got to Have a Mother For Me.” The latter even shares a lot of the same lyrics set to a different instrumental track. There were even comparisons to “Cold Sweat,” but with different tempos. The new song was more frantic, full of squeals and passion.
What made “Mother Popcorn” an exceptional moment in a career full of incredible achievements was that it was one of the first moments where his music moved away from pop conventions. This was more interested in rhythmic distinctions, sacrificing intricately placed verses and choruses with instrumental breakdowns, yells, and lyrics that sometimes qualify more as word association.
Somehow over the course of a short time, Brown made his career off of “The Popcorn” and it was easy to see why when he performed it live. Conventional music was limiting. He would have to return to his perch to sing the next verse. With “Mother Popcorn,” the band could adjust the tempo for whatever performance they were doing and create intensity.
If you were to ever see Brown perform live, you know how much of a powerhouse he was. They called him The Hardest Working Man in Show Business for a reason. He didn’t need to move as swiftly as he did, but he was a showman first and foremost. He would train the band to perform in time to his choreography, forcing them to stay focused. If he pointed at you and you weren’t ready to go, he would fine you. Sure it could be seen as being a control freak, but it was only in comparison to him. He had the nimblest feet when he danced, managing to do the splits before rising back up in one quick motion.
This was the turning point for Brown, where he became a funk icon. It helped that he had one of the best backing bands of the time, including tenor saxophonist Maceo Parker and alto saxophonist Alfred “Pee Wee” Ellis. If you listen to the horns on this song, they’re almost as much of a livewire as the man himself. Everything about this song is serving a greater purpose, even when he’s singing lines like:
Some like them fat and some like them tall
Some like them short, skinny legs and all
I like them boss, I like them proud
And when they walk, you know they draw a crowd
Wait, so what is “Mother Popcorn” about? I suppose you could say it’s an excuse to provide music to dance to, but it can’t be that simple. While you’d think that mother is a reference to a family member, you’d be a bit off. Sure, a mother figure could have what Brown’s “mother” refers to but they aren’t mutually exclusive.
No, like a lot of men Brown favored big butts. He couldn’t lie about it. So much of his music feels like it was building to him writing an opera about a woman’s posterior. Where do you think the elation came from here? “You got to have a mother for me” is a line he repeats often, and somehow knowing its true intent only adds to the wonderful absurdity of this song.
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| It was right in front of us the whole time |
So, what’s the deal with the song being two parts? It’s in theory not really an expansion of the first. There’s no continuing story. It’s just an instrumental breakdown that, when played with Part 1, is this great tidal wave of funk. It all flows beautifully in a way that suggests that it was all one song. You’d be right, especially since Part 2 was recorded right after Part 1 in the same recording session. It’s almost a disservice to break it up because while the first half is the energetic part centering around the transcendental screams of Brown, the latter is where his band, really gets to shine. The horn section is one of the fiercest ever recorded, and its lack of form makes it all the more beautiful, allowing you to feel transported into a world of illogic, your body moving through the air without a care.
Much like everything else regarding “Mother Popcorn,” there was a commodity to the franchise within this franchise. Did you think that it would stop with dozens of “Popcorn” songs? No, he was going to make “Mother Popcorn” into its own phenomenon. As one can guess, it was a highlight of his concerts. In order to capitalize on this moment, he had band member Bobby Byrd’s wife Vicki Anderson performed what was called “Answer to Mother Popcorn (I Got a Mother for You).” Yes, this was all in 1969.
Anderson would perform in the context of Brown’s song live. Whereas Brown’s version is this fierce, untamed energy, there is something to Anderson’s version that feels more focused. It could just be that nobody sang like Brown. However, it was also because “Answer” was essentially just rephrasing the lyrics but from the context of a woman. Where Brown sang about liking them fat, tall, skinny legs and all, Anderson presented what a real woman had, which went through the checklist and knocked them off one by one.
It’s a fun little bit, but it’s tough to say that it resonates as well on record. The fun comes when Anderson does her own yelling in the back half, where the song becomes something more interpretive. The only issue is that this always felt like a secondary feature than its own triumphant piece. Maybe it worked in concert, but as a record, it’s mostly there to whet the appetite of record collectors.
Somehow it makes sense that James Brown would take this moment to go completely insane. At the height of his powers, he used the moment to embrace his black identity and give into his soul. When you listen to any of his work, you can feel him on a spiritual level. He gave his all to make it work. Sure, there’s something ridiculous about him sometimes singing with a mushed-mouth quality, but you can’t deny that he had a gift for making funk that transcended pop and became their own meditative jam. This was going to be how people saw him for the next 50 years: a man unafraid to sing to high heaven about his love of big butts.
It would be one thing if Brown was just a crazy man rambling on a microphone. It’s far from the case, as every note feels perfectly placed. He is creating an organic sound that’s all his own, as reliant on tight orchestration as it was his off-the-rails persona. You either love it or you don’t, but there’s a reason that he became an icon of flamboyant self-expression. It didn’t always make sense, but you trusted his instinct because no matter what you got, it was sure to be pure James Brown every time.
The world of covers even produced a few noteworthy versions. Aerosmith performed a cover on their album “Live! Bootleg.” There was even a point where The Blues Brothers performed it on “Made in America.” Of course, Brown would go on to appear in The Blues Brothers (1980), thus cementing him as this cultural landmark for another decade. The song would even appear on the compilation “Motherlode” from 1988 which is an amusing name with the entire context.
In a lot of sense, this is far from James Brown’s most echoic single that he’s ever released. However, it’s hard to not immediately come away with a reaction from any piece of the music. If you’re not confused by the lyrics, you’ll be laughing at the squeals, or having your mind blown by the dexterity of the orchestration. Everything is working much harder than it should, and it’s a beautiful creation of funk that epitomizes what his career was. He was a ball of energy.
I just wish, for a musician who cornered the market on “Popcorn” phenomena in 1969, that I could find a video on YouTube that told me just what the popcorn dance was. Right now there are some that’s either related to Hot Butter’s “Popcorn,” or even more confusing modern trends. While it’s great to see people still dancing to popcorn songs, I don’t think it holds a candle to the raw, unfiltered original that I’ll always love not because it doesn’t make sense on an intellectual level, but because it understands why we dance so well.
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