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.
Come on Maggot Brain
Go on Maggot Brain
Originally recorded in
1971 by
George Clinton and
Funkadelic, another of those
seminal early 1970s
funk bands. The
LP version was more than ten minutes long with only the above spoken lyrics. Conventional
lore has it that Clinton told guitarist
Eddie Hazel to play the first half of the song as if he had just learned his mother had died, and the second half as if she had found out she was alive.
The resulting guitar
solo is considered one of
rock and roll's definitive instrumentals.
Maggot Brain has since become one of those songs that every
garage or bar band covers. Perhaps the best
cover I have heard is by
bassist Mike Watt on the
Ball Hog or Tugboat?/Sex With You is Like Scientific Wrestling album. Watt replaced the
organ in the original version with a throbbing bass line that becomes the dominating current in the whole song. Some people consider this song as
music for sex.
I have also heard covers of
Maggot Brain by
Pearl Jam and
Stone Temple Pilots.