America Eats Its Young
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America Eats Its Young is a 1972 album by Funkadelic. This was the first album to include the whole of the JB's, along with Bootsy Collins, Catfish Collins, Chicken Gunnels, Rob McCollough and Kash Waddy.
Track listing
- "You Hit the Nail On the Head" (George Clinton, Clarence Haskins, Bernie Worrell)
- "If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause" (Clinton, Garry Shider)
- "Everybody Is Going To Make It This Time" (Clinton, Worrell)
- "A Joyful Process" (Clinton, Worrell)
- "We Hurt Too" (Clinton)
- "Loose Booty" (Clinton, Harold Beane)
- "Philmore" (Bootsy Collins)
- "Pussy" (Clinton, Billy Bass Nelson, Eddie Hazel)
- "America Eats Its Young" (Beane, Clinton, Worrell)
- "Biological Speculation" (Clinton, Ernie Harris)
- "That Was My Girl" (Clinton, Sidney Barnes)
- "Balance" (Clinton, Worrell)
- "Miss Lucifer's Love" (Clinton, Haskins)
- "Wake Up" (Clinton, James W. Jackson, Worrell)
Personnel
- Keyboards & Melodica: Bernie Worrell
- Percussion: Zachary Frazier, Tiki Fulwood, Ty Lampkin, Kash Waddy
- Guitar: Harold Beane, Catfish Collins, Ed Hazel, Garry Shider
- Bass guitar: Bootsy Collins, Prakash John, Boogie Mosson
- Trumpet: Bruce Cassidy, Arnie Chycoski, Ronnie Greenway, Chicken Gunnels, Al Stanwyck
- Alto saxophone: Randy Wallace
- Tenor saxophone: Robert McCullough
- Steel guitar: Ollie Strong
- Juice harp: James Wesley Jackson
- Violin: Victoria Polley, Albert Pratz, Bill Richards, Joe Sera
- Viola: Walter Babiuk, Stanley Solomon
- Cello: Ronald Laurie, Peter Schenkman
- Vocals: Harold Beane, Diane Brooks, Bootsy Collins, Catfish Collins, George Clinton, Ray Davis, Ronnie Greenway, Clayton Gunnels, Fuzzy Haskins, Ed Hazel, Prakash John, Steve Kennedy, Garry Shider, Calvin Simon, Grady Thomas, Frank Waddy, Randy Wallace, Bernie Worrell
Songs
You Hit the Nail on the Head
This song is vaguely political, with the central lyrical thrust of the song quoted above. Essentially, though the current entrenched power-holding class may win a battle, they are still morally wrong.
If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause
This song has two interrelated themes. The beginning focuses on hypocrites who want to change reality without accepting the blame if anything goes wrong. This is extended in the latter part of the song to those who make half-hearted attempts at social change, and who protest the "big" problems but are not willing to make changes in their own lives to respect what they claim is right for all of society.
Everybody Is Going to Make It This Time
The song was recorded in London in 1968, with the assistance of Ginger Baker (Cream), one of Clinton's favorite drummers.
This song proclaims that the human race (the titular "everybody") is capable of growing and reforming, but at the present, nobody is willing to learn from past mistakes, and has sacrificed wisdom for material comfort.
Personnel:
- Vocals: Calvin Simon, George Clinton, Bernie Worrell, Garry Shider, Dr. Music (Diane Brooks, Steve Kennedy)
- Guitar: Garry Shider
- Bass: Prakash John
- Keyboards: Bernie Worrell
- Drums: Ty Lampkin
- David Van De Pitte - arranged steel and string guitar
A Joyful Process
This song starts off borrowing the music from the children's Christian song, "Jesus Loves Me."
- String and horn arrangements by Bernie Worrell
- Drums: Zachary Frazier
We Hurt Too
This is widely considered one of Funkadelic's weakest songs, lyrically and musically.
This song claims that men are also capable of crying (presumably, in addition to women) and feel just as sad as the other sex.
- String and Steel guitar by David Van De Pitte
- Vocals: George Clinton, Ray Davis, Calvin Simon, Garry Shider
Loose Booty
This is widely considered one of the better songs off what is an otherwise relatively weak album. It was a remake of a Parliament song.
This song is an obscene nursery rhyme. This would eventually become a whole group of P funk songs, all with the same nursery rhyme-quality, yet obscene and perverse lyrics.
- Vocals: George Clinton
- Vocal Ad libs: Eddie Hazel
- Guitar: Harold Beane
- Bass guitar: Bootsy Collins
- Keyboard: Bernie Worrell
- Drums: Tiki Fulwood
Philmore
This song seems to be about the singer's sexual prowess, as he woos a woman who is uncaring and cruel.
- Lead Vocals: Bootsy Collins
- Bass: Bootsy Collins
- Guitar: Catfish Collins
Pussy
The song is, essentially, about lust and its tremendous power over the singer, who is incapable of resisting his (perhaps former) lover.
George Clinton sang lead vocals, with Frank Waddy on drums.
The song's deliberately suggestive (but oblique) lyrics such as "I'm the tomcat and you're my li'l ol' pussy" and "Wild and warm is my pussy/ My pussy is where it's at" are common for the genre, a tradition followed in R&B.
America Eats Its Young
This song has largely inscrutable lyrics that seem to be claiming that America is a "bitch" that "suck(s) the brains" of her "great grandsons and daughters."
- steel and string guitar arrangements by David Van De Pitte
Biological Speculation
This song is about how Mother Nature will fix any unbalanced elements of society, sooner or later. The singer takes the position that any oppression is only temporary, and will eventually and inevitably be destroyed by Mother Nature acting through human agents.
- Steel and string guitar arrangements by David Van De Pitte
- Lead Vocals: George Clinton
- Guitar: Garry Shider
That Was My Girl
It is widely considered one of the weaker songs on a very weak and uneven album.
This is a sugary sweet love song, in which the singer describes his former girl, a beautiful woman who could always "drive the fellas wild."
- Lead Vocals: George Clinton
Balance
- Lead Vocals: Bootsy Collins
Miss Lucifer's Love
"Miss Lucifer's Love" features vocals by Bernie Worrell and string and horn arrangements by Bernie Worrell. Its songwriters are George Clinton and Fuzzy Haskins.
In Miss Lucifer's Love, the singer describes his love for "Miss Lucifer." Although she is referred to as "the devil," Miss Lucifer is not necessarily Satan (see Lucifer) as certain critics (predominantly Christian fundamentalists) have argued. The singer could be addressing a former lover, whom, in retrospect, he sees as being similar to the devil in both her exciting, passionate danger and her cruel and sadistic nature.
Wake Up
This is the only fully-developed politically-oriented song off what is commonly considered a weak album.
This song exhorts the listener to "wake up" to political and social action. Humanity is characterized as sleeping through oppression, ignoring (by choice) what would otherwise be scandals and outrages demanding immediate action.
- String and horn arrangements by Bernie Worrell
External Reviews
- "makes for a freaky, funky, and aware good time."