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[miko2]

Today's Song: One Nation Under A Groove by Funkadelic

I'm violating my own rules for this song of the day thing by talking about a song that isn't on iTunes. I can only imagine this is on purpose, since it's probably the single most requested song by any George Clinton-led group, and he wants you to go buy it on cd. For another great P-Funk song that you can get on iTunes, try Parliment's Give Up The Funk (Tear the Roof Off the Sucker) or Flashlight.

George Clinton and crew went by several names over the years -- Parliment, Funkadelic, the P-Funk All-Stars. There were a lot of off-shoot bands, but it was all pretty much the same kind of thing. I only recently learned from reading some online articles that there was a difference in the philosophy behind the songwriting for Parliment and for Funkadelic. Essentially, there was an overarching story behind Parliment's songs with many characters involved -- it reminds me a bit of some of the stuff David Bowie was doing at the same time -- but with Funkadelic, there was simply a musical philosopy, which is best summed up in their album title Free Your Mind, and Your Ass Will Follow -- that is, funky dancing leads to enlightenment.

In that vein, One Nation Under A Groove begins with the promise that "Here's a chance to dance our way out of our constrictions". and contains a lot of silly lines about dancing and funking, ("Give you more of what you're funking for", "Do you promise to funk the whole funk and nothing but the funk?"), but it's all designed to be a good-time good-feeling dance party with more than the usual inane dance music lyrics.

This is one of their biggest hits, and although I haven't realy listened to a lot of their music, this is probably my favorite.

One Nation Under A Groove

One Nation Under A Groove Documentary part 1
One Nation Under A Groove Documentary Part 2
One Nation Under A Groove Documentary Part 3