Take your medication. Drink six cups of coffee. Comb your hair. Burn your chairs. Put your high heel sneakers on. GIRD YOUR LOINS. Now press the play button.
That, ladies and gentleman, is not entertainment. That is a hurricane, wrapped in a tornado, basted with the sweat of a thousand leopards, and sanctified in the Sublime Church of the OMGWTF.
Those poor benighted (French?) souls in the audience tried to sit there and listen to it. James wasn’t having any of that. He stomps the grapes of rhythm in the vineyard of the human condition, and blasts his buckshot of funk into the audience. The wounds are serious, but not fatal.
That’s real happiness on his face. It beams out from his mien like sunshine. I know how hard he worked to make it seem that effortless. I know how uncompromising and fierce he was towards his band. But all that was yoked to the service of his vision, his mission to sanctify mankind with syncopation and singing and the fury of his feet. It was so he –and in our turn, we — could get up on top of that sublime and effortless force and ride it like a wave. It’s a smile, backed up with velvet and iron and sleek sultry sex.
James is in his church. Call and response. Channeling the sublime. Please do not tell me that “Sex Machine” doesn’t belong in church. The sunny nature of mankind is distilled and fed back to us, every aspect of it a tribute to the maker of it all — and our high priest is James Brown. It’s all good, he intones. It all serves the higher power.
Can I get a Amen?
One Response
“Can I get an Amen?” Not right now you can’t. First this:
Come here sister…..Papa’s in the swing
He ain’t too hip…about that new breed babe
He ain’t no drag
Papa’s got a brand new bag
Come here mama….and dig this crazy scene
He’s not too fancy….but his line is pretty clean
He ain’t no drag.
Papa’s got a brand new bag
Amen.