America Eats Its Young

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
America Eats Its Young
America Eats Its Young cover
Studio album by Funkadelic
Released 1972
Recorded  ?
Genre Psychedelic rock/funk
Length 69:06
Label Westbound Records
Producer(s)  ?
Professional reviews
Funkadelic chronology
Maggot Brain
(1971)		 America Eats Its Young
(1972)		 Cosmic Slop
(1973)


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.

Contents

[edit] Track listing

  1. "You Hit the Nail On the Head" (George Clinton, Clarence Haskins, Bernie Worrell)
  2. "If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause" (Clinton, Garry Shider)
  3. "Everybody Is Going To Make It This Time" (Clinton, Worrell)
  4. "A Joyful Process" (Clinton, Worrell)
  5. "We Hurt Too" (Clinton)
  6. "Loose Booty" (Clinton, Harold Beane)
  7. "Philmore" (Bootsy Collins)
  8. "Pussy" (Clinton, Billy Bass Nelson, Eddie Hazel)
  9. "America Eats Its Young" (Beane, Clinton, Worrell)
  10. "Biological Speculation" (Clinton, Ernie Harris)
  11. "That Was My Girl" (Clinton, Sidney Barnes)
  12. "Balance" (Clinton, Worrell)
  13. "Miss Lucifer's Love" (Clinton, Haskins)
  14. "Wake Up" (Clinton, James W. Jackson, Worrell)

[edit] Personnel

[edit] Track listing

[edit] You Hit the Nail on the Head

This song is vaguely political, with the central lyrical thrust of the song quoted above. Typically, the lyric functions on both a political and personal level: 'victory in any dispute doesn't confer any moral advantage.'

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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:

[edit] 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

[edit] We Hurt Too

This is widely considered one of Funkadelic's weakest songs, lyrically and musically.[citation needed]

This song claims that men are also capable of crying (presumably, in addition to women) and feel just as sad as the other sex.

[edit] Loose Booty

This is widely considered one of the better songs off what is essentially a transitional 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.

[edit] Philmore

This song seems to be about the singer's sexual prowess, as he woos a woman who is uncaring and cruel.

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] 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.

[edit] That Was My Girl

It is widely considered one of the weaker songs on a very uneven but interesting 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."

[edit] Balance

  • Lead Vocals: Bootsy Collins

[edit] Miss Lucifer's Love

"Miss Lucifer's Love" features vocals by Fuzzy Haskins 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.

[edit] Wake Up

This is the only fully developed politically oriented song on the 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.

[edit] External Reviews

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/m/e/America_Eats_Its_Young_348d.html"