Mother Popcorn

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 9:45 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 9:25 PM, Scot LaFaive <slafaive at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Can anyone illuminate me on what James Brown means by "(mother) popcorn" in
>> his song "Mother Popcorn?" I can only assume it isn't Orville Redenbacher.
>
> Well, the "popcorn" was a popular dance amongst the colored, when the
> side was new. I was still young enough to be partying back, at the
> time that the 45 dropped. However, it was never my impression that
> "*Mother* Popcorn" had any special meaning, except, possibly, to JB
> himself. At the time, I vaguely wondered only whether the popularity
> of the popcorn had inspired JB to write the song or whether the
> popularity of the song had inspired JB or someone else to devise a
> dance to go along with it, a la the "twist."

Some more info...

---
http://www.wfmu.org/LCD/25/popcorn.html
The first hint of Popcornitude turned up in January of 1968, with the release of
an inconspicuous instrumental single called "Bringing Up The Guitar"... Brown
started doing a little dance to "Bringing Up The Guitar" on stage, and it
caught on. He called the dance the Popcorn, and in late August, 1968, the band
re-recorded the instrumental as "The Popcorn" (credited to James Brown Plays &
Directs). In fact, he wasn't playing, though he can be heard yelping a little;
this time, Ellis switched to organ, and Maceo Parker contributed a smoking,
curlicuing tenor sax part. It's not quite as crisp or funky as the first
version, but when it was released in May 1969, it clicked, going to #11 on the
R&B chart.
Now, let's backtrack a little. In January of '69, he'd recorded a song called
"You Got To Have A Mother For Me," the first blatant lyrical indication of what
an ass-man he is.  ... When "The Popcorn" clicked, though, the Godfather
moved-fast. (This, please note, was in a year when he released 13 singles and 4
albums, and that's just counting the ones under his own name.) On May 13, he
hybridized the words of "You Got To Have A Mother For Me" with the basic groove
of "The Popcorn," and came up with "Mother Popcorn," one of the most monstrously
funky records ever made.
---


--Ben Zimmer

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