But a lot of folks overlook "Mary Jane" from the album Come Get It! (1978): Rick James's second-ever single as a solo artist and the song that introduced the world to what James called "punk-funk." More or less, he defined "punk-funk" as an attitude that combined the rebellion and lyrical bluntness of punk rock with the deep grooves of heavy, rock-infused funk.
Or...umm. Something to that effect.
Read the 1979 interview for yourself. It's quintessential Rick James: he leaps from topic to topic, contradicts himself several times, sings the praises of ganja, disses George Clinton, refers to his own music as causing "mental diarrhea," admits to being AWOL from the US Navy in the mid-1960s, and even touches on the fact that, while he was AWOL, he was in a Canadian folk-rock band called The Mynah Birds with Neil Young (!) at one point.
Anyway, I first heard "Mary Jane" at the same freshman orientation party where I also first heard The Bar-Kay's "Holy Ghost." Part of the celebration included a community-building activity where we sang a sleepaway camp-style song to the tune of "Mary Jane":
Do-do-do, Hinton James!
Do-do-do, Hinton James!
We live in Hinton James
Our beds ain't got no springs...
And some more stuff I can't remember.
But I digress...
The song does have some "punk-ish" elements, I suppose--the overdriven guitar in the intro and coda, in particular. But, apart from that, it's just a heavy funk groove with some nasty slapped bass, interwoven rhythm guitar and synth lines, and an infectious verse and hook.
No matter what your opinion of the song's subject matter or Ol' Slick Rick himself, you will find yourself singing Do-do-do / Mary Jane for a week after you hear it.
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