"Mothership Connection (Star Child)" (Parliament)

The entire Mothership Connection album (1975) is a weird, wonderful masterpiece.  It's the album that definitively established Parliament as its own entity with a sound, look, and mythology separate from not only Funkadelic but the whole funk universe.
In fact, George Clinton invented his own universe, filled with sci-fi crusaders guided by Star Child, their messianic leader who railed against all flavors of oppression and repression.  Sensing the turmoil and general unfunkiness on earth, Star Child returned to our planet on the Mothership—his chosen mode of intergalactic funksportation—to shake the shackles of humanity's constipated thinking and get everybody dancing under the Almighty One...
Yes, this was the product of Clinton's chemically-fueled imagination.  But to chalk up the whole Parliament experience to drugs would be to diminish his talent and genius.  Narcotics or no, Clinton invented this elaborate backstory, which was equal parts Narnia and Star Trek, so that he could take his music and its young fans further than either were told they could go.  Galaxies beyond.
In a June 2014 piece for NPR, journalist Allison Keyes discusses with Clinton the Smithsonian's recent acquisition of the massive, metallic Mothership stage prop from Parliament's legendary stage shows.  Clinton comments on the significance of the Mothership and the entire Mothership Connection lore.
"I definitely felt we needed something to be proud of as black people.  We wanted to have a funk opera."

And the track "Mothership Connection (Star Child)" is where that opera really starts to gel.  Any initial "what the?" reactions you might have listening to Clinton's extra-terrestrial DJ ramblings on the disc's opening track start to melt away, and you begin to acclimate to the record's alien funk atmosphere.  Bernie Worrell's jazzy keyboard flourishes over Bootsy Collins's gulping bass provide the perfect backdrop for Clinton to rap about partying in space and reclaiming the pyramids.  It still sounds light years ahead of its time.

My absolute favorite part of the track is the coda.  Clinton makes an announcement like some kind of prophetic flight attendant (When Gabriel's horn blow / You'd better be ready to go); Worrell hits this jazzy chord that sounds like a beam of light coming out of the clouds; and suddenly you're in the middle of this gospel-tinged singalong: Swing down, sweet chariot / Stop and let me ride.

It gets me every time.

"Flash Light" (Parliament)

While I was living in DC in the early 2000s, I started listening to as much Parliament as I could get my hands on.  It was a weird time to be living in the District.  And Parliament's space funk provided an upbeat respite from the confounding junk happening circa 2001-2.
But as I really started listening to the words of the songs, I began to realize that the alien scenarios and comic book-style characters, like Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, Dr. Funkenstein, and Star Child, weren't just some crazy, meaningless crap that George Clinton's substance-addled brain had dreamed up to market a product.  They were all part of insightful social commentary about American consumerism, greed, and Puritanical repressive tendencies, where mindless/soulless entertainment, overindulgence (both legal and illegal), and acquisition of stuff served as substitutes for real fulfillment.
Thing is, Clinton and his cohorts were singing about this stuff in 1977.  Thirty-something years later, it feels even more relevant today (frighteningly).
Speaking of insight, that's what "Flash Light" is really all about: shining a light on the truth.
The song is the final track of the concept album Funkentelechy vs. The Placebo Syndrome (1977).  In it, cosmic "square" Sir Nose D'Voidoffunk, despite his repeated declarations throughout the album that "he'll never dance," finally loosens up and gives in to the funk after Star Child shines the Flash Light on him.  (In other words, he embraces the truth, and the truth sets him free.)
Putting aside the tao and mythology of Parliament for a sec, "Flash Light" is just a cold groove.
In a great 1994 interview with Living Colour guitarist Vernon Reid for Vibe, Clinton states that the song started out as a track for Bootsy Collins's side project, Bootsy's Rubber Band, but Collins didn't want the tune.  So, using Collins's basic guitar and drum track, Clinton rebuilt the song from the ground up with the band's genius keyboardist, Bernie Worrell, who added its signature keyboard bassline.
There is just so much going on and so much to love on this track.  From all of the James Brown-on-Mars polyrhythms and intertwined guitar/keyboard lines to the singalong vocals (which include a Bar Mitzvah chant that Clinton incorporated as an homage to a childhood friend), it's a song that refuses to let wallflowers or fakers sit idly by.

"Maggot Brain" (Funkadelic)

What comes to mind when you think "Funkadelic?"  
Bandleader and funkateer George Clinton?  R&B radio stalwarts like "One Nation Under a Groove?"  Dr. Funkenstein and "The Bop Gun" and stuff that actually has more to do with the keyboard-driven space funk of Funkadelic's alter-ego, Parliament?
For the uninitiated, Funkadelic's pre-1976 albums are closer to Detroit than outer space.  Picture something that screams with the same balls-out fury of MC5 or The Stooges with a dollop of gospel-tinged soul, and you get the funk-rock vibe of the band's first seven discs.
Anyway, legend has it that "Maggot Brain," the lead track from the 1971 album of the same name, was born when Clinton told Funkadelic's lead guitarist Eddie Hazel to "play like your momma just died, but then found out it wasn't true."
Who knows if the story was merely fabricated by Clinton years after the fact to fill in cloudy memories that heavy partying had erased.  (Equally legendary was the band's consumption of drugs back in those days.  If you have any doubts, just listen to Clinton's acid-fried, spoken intro to this track, as he lays down some odd stuff about "Mother Earth [being] pregnant for the third time," tasting "maggots in the mind of the universe," and drowning in excrement.  Is it an indictment of mankind's screwing of the environment?  A call to rise above social ills?  LSD-fueled nonsense?)  Whatever the case may be, Hazel laid down a minor-hued, wailing solo that sounds like a child crying for its mother.  
The true testament to Hazel's talent is that he maintains the drama and emotion of the solo over minimal backing instrumentation for 9 whole minutes, and every second is completely compelling and mind-shattering.  Honestly, if you aren't holding back tears by the time you hit the 7:30 mark, then you are stone cold--and not in the good way.