Song of the Day No.56

Get Down

by War (All Day Music, 1971)

The second album after Eric Burden departed mid-way through a European tour sees the band reaching the cusp of success that their next album will bring. Even so, All Day Music brought the group more success than they had achieved under the name Eric Burden and War producing their first Top 40 hits. The absence of Burden's improvised lyrics meant the band moved over to a more funk orientated sound than ever before, the band, however, still had a tight grasp on their own improv/jam-band style that can be seen in the three six minute-plus track timings.

'Get Down' on the other hand employs a more traditional song structure and runs in at under four minutes. Not overly angsty or mean in its design, the music forms a light-hearted and crisp funk base for the biting politically orientated lyrics to get the juices flowing. “Early in the morning, before you eat your breakfast, you got to get down” provides the choral hook that does, well, make you want to get down. As the umpteen members of War all urge various institutional figures to get down over the bubbling funk groove, the togetherness it brings makes this song feel like a protest song that has fallen off the protest song map.

AR