Funk isn't just meant to be heard, it's meant to be experienced, and no one knows that better than James Brown, who wrote "Get Up Offa That Thing" to rouse an uninspired crowd at a Fort Lauderdale club. "The audience was sitting down, trying to do a sophisticated thing, listening to funk," he recalled in the 2014 biography James Brown: The Godfather Of Soul. "One of the tightest bands they'd ever heard in their lives, and they were sitting. I had worked hard and dehydrated myself and was feeling depressed. I looked out at all those people sitting there, and because I was depressed they looked depressed. I yelled, 'Get up offa that thing and dance til you feel better!' I probably meant until I felt better."
Brown, who owed millions in back taxes, didn't want his royalties to go to the IRS, so he gave the songwriting credit to his wife Deidre and daughters Deanna and Yamma.
This peaked at #4 on the R&B chart.
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