Maggot Brain

So, I was watching House last night. I love that show. House is brilliant AND people absolutely love him for being an insufferable misanthrope...please. My favorite thing about House, after the scathingly witty writing and Hugh Laurie, is the music at the end of each episode. Whoever has the job of song choice is a niche savant if you ask me. That one song almost always evokes and then multiplies the poignancy of the show's climax.

Even so, in last night's episode I was completely taken by surprise by the guitar solo that accompanied the death of House's patient. I am not necessarily a fan of the long, drawn out, indulgent electric guitar solo. I don't really get the fuss about Jimi Hendrix to be quite honest. So when I wanted to cry at the end of the show, I wondered if I was just emotionally attached to the dying character. Short answer: Nope, not that attached. It was the music that was causing an emotional reaction...weird. I whipped out my trusty iphone. My husband recommended this handy app called Shazam that allows me to hold the phone up to any piece of music, tag it and nine times out of ten, Shazam tells me the name of the song and the artist who is performing the song. So cool. Ten seconds later, I found out the guitar solo that broke my heart was called "Maggot Brain" by Funkadelic. Hmmmm, never heard of it.

Strangely intrigued, I googled Funkadelic and Maggot Brain and found out that the soloist's name was Eddie Hazel. Okay, I don't really claim to be a music aficionado. I listen to what I like and that's about it. But it seemed strange to never have heard of a musician who could produce something so achingly beautiful. The last time I had such a visceral reaction to an instrumental solo was YoYo Ma's Bach Prelude From the Unaccompanied Cello Suite No.1. Pretty big stretch but genius is genius.

Anyway, I Wikipedia'd Eddie Hazel because I was interested but only interested enough to get the amount of reliable information Wikipedia answers can give. The anecdote that I found most interesting was a tidbit where George Clinton (now him, I've heard of), while recording this song, told young Eddie to play his solo "like your momma just died." Why interesting? To me, the first two and a half minutes of Maggot Brain sound exactly like I felt when my momma just died. Oh, and I guess the second half of the song was supposed to be played as if the guitarist had found out his momma was really alive. By then, I think the LSD that Mr Hazel was allegedly under the influence of had fully kicked in. After the first two and half minutes the music starts to degenerate a bit and loses the poignancy that made me stop breathing for a second. It definitely doesn't sound like I would have felt if I found out my momma was really still alive. But the first two and half minutes were amazing. So, well done Mr. Hazel and thank you.