Artist: James Brown & The Famous Flames
Format: 7" 45 RPM
Title: "I Got You (I Feel Good)" & "I Can't Help It (I Just Do-Do-Do)"
Year: 1965
Label: King Records
I don't recall my mom liking James Brown, but how can you not like this record? There is, of course, the ubiquitous "I Got You," but, for me, the real star here is the b-side: "I Can't Help It." It's a flip in tone from the bursting bravado of the a-side; a melancholy, yearning, unrequited love song -- the kind of track that would calm a dance floor and let people, and the room, breathe. It's also a song you can see appealing to a 14-year old girl, especially one like my mom: deeply emotional and the sappiest of romantics.
The song bears Brown's signature conversational lyricism that feels wonderfully improvised, casual -- "If you were me, would you take it?" And, as always, there's the hopping horns and guitar that Brown rides. This creates a wonderful tension in Brown's music. His performance is so large and vital that it almost exceeds what the backing band can bear. The song is always on the edge, about to give way. Brown screams and sweats. He walks off stage and comes back. He orbits the band who press on, only to return to their comforting rhythms, bob along, and then spin out again.
My mom could be like this at times. In a family of quiet, non-confrontational, introverted types -- of which my mom was one -- she had a tendency that was foreign to the rest of us. She'd explode. She'd strike suddenly like lightning, and we'd wait for the storm to pass: maybe hours, maybe days, and sometimes months. Often it'd pass with no closure, and we'd all take a breather and wait. The event was the event, and inside of it was its cause, meaning, and resolution. Only later did I recognize that in those moments was a yearning. We all could've done more to help.
"He orbits the band who press on, only to return to their comforting rhythms, bob along, and then spin out again."
One of the last times I saw my mom she was in a run down nursing home in Detroit. She was impossibly thin and aged. Everyone else on her floor was silently surrounding a TV in an adjacent room. She was slumped in the hall in a wheelchair, noisy and unsettled. I dragged a nearby chair to her side and set down. There wasn't much to say at this point. She pounded on her armrests, her neck and face muscles tight as she battled to verbalize. Words and sentences came out here and there, but they seemed like messages from someone or somewhere else.
I sat there awkwardly for a half hour saying nothing important. She kept grabbing my hands and kissing them; it was not all like her. The nurses said she did this to everyone; it was common among people with severe dementia.
"Only later did I recognize that in those moments was a yearning."
I got up to go and said goodbye. It felt like her contorting got worse. She turned her head which settled into a slow side-to-side bob. She stuttered out a mixture of groans and half-words, then, finally: "I thought you didn't love me anymore."
"No," I said, not sure who I was talking to. "I do. I do. And always did." She didn't respond. I left her in that hall. She didn't seem to notice.
