Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “One Nation Under a Groove” by Funkadelic:

One day before eighth grade Reading class, a kid named Glenn was entertaining us by rapping. I can’t remember what song it was, but this must have been 1990, so maybe Public Enemy or NWA or 2 Live Crew or LL Cool J, or Vanilla Ice, or well but anyway, Glenn was rapping. Whatever it was, Glenn–and the rest of us–were stopped in our tracks when our long-term substitute teacher, Mr MacDuff, asked him what he was rapping, or something along those lines. Mr MacDuff was a pretty stern, no-bullshit guy, so we knew we were in trouble, and the rest of us tried to throw Glenn under the bus for whatever trouble we were about to get handed down.  But that wasn’t what Mr MacDuff was going for. Instead, he asked us what we knew about hip hop, and where it came from.  What followed was an impromptu lecture about soul, funk and hip hop, and mostly, about Parliament Funkadelic. He told us about George Clinton, and mostly he told us about Bootsy Collins, and he told us about the album covers and how great they were.  I don’t remember how long this lecture lasted, and I want to think he actually brought in the LPs the next day, but I might be making that up, I don’t know.  In any case, it’s the best thing that happened in my middle school Reading class that year, and I guess if it isn’t the best thing that happened in middle school, period, it’s definitely on the list, and remains my favorite memory, and best lesson. Better than reading Call of the Wild and True Grit.