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 “Super Fly” by Curtis Mayfield:
Curtis Mayfield’s soundtrack to the 1972 film Super Fly serves as a kind of counterpoint to what Mayfield perceived as the film’s potential celebration of the drug dealer lifestyle. Soul music offers a whole slew of artists whose intelligent and complex music is matched by thoughtful and socially-engaged lyrics, but at least in my mind, Curtis Mayfield’s oeuvre stands out for its consistency, not just of quality, but of vision: from Curtis, his first solo album, to Super Fly, to Back to the World and beyond, his music engages and continuously repays that engagement. There’s no trick to what Curtis Mayfield does; his music results from the application of his enormous talent, or rather talents: he was a musician, composer and lyricist of the highest ability, and that’s before I call attention–as if I need to–to his voice.
