Ah the mysterious alchemy of song-writing... The song doesn't really have much to do with either of my actual grandmothers. I never knew my mother's mother and my father's mother, though terrific in many ways - not the least being that she's still with us at the age of 102 - is not particularly funky in any of the word's senses. Even at 102 years old she smells fine. The original working title of the song was "Somebody funked my grandma...". It's amusing in a juvenile sort of way to play with the similarity of "funked" with something else. Of course, if we're looking to answer the question of "who" then the most likely culprit was probably my grandfather. Moving on and having achieved the transformation of the noun "funk" into a transitive verb the song looks at the similarly transformative power of funk itself. It examines funk's mutable power over a grandma, a postman, an op-shop and even an Indian mystic in the form of a sadhu. It's a fairly deliberate reference to the scholarly work of Dr Noel Fielding "And then Bootsy Collins had the funk..." At this point the mystery of who has been doing the funking begins to hurtle towards the inevitable drawing room conclusion. A clue is dropped in the bridge when the narrator asserts that his funk is somehow internally self-generating. Finally the mystery of "who brought the funk to the party" is solved at the song's conclusion.
Look - its a funny song for dancing to. What do you want me to say? It's the A side because it's upbeat and the production turned out really nice. The B side "Plans" has more of a real story - but who wants to hear about the B side these days???
from
Funky Grandma,
released February 20, 2018
Polash Larsen: Guitars, Lead vocals
Mark Bretherton: Keyboards, Backing vocals
Linc Yow Yeh: Drums, Backing Vocals
Tim Webb: Bass, Percussion
Omid Shayan: Saxophones
Howard Norsetter: Trumpet
Mixed and engineered by Nick Hererra at The Grove Studios, Coburg
Mastered by Joe Carra of Crystal Mastering, Thornbury
Cover art by Jess Parker of Squishface Comics, Brunswick
Pressed by Zenith Records, East Brunswick