The 1970s File Feature
Can You Get To That
Can You Get To That: Funkadelic's Acoustic Soul Journey Funkadelic, the groundbreaking ensemble assembled by George Clinton that served as one of the twin pi…
01 The Story
Can You Get To That: Funkadelic's Acoustic Soul Journey
Funkadelic, the groundbreaking ensemble assembled by George Clinton that served as one of the twin pillars of the Parliament-Funkadelic collective, demonstrated the full range of its musical ambitions with "Can You Get To That," a track from their 1971 album "Maggot Brain". The song charted on the Billboard Hot 100 beginning September 11, 1971, debuting at number 96, before climbing modestly to its peak of number 93 on September 25, 1971, after three weeks on the chart.
The placement of such an acoustically oriented, gospel-influenced track on the Hot 100 was itself a remarkable achievement for a band better known for its extended psychedelic funk explorations. Funkadelic's identity was built on the fusion of psychedelic rock, soul, gospel, and funk into a genre-defying sound that challenged the conventions of both black and white American popular music. "Can You Get To That" represented one pole of that multidimensional creative identity: the stripped-down, spiritually rooted side that coexisted with the band's more viscerally aggressive material.
George Clinton, born in Kannapolis, North Carolina, in 1941, had developed the Parliament-Funkadelic organization from his earlier work with The Parliaments, a doo-wop and soul group that had recorded for various labels in the 1960s. Legal complications surrounding the Parliament name led Clinton to develop Funkadelic as a parallel vehicle for his musical vision, and the two entities eventually coexisted as separate but interrelated creative projects releasing music simultaneously through the early and mid-1970s.
"Maggot Brain," the album on which "Can You Get To That" appeared, is widely regarded as one of the most significant albums in the Funkadelic catalog and in the broader history of early 1970s American rock and soul. The album was recorded for Westbound Records and produced by George Clinton, featuring a cast of musicians who would become core members of the P-Funk universe. The title track, featuring an extended guitar solo by Eddie Hazel performed under instructions Clinton reportedly gave to the guitarist, has become one of the most celebrated pieces of instrumental rock from the era.
Within the context of "Maggot Brain," "Can You Get To That" provides a moment of relative calm amid more turbulent sonic terrain. The song's acoustic instrumentation and gospel vocal arrangements create a reflective interlude that demonstrates Clinton's range as a musical curator and the band's collective ability to move across stylistic registers without losing their essential identity. The use of gospel-style call-and-response vocals connected the track to the African American religious music tradition that underpinned so much of soul and funk.
The musicians who recorded "Can You Get To That" included several figures who would go on to sustained careers in funk and soul. Bernie Worrell, the classically trained keyboardist, contributed to the harmonic sophistication that distinguished Funkadelic from simpler funk acts. Guitarist Eddie Hazel and bassist Billy Bass Nelson were central to the band's sonic identity during this period. Together, they created an ensemble sound that could accommodate both the raw expressiveness of the album's more psychedelic moments and the gentle acoustic texture of "Can You Get To That."
Westbound Records, the Detroit-based independent label that released Funkadelic's early albums, provided an environment in which the band's experimental tendencies could flourish without the commercial pressures that a major label might have imposed. This creative freedom is evident throughout "Maggot Brain" and helps explain how a track as acoustically modest as "Can You Get To That" could share space with more aggressively adventurous material in the same album sequence.
The modest chart performance of "Can You Get To That" belied the song's lasting cultural significance. Its inclusion on "Maggot Brain," an album that has been reassessed repeatedly over the decades as a foundational text of psychedelic soul, has ensured that the track remains accessible to new generations of listeners discovering the breadth of the Parliament-Funkadelic legacy.
02 Song Meaning
Accountability and Spiritual Return: The Meaning of "Can You Get To That"
"Can You Get To That" by Funkadelic stands apart from much of the band's catalog through its acoustic intimacy and its explicit engagement with themes of personal accountability, spiritual reckoning, and the consequences of broken trust. Where much of George Clinton's output during this period deployed psychedelic imagery and funk's physical energy as its primary expressive tools, this song relies on the emotional clarity of gospel music and the directness of confessional lyric writing.
The song's core thematic concern is the relationship between past actions and present circumstances. The central inquiry, embedded in the song's repeated questioning phrase, asks whether a listener can access or connect with a particular emotional or spiritual state. This question functions simultaneously as an invitation and a challenge: can you recognize the truth of what is being described, and can you reach the understanding being offered? The question implies that the answer is not guaranteed, that some form of preparation, honesty, or self-awareness is required.
The gospel tradition from which the song draws its vocal style understood moral reckoning as a communal as well as individual experience. Call-and-response structures, which the song employs, create a dialogue between a leader and a community of respondents that models the kind of collective accountability the lyrics explore. In this tradition, acknowledging one's failures or shortcomings is not merely a private matter but a social one, witnessed and affirmed by the community present.
The lyrics address the experience of having betrayed or failed someone who trusted you, and of then finding yourself in a position of needing help that you are not in a position to ask for cleanly because of your earlier behavior. This karmic logic, present throughout the song's narrative, reflects a folk wisdom about human relationships that transcends any specific cultural or religious tradition: how you treat others determines how the world responds to you when you are in need.
George Clinton's decision to frame this moral commentary within the sonic tradition of gospel music was deliberate and significant. Gospel music, with its roots in the African American religious experience, had always served as a vehicle for articulating both spiritual aspiration and practical moral guidance. By drawing on that tradition, Clinton connected Funkadelic's social commentary to a much longer history of using music to navigate questions of personal conduct and communal obligation.
The song's acoustic texture and relatively spare arrangement also communicate something about the nature of genuine self-examination. The absence of the densely layered funk production that characterizes much of the Funkadelic catalog strips away the opportunity for distraction or evasion. The stark simplicity of the musical setting forces the lyrical content to stand without embellishment, suggesting that authentic reckoning requires a kind of vulnerability that cannot be dressed up or obscured by sonic excess. In this sense, the song's form and its content are in profound alignment.
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