Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)
| "Thank You" | |
|---|---|
| Song | |
| A-side | "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" "Everybody is a Star" |
"Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", released in December 1969, is a 1970 hit single recorded by Sly & the Family Stone. The song, double a-sided with "Everybody is a Star", reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in February of 1970. Some music scholars consider it the first recording to feature the matured form of funk music,[citation needed] after a half-decade of proto-funk records from the Family Stone, James Brown, Jr. Walker & the All-Stars, and others. "Thank You" was intended to be included on an in-progress album with "Star" and "Hot Fun in the Summertime"; the LP was never completed, and the three tracks were instead included on the band's 1970 Greatest Hits LP. "Thank You" and "Star", the final Family Stone recordings issued in the 1960s, marked the beginning of a twenty-month gap of releases from the band, which would finally end with the release of "Family Affair" in 1971.
Rolling Stone ranked the song #402 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Song information
Overview
The title, a unique way of writing what would otherwise be "thank you for letting me be myself again," is a subtle warning from Sly to his audience that he was tired of striving for the values he exalted in many of his inspirational late-1960s hits such as "Stand!", "Everyday People", and "Sing a Simple Song"; and gravitate towards something that better reflected the feelings of failed optimism that represented the coming decade. The song itself features co-lead vocals from Sly Stone, Rose Stone, Freddie Stone, and Larry Graham; who all relate in unison their frustration with the world as it is now, and also their frustration with the failure of their uses of optimism to try and make a difference.
Bassist Larry Graham, who invented the "slapping" technique of bass playing for the song "Everyday People," featured the technique prominently in this recording. The technique would soon become a staple of Funk and other genres.
"Thank You" is a harbinger of the band's evolution into a darker, drug-hazed style of funk music exemplified in their 1971 LP There's a Riot Goin' On. From this point out, Sly Stone would also take more control of the creative process for himself, diminishing the contributions of his band mates to the point where he was playing most of the instruments on record himself.
Cover versions
The first act to cover "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" was Sly & the Family Stone itself. The cover, recorded in 1971 for There's a Riot Going On, completely transformed the song into a seven-minute track titled "Thank You For Talkin' to Me Africa". Although the lyrics, vocalists, and musicians are all the same, the record itself is as different from the original "Thank You" as that record had been from the earlier Family Stone records. The song's lyrics are delivered in a depressed tone with heavily reverberated vocals, over a slow, stripped-down deep funk backing track.
The song has been covered by many other acts, including The Jackson 5, Widespread Panic, Robert Randolph and the Family Band, Victor Wooten, Dave Matthews & Friends, Magazine, Merl Saunders & the Rainforest Band. UK hip hop act Big Brovaz covered the song for use in the Warner Bros. film Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed. They also sampled the song to create the theme song for the movie, "We Wanna Thank You (The Things You Do)". Gladys Knight and the Pips and several others have also covered the song. Freddie Stone's guitar riff from the bridging sections of the song is immediately recognizable to modern audiences as the backbone of Janet Jackson's 1990 hit single "Rhythm Nation". Van Morrison does an expanded version of the song in a medley with "Soldier of Fortune" on his Night in San Francisco album. Rapper Vanilla Ice also sampled "Thank You" as part of the soundtrack to his film, Cool as Ice.
The song recently appeared in 2007 during the closing credits of "Shrek the Third", as performed by Donkey (Eddie Murphy) and Puss in Boots (Antonio Banderes).
Credits
- Co-lead vocals by Sly Stone, Rose Stone, Freddie Stone, and Larry Graham
- Guitar by Freddie Stone and Sly Stone
- Bass by Larry Graham1
- Drums by Greg Errico
- Horns by Jerry Martini (tenor saxophone) and Cynthia Robinson (trumpet)
- Written and produced by Sly Stone
- 1 Sly Stone plays bass guitar on the "Thank You For Talkin To Me, Africa" version from There's a Riot Goin' On.
