Mosaic in Maltezana. Wikimedia Commons, licensed beneath CCO 3.0.
This week, the Evaluate is publishing a collection of brief reflections on love songs, broadly outlined.
Parliament’s “(You’re a Fish and I’m a) Water Signal” is an unabashed ode to ardour, to the bottom and the sensual, to the probabilities of affection within the juiciest methods it may well exist between folks. The tune moans into being, a beseeching follows, then there’s a bass so low you may’t presumably get beneath it, and at last the central query is posed: “Can we get down?” In true Parliament vogue, the tune doesn’t observe a standard verse-chorus-bridge construction; it consists of an ever-evolving refrain that departs from the strains “I need to be / on the seaside of affection with you / let’s go swimming / the water’s high-quality.” The association is magnificent and the execution velvety, and the soulful, overlapping ad-libs of George Clinton, Walter “Junie” Morrison, and Ron Ford are simply romantic lagniappe. Add the manufacturing of the monitor itself, with its large band-y rise of horns and eccentric thrives atop the funky bassline, and the tune is a liquid love affair that pulls you beneath and takes you there. It’s orgasmic.“Water Signal” is the B aspect to the rather more well-known “Aqua Boogie (A Psychoalphadiscobetabioaquadoloop),” from Parliament’s 1978 hit album Motor Booty Affair. Whereas “Aqua Boogie” is informed from the standpoint of an individual who’s afraid of water, having by no means discovered to swim, “Water Signal” reveals us how stunning and liberating it may be to get swept away.
Addie E. Citchens is the creator of “A Good Samaritan,” out within the Evaluate’s Winter Situation.
