To the uninitiated, the whole concept of Parliament-Funkadelic can seem a bit confusing. It’s not a band but rather a collection of recording acts with George Clinton as the organizing force. During the 1970s, the vast majority of the collective’s output came from either Parliament or Funkadelic—two separate bands that had largely overlapping membership.
Through most of the ‘70s, two things distinguished Parliament from Funkadelic. Parliament’s songs tended to be funkier, while Funkadelic—perhaps counterintuitively—was better known for their guitar-driven rock sound. Parliament was also the more commercially successful band. Six months before the release of Funkadelic’s 1978 album One Nation Under a Groove, Parliament notched its second Top-40 single on the Billboard Hot 100 and first R&B No. 1 song with “Flash Light.” Funkadelic boasted neither a Top-40 single nor an R&B chart-topper, and none of their singles had even cracked the Top 20 of Billboard’s R&B chart.
The title track to One Nation Under a Groove changed all of that. Here’s how Funkadelic not only created a signature hit for themselves, but also launched arguably the best-known song to come out of the P-Funk collective.
Where Did the Title Come from?
Clinton came up with the title for “One Nation Under a Groove” long before he wrote the rest of the song with bandmates Walter “Junie” Morrison and Garry Shider. The source of the title is unclear, as there are a couple of different accounts as to how Clinton first came across it. P-Funk’s publicist Tom Vickers had reportedly attributed the title to an exchange Clinton had with a girlfriend during a filming of a performance outside of the United Nations. In response to seeing several flags being raised, she commented that it was “one nation under a groove.”
However, Clinton himself has told a different story about the song’s title. In a 2018 interview for The Guardian, he said the phrase “one nation under a groove” came from two young concertgoers named LaTanya and Darlene. Clinton said that after a show in Washington, D.C., they told him “it was the best concert they’d ever seen.” Elaborating on their experience, they said the show was “like one nation under a groove.”
“Funkadelic Needed a Hit”
Clinton eventually expanded the refrain to One nation under a groove / Gettin’ down just for funk of it, but it wasn’t until Funkadelic was in the studio that the rest of the song came together. According to Morrison, Clinton was not at the studio when the band started to work on the track. Formerly a member of the Ohio Players, Morrison had only recently started working with Parliament-Funkadelic, and he served as the arranger for “One Nation Under a Groove.” In an interview for the Red Bull Music website, Morrison said the vocals were among the latter parts of the song to be recorded.
When Clinton did get to fleshing out the lyrics, he said much of them were ad-libbed. He also borrowed and adapted the lines for the song’s memorable introduction. In their 1970 song “Psychedelic Shack,” The Temptations sang They got music so high, you can’t get over it / So low, you can’t get under it. Clinton tweaked this to So wide you can’t get around it / So low you can’t get under it / So high you can’t get over it. The Temptations themselves borrowed the lines from a spiritual called “My God Is So High.” Four years after Funkadelic repurposed those lines for “One Nation Under a Groove,” Michael Jackson sang It’s too high to get over / You’re too low to get under on “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.”
The resulting track had what Clinton termed “a smooth groove, but funky”—a sound that was more characteristic of Parliament than Funkadelic. As for why the track went on a Funkadelic album, Clinton told The Guardian, “‘One Nation’ could have been a Parliament record, but Funkadelic needed a hit. The guitar solo made it more Funkadelic.”
The Impact of “One Nation Under a Groove”
Clinton wanted Funkadelic to have a hit, and they got one. “One Nation Under a Groove” became Funkadelic’s only Top-40 hit, reaching No. 28 as part of a 14-week stay on the Hot 100. The song also spent six weeks at No. 1 on the R&B singles chart, which is the longest stay for any song by a P-Funk entity. The album One Nation Under a Groove went to No. 16 on the Billboard 200 and became Funkadelic’s only No. 1 entry on Billboard’s R&B album chart. It is also Funkadelic’s only Platinum-certified album.
Ice Cube brought “One Nation Under a Groove” back under the spotlight with his 1994 hit “Bop Gun (One Nation).” The song borrows the intro and chorus from “One Nation Under a Groove” and features vocals by Clinton, who also appears in the song’s official video.
A year after “One Nation Under a Groove” topped the R&B charts, Funkadelic had a second No. 1 R&B hit with “(Not Just) Knee Deep,” but within a couple more years, they would be defunct. Clinton and his P-Funk compatriots continued to record and perform music under other names—most notably, George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars. The P-Funk catalog is vast, but “One Nation Under a Groove” is a particularly special part of it. Transcending the genre boundaries that split music fans in the ‘70s and beyond, Clinton and company got us to unite for a brief moment, just for the funk of it.
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