Maggot Brain

"Maggot Brain" is an instrumental by the American band Funkadelic, released on their 1971 album of the same name. The original recording, over ten minutes long, features little more than a spoken introduction and an extended guitar solo by Eddie Hazel.

Reportedly, "Maggot Brain" was Hazel's nickname. Other sources say the title is a reference to band leader George Clinton finding his brother's "decomposed dead body, skull cracked, in a Chicago apartment."

Michael Hampton (Hazel's replacement as lead guitarist) recorded his own interpretation of the track live in 1978, which was included in a bonus vinyl EP that was distributed with the album One Nation Under a Groove; the cut is also included in most CD editions of that album.

"Maggot Brain" was recorded in one take when George Clinton, under the influence of LSD, told guitarist Hazel during the recording session to play as if he had been told his mother was dead:

Clinton explained "I told him to play like his mother had died, to picture that day, what he would feel, how he would make sense of his life, how he would take a measure of everything that was inside him."