Music: Lyric Sheets

James Brown is to float his back-catalogue on the stock-market. The Godfather of Soul is following a precedent set by David Bowie and Iron Maiden

A Famous Flame

Aaaow!

Souped-up stripped down

James Brown hit town

In sodium shoes

And lacquer black

Magnesium were

The suits he wore

Straight cardiac

The music was

A gleaming thing

A chopped-up hot rod

Of a beast

Which honked and parped

In neon streets

All tubes and wheels

And bucket seats

A swamp of beat

And patch of ground

With metal chickens

Scratching round

A chanka-chank

Short-circuit sound

Of bitten-pillow ninths

A thing best met

In blackened clubs

Like someone coarse

You shouldn't know

Who squeezes something

Down below

And hurrs into your ear

And when it leaks

From underground

Still has a half-life

In your head

A cloven-footed shimmy

Of a bass

To make the dead

Wake horny-eyed in bed

A-huh. Get on up!