It’s a funky Friday, perfect for those funky musicians, Sly and the Family Stone.

This was a perfect song to sing along when I was thirteen in nineteen sixty-nine. It’s even better now as a joyful anthem for an adult. Still, there were always questions about what in the world was he actually singing. I spent time when that song came on, to pause and listen, trying to decode the lyrics. They still don’t make a sense to me, but I still love them:

Stiff all in the collar
Fluffy in the face
Chit chat chatter tryin’
Stuffy in the place
Thank you for the party
But I could never stay
Many thangs is on my mind
Words in the way

Other lyrics made perfect, beautiful poetic sense to me:

Flamin’ eyes of people fear
Burnin’ into you
Many men are missin’ much
Hatin’ what they do
Youth and truth are makin’ love
Dig it for a starter, now
Dyin’ young is hard to take
Sellin’ out is harder

h/t to MetroLyrics

Let’s get funky with “Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Again).” It was years before I learned the correct title and the reveal that it was a mondegreen. So sue me; I was a kid.