The first version of the song was cut in October 1968, at Miami’s famed Criteria Studios, with Charles “Sweets” Sherrell on bass and new drummer Nate Jones sitting in for JB drum institution Clyde Stubblefield. Sherrell himself had replaced Bernard Odum, ushering in a more aggressive, busy, and syncopated style. Ex. 1a shows Sherrell’s main verse groove, actually repeated twice to match up with the accompanying two-bar guitar phrase. To nail it down, act like a Brown sideman and listen intently to the guitar and drums. While the drum part may be a bit too “peekaboo” to firmly hang your hat on, Jimmy Nolen’s syncopated single-note guitar line is a virtual counterpoint to the bass line, and perfect to lock up with as it keeps time in the open spaces. Ex. 1b shows the bridge bass line—it’s pretty much the same part up a 4th, but with Alfonzo “Country” Kellum’s chordal guitar part serving as hitching post. In both cases, be precise with your attack and keep all the back-end 16th-notes short, but remember to relax and breathe to help make it funky and hypnotic.

Brown recut the song in July 1970 to capture what had become a showstopping live staple. Although six other tracks on the Sex Machine album were recorded in concert, this one was cut in the studio, with overdubbed applause. Still, the energy upgrade is immediate, from the brighter tempo to Phelps “Catfish” Collins’s slightly more syncopated single-note guitar line and drummer Clyde Stubblefield’s intense issuing of his classic “Funky Drummer”-style groove. Catfish’s brother, a young William “Bootsy” Collins, gives the biggest push of all: He took the James Brown bass chair to its busiest, most in-your-face level. Witness Ex. 2a, the main verse groove, where Bootsy extends the part to a true two-bar phrase (instead of Sherrell’s one-bar phrase repeated twice) by ascending to the octave via chord tones and chromatic tones. He also adds more notes and bounces off an open A. Note, by the way, that unlike the bridge harmony, the verse harmony is typically ambiguous because of the lack of a pronounced 3rd (though Brown and the horns do touch on some bluesy minor 3rds). It has been described as D Dorian, D minor, and D9. Catfish alludes to a quick Dm7 chord on the last 16th of his two-bar phrase, but Bootsy, in his climb-up, is obviously thinking of the more Brown-like D9 tonality.

Takin’ it to the bridge, in Ex. 2b, Bootsy’s bass continues in a similar, slightly busier vein. Ex. 2c shows a Bootsy-ism: Cutting loose via climbs to an ear-grabbing octave, heard at 2:29, 3:53, and 4:06 (as the horns hold out a note). To replicate this more raucous approach, again stay rhythmically in tune with the guitar and drum parts, keep breathing, and as Bootsy would say, always aim for the one.