January 1: Jerk Out

How much is a 12 year old in 1990 expected to know about funk? That was when this boy received his first lesson, and it was provided by Morris Day and The Time. Technically, it was provided by a friend of mine who on my birthday gave me a cassette single of "Jerk Out", along with a couple of random Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures. Thankfully, the music is what has stuck with me for all these years. He got a collection of Jose Canseco baseball cards from me; I'll let you be the judge as far as who made out better in the deal.


The Time were familiar to those who had seen the film "Purple Rain". I remember seeing a few racy snippets on HBO as a child, but I was young enough to not understand the power of Prince, and certainly didn't know of Morris and company as anything other than the Bad Guys. In truth, they were an alter ego of the Artist, an outlet for his most preening, narcissistic, even misogynistic urges. The character of Morris was the other side of the sexual coin; if Prince was about passion, Morris represented self-gratification.


This song began its recording life as a demo by Prince in 1981 that saw its next incarnation as a demo from a group called Maserati in 1985. Yes, I've never heard of them either. The meat of the final version is all there in the latter demo, from the fat bass line to the boastful lyrics to the inverted guitar chords cribbed from Nile Rodgers of Chic. But the catalyst to make it all work was missing, and that was the Morris touch.



Note the timing of the second demo; this was the year after "Purple Rain", which had showcased The Time at their height, and not coincidentally the year after The Time had dissolved. Surely the song was meant to be a vessel for Morris' blustering bravado. "Jerk Out" laid dormant for another 5 years until it became the centerpiece of The Time's comeback effort, Pandemonium. In the meantime, Prince certainly had plenty of classic material to exploit, from "Raspberry Beret" through "Sign o' the Times" to "Batdance", and Time members Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis made their mark as the premiere producers of the late 80s, providing their talents to game-changing tracks by Janet Jackson as well as the Human League's eponymous megahit.



Nine years from its conception to its fruition, "Jerk Out" is a monument of funk, but a testament to what could have been if everyone involved had been able to work together over sustained periods of time. Hopefully the lesson is that no matter how funky you can get, there is a limit to the powers of narcissism and misogyny. Regardless of how crowd pleasing it may be.