We continue our underwater August adventures with another song from Parliament’s classic record, Motor Booty Affair. If you missed last week, go 'Deep'.

The title track (well, almost title track – the song adds a ‘The’ and a dash) was written by George Clinton, Junie Morrison, Ron Ford, and Garry Shider.

'Motor-Booty' is a party full of underwater guests (including “jellyfish jamming with the barracudas”) – and “How about that all-crab band, ladies and gentlemen?” That voice is Morrison, who as well as singing the main vocal contributes the Howard Codsell character, a play on sports commentator Howard Cosell.

According to the well-researched Motherpage, Morrison also plays bass on this track. The main bassline echoes Morrison’s vocal style and is full of fidgety pitch jumps. It takes care of the One, but then wriggles around for the rest of the bar.

The bridge section, also used as the intro, is straighter than the main bassline, and gives an impression of the party momentarily slowing down. The guitar in the right speaker is joined by an additional guitar on the left playing just a few chords at the end of the progression. These guitars, particularly the one on the left, are drenched in wah-wah and contrast with the dry bass. Parliament (and especially Funkadelic) records are full of these little production and mixing touches.

Despite Fred Wesley and Maceo Parker being around, the song is hornless, and its barer nature places more emphasis on the bass. True to the album as a whole, though, there’s never long without vocals, and often they collide with each other.

Like ‘Deep’, ‘Motor-Booty’ does not really have a chorus. The closest the song gets is the energising refrain of “DOW! Dat-da-da-daa”, which hits the One hard and adds bite to Junie’s squeakier lead.

And yet even without real choruses, these songs are catchy. Almost every line has a great melody and little hooks that call for repeat listens. Listen to the way the “Don’t you know I’m good for you, girl?” line is shifted up in pitch when repeated at 3:27, and to Junie’s count-off (“One, two, three, four!”) at 4:17 for the instruments to come back in.

‘Motor-Booty’, like ‘Deep’, is brimming with these little variations – only on this track they’re clammed into five minutes rather than nine.

There’s some bubbly keyboard playing on the outro when it sounds like the instrument’s submerged a couple feet below the surface.

Junie’s two main verses – the most tightly defined sections – sound decades ahead of their time. His lines like “Three days have passed and I’ve had you on my mind” seem to foreshadow modern, hip-hop-tinged R&B, right down to the “Uhhhh” before “I’m too shy most of the time” (1:25).

Although he was talking about the “ambitious” and “layered” nature of the album, Clinton did write in his memoir that Motor Booty was the P-Funk record “most ripe for rediscovery”.