In Friday Funk #11, we discussed Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘If You Want Me To Stay’ from their album Fresh. This month, Fresh turns 51 years old, and so we return to it to enjoy another gem, ‘Thankful n’ Thoughtful’.

It’s the song that perhaps most epitomises the album’s apparently conflicting characteristics: laid-back and danceable. Its tempo (172 BPM) is by no means sluggish – James Brown’s funk classics ‘Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag’ and ‘Cold Sweat’ were slower (129 and 112 BPM, respectively) – but 'Thankful n' Thoughtful' feels like music’s equivalent of leaning back on the side of a limousine, hands in pockets.

This is in large part due to Sly’s vocal delivery. Though Sly’s message of gratitude is an important one, he only briefly approaches excitement in the chorus. Elsewhere, Sly sounds impossibly cool, particularly when he sings, "Something could have come and taken me away." The peculiar melody, ending on a higher pitched note, is paired with Sly’s ever-changing tone, which makes lines like this one endlessly listenable.

Listen, also, to the second verse’s “I started climbing from the bottom, oh yeah / All the way to the top, uh-huh, uh-huh / Before I knew it, I was up there”. The “there” is dragged out with an “a” sound to produce something like “Thaaare”.

Sly can make ‘there’ cool. ‘There’.

The following line, “You believe in nothing” or maybe “You believe it or not”, is followed by a kind of stutter, “n-n-n”, and a “Yeeeah”. The twitchiness of the vocal stutter and then the extended “Yeah” brilliantly set up the chorus on the One.

The sense of cool, despite the tempo, is also thanks to the minimalist drums. For Fresh and the preceding There’s a Riot Goin’ On (1971), Sly was largely using drum machines with some additional live drums played over the top. There are subtle touches of rhythm, though: listen to the two extra snare hits shortly after the lines “They said I was dyin’ / I didn’t wanna go”. This starts the ramp up to the energetic chorus, with Sly’s following lines—“I kept on feelin’ / I had to live some more / I had something to tell y’all”—more forceful, and there’s a quick drum roll before the chorus.

The chorus is simple and uplifting. Rose Stone’s singing, in its straightforwardness and brightness, contrasts neatly with Sly’s, and Cynthia Robinson’s trumpet riff is a brilliant bundle of energy. Her tone was always taut, as if her instrument was too small to contain the energy exploding from her lungs.

Happy birthday to one of the coolest albums ever. “Y’all oughtta be thankful.”