Entry · catalog no. 7662
take it to the bridge
/ /ˌteɪk ɪt tə ðə ˈbrɪdʒ/ /TAKE it tuh thuh BRIJ
phrase · Black funk bandstand tradition — recorded in Nashville · 1970s
✓ Verified
1.
A bandleader's call to move the band off the vamp and into the song's contrasting section. In James Brown's hands it became a signal that the release is coming — the thing the groove has been holding back. Outside music it means: stop going around in circles and get to the point that matters.
“We been on this same slide twenty minutes. Take it to the bridge.”
Origin & Attribution
James Brown and Bobby Byrd, 1970, on the session that produced "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine," cut in Nashville that April. Brown's account is that he heard someone use the phrase for the middle section of a song and repurposed it to mean a release rather than a mere formal change. It belongs to the Black bandstand tradition of the leader directing the band out loud as part of the show, and it survives as a general phrase far outside music.
1970
Brown records "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" in Nashville on 25 April, released on King that July
1971
The call is captured live on Revolution of the Mind: Live at the Apollo, Volume III
2014
The 1970 recording is inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
Black funk bandstand tradition — recorded in Nashville · 1970s
Spoken by
Funk and soul bandleaders and their bands; later general American speech
$TAKEITThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Enduring56 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1970
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
By region — how it actually sounds
@auntiereg
Atlanta, GA
@deltasoul
Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
James Brown, "Get Up (I Feel Like Being a) Sex Machine" Parts 1 & 2 (King)
1970
■
+ Cite a sourceR.J. Smith, The One: The Life and Music of James Brown (Gotham Books)
2012
See also