Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4).
Freddie's Dead (1972)
The goal for most songs written for movie soundtracks is to be entertaining and fit the particular scene they appear in. Social relevance is usually not a requirement, and when Curtis Mayfield was hired to write music for the 1972 blaxploitation film Super Fly, the producers weren't expecting one of the great socially conscious albums of the early '70s. But that's exactly what they got, backed by era-defining soul and funk.
Mayfield got his start in music at the age of 14, when he joined the Roosters in 1956; two years later, they became the Impressions. In the '60s, he wrote a string of hits for the group including "People Get Ready," "Keep On Pushing" and "It's All Right." In 1970, he went solo and released two well-received albums before Super Fly director Gordon Parks asked Mayfield and his band to appear in the background of a nightclub scene. Mayfield recorded "Pusherman" and then took a hiatus for several months, when he wrote an album for The Impressions and worked on his next solo album.
Mayfield recorded the instrumentals for the Superfly soundtrack in three days, working with his band and a full orchestra. He wrote the songs in a Chicago basement apartment while on a trial separation from his wife and kids.
The movie Super Fly starred Ron O'Neal as Youngblood Priest, a cocaine dealer who was trying to quit the business. The movie was both praised and criticized for its seeming glorification of outlaw drug dealers. Super Fly was the top-grossing blaxploitation film of the era.
Mayfield's soundtrack provided both an exceptionally funky musical background, but also socially conscious lyrics about drug abuse and poverty. "Freddie's Dead" was the first single, written about the death of Fat Freddie, a character in the movie who was run over by a car. In the movie, the song only appears as instrumentals at several points, but on the soundtrack album, it speaks volumes.
"Freddie's dead/That's what I said/Let the man rap a plan said he'd see him home/But his hope was a rope and he should've known/It's hard to understand/There was love in this man/I'm sure all would agree/That his misery was his woman and things/Now Freddie's dead/That's what I said."
Freddie was more than just a junkie, even if the movie didn't fully portray that.
"Everybody's misused him/Ripped him up and abused him/Another junkie plan/Pushin' dope for the man/A terrible blow but that's how it goes/A Freddie's on the corner now/If you wanna be a junkie, wow/Remember Freddie's dead/We're all built up with progress/But sometimes I must confess/We can deal with rockets and dreams/But reality/What does it mean?/Ain't nothing said/'Cause Freddie's dead."
The song was nominated for a Best R&B Song Grammy but lost to "Papa Was a Rolling Stone." "Freddie's Dead" was ineligible for an Academy Award because its lyrics weren't used in the movie.
"Freddie's Dead" hit #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the R&B chart. The soundtrack album topped the Billboard 200 for four weeks.
Mayfield followed up Super Fly with more soundtrack work, as well as regular solo releases for the next 25 years. In 1990, he became paralyzed from the neck down when a stage lighting rig fell on him while he was being introduced at a concert. He couldn't play guitar anymore, but he continued to record vocals because he found he could sing while lying down in the studio. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1999 and died later that year of complications from type 2 diabetes.
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