Songfacts®:

• Extreme get their funk on in this track, bending their genre a bit with a thumping bassline and horn section to provoke a soulful sound. Their bailiwick is hard rock, but this being 1990, they were part of the hair metal movement.
  
  "We might have been a little bit outside the hair metal scene we were coming out of," lead singer Gary Cherone told Songfacts. "It was like a defense of what our music stood for. But it's a general sense. I think anybody can apply it: 'If you don't like me, get the funk out.'"
• The Canadian guitar great Pat Travers appears on this song, but not on guitar. He adds some vocals as counterpoint to Cherone ("No rotten apple gonna spoil my fun..."). Travers played fretless bass on a different track from the Pornograffitti album, "Song For Love."
• The horns were arranged by Randy Badazz, who is Herb Alpert's nephew. They're credited as the "L'il Jack Horn Section," a reference to another track on the album they play on called "Li'l Jack Horny."
• Despite the foray into funk, the song still squeezes in a blistering guitar solo from Nuno Bettencourt, who wrote the song with Cherone. The song started with the music, which Bettencourt brought to Cherone while the band was on tour.
• The music video was directed by Andy Morahan, whose credits include Guns N' Roses' "November Rain" and Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls." It includes an eclectic cast of characters, including a beauty queen, a little person, and a finger-wagging businessman.
• "Get The Funk Out" is a fan favorite, but it went nowhere when it was released as the second single from Extreme's second album, Pornograffitti. The first single, "Decadence Dance," also stiffed. The buzzards were stirring until the acoustic ballad "More Than Words" was issued as the third single and shot to #1. It was clear folks liked this more mellow version of the band, so "Hole Hearted" was issued next and was also a big hit.
  
  These hit singles gave the band new life but didn't reflect their sound, which they found frustrating at times. Their next album, III Sides to Every Story, has a rock section, an acoustic section, and an orchestral section. It didn't do nearly as well as Pornograffitti, and after another album in 1995, the band called it quits until regrouping in 2007.