Songfacts®:

• "Funky" was written by Lester Chambers, one of the four brothers in the group. The song is about dancing, but the setting is home, where mama is cooking up some fine victuals. When Lester was a guest on the Songfacts Podcast, he explained: "I was hoping to create and start a new dance because everybody was doing dancing. You know, the boogaloo, the mashed potato, the watusi, the funky chicken. So I said, 'Let's make it a funky tune and talk about what happened in your home.' That's how that came up. It was natural. We're African, we got rhythm, man."
• There was a lot of "funky" music around this time, notably from James Brown, who had "Funky Drummer" and "Make It Funky." The line, "I know you had your trip down on funky broadway street" is a reference to Wilson Pickett's "Funky Broadway" from 1967.
• The Chambers Brothers are best known for their 1967 hit "Time Has Come Today," with nudged them in a psychedelic direction. With "Funky," they moved toward danceable soul. One of their more radio-friendly songs, it clipped the chart at #96, as their hits were drying up. They continued to record and perform, with long breaks in between, into the 2020s.
• After Lester Chambers joined the group Moonalice, they recorded this song as "Let's Get Funky" in 2022 with the female vocalists the T Sisters providing backup.