Certain Songs #684: Isaac Hayes - "Theme From Shaft"

Album: Shaft
Year: 1971

What’s the #1 hit single that broke all the rules by taking nearly two minutes to get to the first vocal?

SHAFT!

Who’s the subject of the Oscar-winning jam with the most instantly recognizable wah-wah guitar & hi-hat pattern ever recorded?

JOHN SHAFT!

What’s the song that has perhaps the most parodied lyric ever recorded?

SHAFT!

You know what? That “Theme from Shaft” song is a bad motherfucker.

I’m talking about “Shaft.”

Not even intended to be a single, “Theme From Shaft” rides the momentum from Willie Hall’s unstoppable hi-hat (which has to be somewhat derived from Tony Williams’ incredible work on Miles Davis “Shh/Peaceful”) and Charles Pitts wah-wah for what feels like a lifetime until Isaac Hayes finally breaks the tension with maybe one of the greatest opening verses ever written.

Who’s the black private dick
Who’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
(SHAFT!)
You’re damn right

As if to distract you from the dizzying layers of entendres, the drums have dropped into a ridiculously funky double-time, and entire galaxies of strings and horns have popped in and wandered out of the mix, only to be subdued by the ever-present wah-wah guitar.

Finally, after Hayes has finished extolling the virtues of John Shaft, Private Dick (huh-huh), the whole song just implodes upon itself with an exploding car crash of strings with only the wah-wah surviving.

“Theme From Shaft”