Just Kissed My Baby

This is the Meters with heat under them. Where their instrumental sides simmer, this one opens at a near-boil: a driving, insistent groove with the guitar chopping in overdriven bursts, congas layered under the kit, and the whole band pushing rather than lying back. Modeliste's drumming is denser here, the syncopation still New Orleans but the energy closer to rock, reflecting the harder, fuller sound the band adopted once they began writing songs with vocals and touring behind bigger acts. The singing is a raspy, gang-shouted celebration — a man giddy and slightly stunned by the sheer physical fact of a kiss, the lyric more exclamation than narrative, all present-tense elation. The horns and hollers pile on top of one another until the arrangement feels crowded in the way a good party is crowded. Coming from the album many consider their peak, it shows the group absorbing psychedelic-rock aggression without losing their pocket. It's a song about the ten minutes after something wonderful happens and you haven't come down yet — best played loud, in a car, windows open, or the moment a house party tips from polite to real.