(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go

By 1970, Curtis Mayfield was looking for a new musical direction. "If There's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go" boldly signaled a clean departure from his well-established and commercially successful soul vocal outfit the Impressions. Inspired by fellow soul composer Isaac Hayes' landmark album released a year earlier, Hot Buttered Soul, Mayfield opted for heavier grooves and more overtly political territory. Augmenting many tracks with intricately arranged horn and string sections, the recordings stretched to extended lengths becoming epic jams containing strong social statements and frank depictions of inner city ghetto life.

"If There's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go" wastes no time getting your attention with a heavy rumbling of a severely distorted bass guitar setting the tone for the next eight minutes. Several conversations can be heard during the intro, the most audible of which is a woman extolling the virtues of reading the "good book" while congas hook into the slow building groove. Mayfield suddenly makes a startling echo effected announcement, calling out, "Sisters!/Niggers!/Whities!/Jews!/Crackers!/Don't worry, if there's a hell below/We're all going to go!," then holding a sustained scream as it fades into the distance, signaling the rest of the assembled musicians to join in the funk. Amongst an array of charging strings and blaring horns, propelled by a rock solid beat and the steady wank of wah-wah-effected guitar, Mayfield warns all who can hear with his trademark silky smooth high-register vocal, "Sisters/Brothers and the whities/Blacks and the crackers/Police and their backers/They're all political lackeys/Smoke, the people, and the dope/Educated fools, from uneducated schools/Pimping people is the rule/Polluted water in the pool/And everybody saying, 'Don't worry'/They say 'don't worry/Don't worry....'" His voice is heavily treated with an echo effect as he repeats this line as a kind of chorus refrain throughout the song, followed by the complete title lyric. The track builds on a wave of percussion and layered strings until finally exploding with a studio-produced wall of noise, then the fuzz bass and conga drums reprise slightly before segueing directly into the next song on the album, "Get Down."

"If There's a Hell Below We're All Going to Go" set Curtis Mayfield's solo career rolling on a successful path, reaching number three on the R&B charts and number 29 on the pop charts. The song would blaze a trail, along with Isaac Hayes, Marvin Gayes' What's Goin' On, and Stevie Wonder, that would change the direction of soul, funk, and pop for the next decade.