Uptown Funk
by Mark Ronson ft. Bruno Mars
The word to take away is the first half of gotta kiss myself. gotta is have got to squeezed into two syllables, it means must, and it turns up in spoken English far more often than must itself — yet textbooks rarely print it, so learners who have only read the language cannot decode it when they hear it. The card also hands you a comparative in smoother and a stack of adjectives that all mean roughly good in different registers: hot, fresh, sexy, freaky, pretty. Knowing which to use where is most of sounding natural. A2 for vocabulary, appreciably harder for listening: the delivery is fast and heavily contracted.
How to study this song
The card for “Uptown Funk” is built from 59 study entries at A2: 34 English words, 8 adjectives and 17 verb forms. Work through the glossary first: band, check and city are the words you will lean on most. This one leans on its verbs: 17 distinct forms against 8 adjectives, so conjugation is where the effort goes. At this level the goal is recognition: hear a word, place it, keep going.
The words of this song, in several languages
Every word below is taken from this song and translated by us. Nothing here is the lyric itself — these are the individual words you need in order to follow it.
Vocabulary
| EN | ES | IT | FR | PT | NL | DE |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| band | banda | band | groupe | banda |
What this song teaches you
Level · A2
- Vocabulary words
- 34
- Adjectives
- 8
- Word combos
- 11
- Expressions
- 10
- Verb forms
- 17
- Quiz questions
- 35
Background
About the song
“Uptown Funk” is the retro-funk explosion by the British producer Mark Ronson featuring Bruno Mars, released in 2014.
A loving, swaggering throwback to the funk and soul of the late 1970s and 1980s — all sharp horns, slap bass and struts — it was fronted by Bruno Mars at his most charismatic and engineered from the ground up to be the ultimate party starter.
Ronson produced it with Jeff Bhasker and Bruno Mars, and the writing credits eventually grew to eleven names: members of the Gap Band were added in recognition of the resemblance to their 1979 single “Oops Upside Your Head”, and the rapper Trinidad James for a sampled line.
Did you know?
The single spent fourteen weeks at number one on the US Billboard Hot 100, one of the longest runs in the chart’s history, and topped the UK and many other charts too. It won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became one of the defining singles of the decade.
Charts & streaming
“Uptown Funk” sold in the many millions worldwide and racked up billions of streams and video views, ranking among the biggest hits of the 2010s. Its irresistible groove keeps it a wedding, party and radio staple across the globe.
Its British run was seven weeks at the top, it reached number one in nineteen countries, and beyond Record of the Year it also won the Grammy for Best Pop Duo/Group Performance. In the United States it is certified 11× platinum.