“How am I supposed to keep singing love songs?”: The album Marvin Gaye wants to be remembered for
There are certain musicians, whose presence in the world are made clear to you from a very young age, without exactly knowing why. The Beatles are undoubtedly one, for ‘Yellow Submarine’ was a song I somehow knew all the words to in primary school. While Elvis Presley was used as first dance material in enough 1990s social club weddings that my infantile brain soaked up the lyrics to ‘Love Me Tender’ without knowing. But the reason for Marvin Gaye’s presence within my subconsious alumni largely eludes me.
Even before the days of petulant adolescence and sniggering at the crude salaciousness of his bedroom anthems, he seemed to just be present. I didn’t need to be sat down and explained who Marvin Gaye was and why he was considered one of the greatest musicians of all time in the same way I needed that for say Neil Young or Joni Mitchell. I grew up, developed a love for music, and just somehow knew he was a great.
Nevertheless, pop culture did its best to reduce his greatness to said salaciousness. Whether it was shoddy talent show covers or crude television adverts, mainstream media was insistent on paring his artistic greatness down to the penning of two iconic romantic tracks. So the roundedness of his craftsmanship was undoubtedly lost on many: the activism, the observation, the outright vulnerability in his music—all lost behind the marketing of his incredible vocals as the soundtrack to sensualism.
Because for those willing to dive deep below the bending guitar lines of ‘Let’s Get It On’ will be spoilt with a never-ending sea of artistic riches. From the sprawling experimentalism of ‘Trouble Man’ to the poignant melody of ‘Where Are We Going’, Gaye, had it all from a musical standpoint and even sharper mind from an anthropological one.
On his magnum opus What’s Going On he crystallised all facets of his genius into one succinct ten-song album of pure brilliance. Compositionally, it teetered on the edge of a concept album while lyrically it was Gaye at his socially conscious best. It was an album about the people, for the people yet it proved to be an unfiltered representation of his own self. Not conforming to radio play rules or money-hungry label desires, its clear that What’s Going On was Gaye without limitation, saying exactly what he wanted to say and how he wanted to say it.
The responsibility of his influence weighed heavily on him. He famously said, “With the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep singing love songs?” He simply couldn’t be the voice of a soul generation when the generation who lapped up his music was being beaten on the street, shot on college campuses, and sent to fight in a winless war. The emotion required to deliver deeply poignant romantic tracks wasn’t as pertinent as the frustration and fear he felt in the midst of a troubled American decade.
And so What’s Going On became not only the album he wanted to make, but the one we needed him to make. Not just the children of America’s broken 1970s but the generation of today, who staring down the barrel of climate collapse, sensationalist politics and digital isolation can try and garner some meaning from the immortal words of Marvin Gaye.
