Marvin Gaye was an American soul singer and songwriter. In the 1960s, he had a string of hits with Motown Records, and later, in the 1970s, he had further successes with the What's Going On and Let's Get It On albums, a creative phase now known as his albums-ending-with-on period. Marvin was dubbed both the Prince of Soul and the Prince of Motown, but the abstruse monarchical structure of soul renders such a title meaningless to most people. It has become especially esoteric since James Brown was buried with the last known medallion to contain the hieroglyphs necessary to unlock the cryptic structure.
The Motown Prince was cursed the entirety of his life with a throbbing sexual aura. Shortly after entering puberty, an eight-year-old Marvin found that becoming a man brought many surprises, including the desirous eyes and smiles from women of all ages. He tried to convey these disconcerting incidences to his family, but they just laughed at his breaking voice wailing in and out of manhood. Humiliated by something beyond his control, and utterly confused, Marvin developed a sense of shame about his sexuality in these formative years. Although he was able to move past it and never permit it interfere with his highly active love life, the spectre haunted him for the remainder of his days. It returned to him when he considered the great discrepancy between the abundance of love he received and paltry scraps everyone else had to make do with. In the early years of his adulthood, Marvin decided to use his budding singing talents for good. He pledged to inspire the world to bring about lasting peace, and for all the peoples of the world to release the compassion locked in their hearts. He soon developed a pantheistic love for every creature on this planet, and he was eager to convey it in his music. However, his noble project was thwarted at every turn by record producers who viewed him a mere sex object.
In 1968, Marvin released the smash hit I heard It Through the Grapevine, which was a product of artistic attrition. Marvin sat down to write a love song, as requested by his manager, but, in a bold effort, he deliberately misunderstood his instructions and wrote a song about the love inspired by wandering through nature. The long-since lost original draft, talked about listening to nature and hearing its beneficent request to harness it into plenty. Some of the lines still remain, such as 'honey, honey, yeah'. The original chorus told us that he 'heard the grapevine talking', and 'grapevine' had its present intonation, preceding a lowered 'talking', giving the song a more sombre tone, representative of Marvin's suppressed desire to be at one with everything. Motown hated it, and a docile hack rewrote it into a scorned lover anthem. Marvin's sexual performances in the recording booth produced take after take that were too sexy to make the lyrics credible, and eventually they had to tell him that his father had died to get an adequately sexless version.
After such exploitations, Marvin tried to take the reins on his career and produced What's Going On, an album of socially aware songs, intended to break away from mere libido. Marvin's curse of overt sexuality prevailed, however, despite his best efforts to curb the sexual beast. His sympathetic manager tried everything to nullify the sexual overtones in the recordings, including drugs, exceptionally ugly people, and electro-shock therapy, but nothing could quell the feverish flames of Marvin's passion. His creative prowess flourished further with his seminal album Let's Get It On. In the title track, he moved to harmonise with nature and innovated with pigeon backing singers (once heard, it can never be unheard). The song was originally sketched as a wholesome birdwatching excursion, with lyrics such as 'stop beating round the bush' and 'I feel sanctified'. 'Get it on' referred to putting on a pair of birding binoculars. Unable to view Marvin as anything but a sex object, whose melodies put masses into sexual fever, Motown forced him to the change the original draft's lyrics. 'Birds are such sensitive creatures with a right to live' became 'we are all sensitive people with so much to give' in Marvin's grudging rewrite. He deliberately tried to make it as cumbersome and awkwardly sexless, by adding lyrics such as 'there's nothing wrong with me loving you', but his accursed sexiness prevailed in the recording booth, and the label got what they wanted. Perhaps the most explicit track on the album, You Sure Like to Ball, is a product of mysterious circumstances. Marvin could offer no explanation: "I went into the studio to record an innocent melody about baseball", he claimed, "I'm not quite sure what happened."
The Motown Prince was cursed the entirety of his life with a throbbing sexual aura. Shortly after entering puberty, an eight-year-old Marvin found that becoming a man brought many surprises, including the desirous eyes and smiles from women of all ages. He tried to convey these disconcerting incidences to his family, but they just laughed at his breaking voice wailing in and out of manhood. Humiliated by something beyond his control, and utterly confused, Marvin developed a sense of shame about his sexuality in these formative years. Although he was able to move past it and never permit it interfere with his highly active love life, the spectre haunted him for the remainder of his days. It returned to him when he considered the great discrepancy between the abundance of love he received and paltry scraps everyone else had to make do with. In the early years of his adulthood, Marvin decided to use his budding singing talents for good. He pledged to inspire the world to bring about lasting peace, and for all the peoples of the world to release the compassion locked in their hearts. He soon developed a pantheistic love for every creature on this planet, and he was eager to convey it in his music. However, his noble project was thwarted at every turn by record producers who viewed him a mere sex object.
In 1968, Marvin released the smash hit I heard It Through the Grapevine, which was a product of artistic attrition. Marvin sat down to write a love song, as requested by his manager, but, in a bold effort, he deliberately misunderstood his instructions and wrote a song about the love inspired by wandering through nature. The long-since lost original draft, talked about listening to nature and hearing its beneficent request to harness it into plenty. Some of the lines still remain, such as 'honey, honey, yeah'. The original chorus told us that he 'heard the grapevine talking', and 'grapevine' had its present intonation, preceding a lowered 'talking', giving the song a more sombre tone, representative of Marvin's suppressed desire to be at one with everything. Motown hated it, and a docile hack rewrote it into a scorned lover anthem. Marvin's sexual performances in the recording booth produced take after take that were too sexy to make the lyrics credible, and eventually they had to tell him that his father had died to get an adequately sexless version.
After such exploitations, Marvin tried to take the reins on his career and produced What's Going On, an album of socially aware songs, intended to break away from mere libido. Marvin's curse of overt sexuality prevailed, however, despite his best efforts to curb the sexual beast. His sympathetic manager tried everything to nullify the sexual overtones in the recordings, including drugs, exceptionally ugly people, and electro-shock therapy, but nothing could quell the feverish flames of Marvin's passion. His creative prowess flourished further with his seminal album Let's Get It On. In the title track, he moved to harmonise with nature and innovated with pigeon backing singers (once heard, it can never be unheard). The song was originally sketched as a wholesome birdwatching excursion, with lyrics such as 'stop beating round the bush' and 'I feel sanctified'. 'Get it on' referred to putting on a pair of birding binoculars. Unable to view Marvin as anything but a sex object, whose melodies put masses into sexual fever, Motown forced him to the change the original draft's lyrics. 'Birds are such sensitive creatures with a right to live' became 'we are all sensitive people with so much to give' in Marvin's grudging rewrite. He deliberately tried to make it as cumbersome and awkwardly sexless, by adding lyrics such as 'there's nothing wrong with me loving you', but his accursed sexiness prevailed in the recording booth, and the label got what they wanted. Perhaps the most explicit track on the album, You Sure Like to Ball, is a product of mysterious circumstances. Marvin could offer no explanation: "I went into the studio to record an innocent melody about baseball", he claimed, "I'm not quite sure what happened."
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| Clayton, the last surviving member of Marvin Gaye's pigeon quartet. |
In 1983, Marvin unintentionally made a whole arena of people orgasm within a three-minute rendition of Star Spangled Banner. The first one can be heard at the 26-second mark, though most people climaxed around "the land of the free". Marvin was deeply apologetic, claiming that the performance seemed to him a conservative, standard rendition of the American national anthem when he sang it. Watching a recording of the song some days later, he was incredulous and considered it a possible hoax.
He despaired at his curse, much in the way he had a year earlier, when he released the greatly misunderstood Sexual Healing. The song derived from Marvin's long struggle to 'heal' his burdensome sexiness, and sexual healing refers to his efforts to be cured of his sexuality. He had discovered some months previously the one thing that helped bridle his libido — perhaps the most powerful tool against sexual arousal — a person who persistently brings explicit sex references into conversation. During his final years on Earth, Marvin was accompanied by an assistant who was capable of saying the word 'pussy' over 100 times an hour, without making conversation seem forced or contrived. Marvin met his end in 1984, in a fashion as peculiar as the almost surreal, whirring end of Mercy, Mercy Me. He was shot by his father, who killed him for being a Gaye. In the fashion of textbook psychology, it was later revealed that his father was also a Gaye, but had failed to come to terms with it.
