Goodbye to Love Songs, Hello to Me

Marvin Gaye had found enormous success with love songs “Ain't That Peculiar," "I'll Be Doggone," and "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)", all Top Ten hits. In addition duet songs like the ballad “It takes Two” with Kim Weston and his acclaimed collaborations with Tammi Terrell including the mega popular hits, “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” and “You’re Precious Love” in 1967, and “Ain’t Nothing Like the Real Thing” and “You’re All I Need to Get By” in 1968, proved to be his forte and what the fans loved. His duets with Tammi Terrell showed incredible melodic chemistry and an magnificent harmony of their vocals that people recognized and praised. Unfortunately his partner and long-time friend, Tammi Terrell, prematurely died from a brain tumor on March 16, 1970, that first reared its head in a concert performance in 1967 when she collapsed on stage and had to be held by Gaye. She was 24. Her death greatly devastated and affected Marvin who went into a seclusion, and stopped recording and making pubic appearances. Just as well Gaye was hosting a plethora of personal problems, including dealing with his crumbling marriage to Anna Gordy, as well as a growing frustration witih Motown's stronghold production. His solitutde allowed him reflection in which the issues of the time pressed upon him. In fact his brother Frankie had returned from the Vietnam War, and relayed stories from his experience to Marvin that moved him to tears. All of these factors greatly sobered Gaye, so that when Gaye looked to record again, he found he could no longer find solace in singing irrelevant love songs. For all of these reasons, Marvin Gaye recorded "What's Going On", a protest song that deviated from all other familiar song formulas that Gaye was used to. It was a socially conscious song, written by Four Tops Member Obie Benson and fellow Motown writer Al Clevland.
Incredibly interesting is that Obie Benson came up with the idea for "What's Going On" from one his visits to San Francsico in 1969 where he was impacted by the enormous presence of the kids. He says:
“They had the Haight-Ashbury then, all the kids up there with the long hair and everything,”.“The police was beating on the kids, but they wasn’t bothering anybody. I saw this, and started wondering what was going on. ‘What is happening here?’ One question leads to another. ‘Why are they sending kids so far away from their families overseas?’ And so on.”.
These weighted questions were a harbinger for a song that would take about what was happening in their current world. With the tune ready, vocals were needed, but Marvin Gaye was not the first choice to pitch the song to. First Benson pitched it to Four Tops, and then to Joan Baez, who both passed. Then the song was pitched to Gaye, who loved it upon the first hearing, and worked on it. Benson describes how Gaye tweaked the song.
“He definitely put the finishing touches on it,” Benson said. “He added lyrics, and he added some spice to the melody. He added some things that were more ghetto, more natural, which made it seem more like a story than a song. He made it visual. He absorbed himself to the extent that when you heard the song you could see the people and feel the hurt and pain. We measured him for the suit, and he tailored it."
One aspect that was perhaps tailored by Gaye was how he changed the song to fit the perspective of a veteran returning home to a conflicted nation. Undoubtedly influenced by his brother’s return-home experience, Gaye put his creative spin onto the song that made it something that Gaye was really excited to release. Some of these innovative touches was to bring in some of his friends from the Detriot Lions football team in which he tried out for, but did not make it. Lem Barney and Mel Farmer, his football buddies from his brief stint provided the street chatter for the records as well as the back up vocals for the whole album. The phrase “What’s Going On” was actually a greeting used frequently between them. The first record’s arrangement was a prelude to how the whole album would sound, and concurrent throughout the whole album were the underused talent from Motown like house arranger David Van De Pitte. Also in the album were the Funk Brothers and Eli Fontaine for the sax. Other innovative touches was the infamous double lead echo, where the base vocal was duplicated. It actually occurred by accident but was kept due to Gaye. It showed how much creative license and freeform Gaye was allowing the album to take. Without the confining structure placed by Berry Gordy, it was almost as if the was allowing the album to create itself. People played freely, sometimes using marijuana, but most importantly doing what felt right.