Few albums in history have had the cultural impact as Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On”. Universally loved by music fans around the world, it’s an album like none before it. Few records have captured the zeitgeist and remained as relevant as this album — Marvin’s crowning achievement. On this episode, we take a deep dive into the title cut to discover the elements that make up this masterpiece.
“What’s Going On” (Marvin Gaye, Al Cleveland and Renaldo Benson) Copyright 1970, 1971, 1972 Jobette Music Co, Inc.
If you liked this episode, check out our previous episode featuring the great Marvin Gaye:
lovethatsongpodcast.com/marvin-gaye-i-heard-it-through-the-grapevine/
TRANSCRIPT:
Before you were even born, you were listening. In the womb, you can’t see the world, you can’t smell it or touch it, but you can hear it. Sound is your first connection to the world that awaits you. My name is Brad Page, and this is the “I’m In Love With That Song” podcast on the Pantheon Podcast Network. On this show, we use our ears to explore the world of music together, on our mission to discover how songs are put together and what makes a great song work.
On this episode, we’ll explore one of the most important records ever made. There are very few albums you can say that truly changed music history. This is one of them. The title song from Marvin Gaye’s classic album, “What’s Going On”.
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Marvin Gaye seemed like a guy who had it all together. By 1970, he was Motown’s number one male solo artist, the Prince of Motown. He was smooth, he was cool, but underneath that cool exterior, he was a tortured soul. He was racked with self-doubt and shame, raised by a violent, abusive father who was a preacher, a so-called “Man of God” who was a total hypocrite that beat his wife and kids. And Marvin received the worst of the beatings. Thanks to music, Marvin was able to escape from the mistreatment, but I think he always carried some guilt about abandoning the rest of his family.
Marvin’s first taste of success came when he hooked up with Harvey Fuqua from The Moonglows, and Marvin kind of became his protege. But then Fuqua linked up with the Gordy family, and basically sold Marvin’s contract to Barry Gordy and Motown. Marvin was essentially traded for money. That’s a simplification, but you get the gist of it. And that whole experience left Marvin with a sense of disillusionment with the music business, before he even cut his first song for Motown.
But he established himself, had a string of hits as a solo artist, along with duets with Mary Wells, Kim Weston, and most successfully, with Tammi Terrell. The two of them recorded a bunch of classic duets together, including “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.
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And “Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing”.
Then on October 14, 1967, Tammi collapsed into Marvin’s arms on-stage during a performance of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”. She was eventually diagnosed with a brain tumor; she would die a few years later.
But the Motown machine had to keep churning out those hits, and Marvin was even forced into recording some fake duets with Valerie Simpson pretending to be Tammi Terrell. This just made Marvin even more disillusioned and depressed.
To make matters worse, along the way, Marvin had married Barry Gordy’s sister, Anna, and their marriage was tumultuous, to say the least.
In 1968, Marvin had a huge hit with “I Heard It Through the Grapevine”. We covered that song in-depth, back in episode number 62 of this podcast. If you haven’t heard that one, go check it out. It’s a good one.
“I Heard It Through The Grapevine” was not only a number one smash hit, it also became the biggest selling hit in Motown’s history. And it was a record that Barry Gordy didn’t even want to release. In fact, he fought against it.
In the end, Marvin was ambivalent about his success with “Grapevine”, but one thing it did prove to him was that Barry Gordy and his Motown machine could be wrong. They could make mistakes. Their judgment wasn’t always right. And that empowered Marvin to start making the album that he really wanted to make.
The reverberations from the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King were still being felt in 1970, along with the riot at the Democratic National Convention and the ongoing effects of the war in Vietnam. Tammi Terrell had died in March 1970; Marvin spoke at the funeral very emotionally. Then, in June 1970, Marvin headed into the studio to record “What’s Going On”.
Obie Benson was a member of the Four Tops, and when they were in California in May of ‘69, he had witnessed the police attacking protesters in Berkeley, and that inspired him to start writing “What’s Going On” with his songwriting partner, Al Cleveland. Now, the Four Tops were not interested in recording what they saw as a “protest song”, so Cleveland and Benson brought the song to Marvin, and Marvin refined the melody and added to the lyrics.
Marvin’s brother Frankie had served in Vietnam and brought home some horrific stories that he shared with Marvin. Those emotions work their way into “What’s Going On”. Marvin was able to channel his feelings about his brother’s pain, his own sadness over the loss of Tammi Terrell, and his frustrations over his career. All of it was poured into “What’s Going On”.
Marvin Gaye, Obi Benson and Al Cleveland share writing credit on “What’s Going On”. The musicians on the track include members from the legendary Motown session players called the Funk Brothers, including bass player James Jamerson. But Marvin wanted to mix it up, too, so he brought in some outside musicians. Rather than use the regular Funk Brothers drummers, he brought in a drummer with big band experience, Chet Forrest.
The song opens with the sound of a small crowd, like we’ve just joined some friends at a party.
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Those voices include some of the Funk Brothers and two members of the Detroit Lions, Mel Farr and Lim Barley, friends of Marvin’s, who he invited into Motown Studio, the “Hitsville” studio. The voice you can hear loudly proclaiming, “Hey, man, what’s happening?” Is LG Stover, a Motown employee and a trusted friend of Marvin’s.
Now that saxophone part that opens the song is one of the most recognizable in history. Marvin worked hard with the arranger and the musicians to refine the tracks exactly as he imagined them, but he also knew magic when he heard it. And there are two key features of this song that were completely accidental, but so perfect that Marvin kept them and they became essential elements of the song:
Eli Fontaine was an alto sax player that Marvin brought in to play on the song. Eli listened to the track and then played a little bit on his saxophone just to warm up. Then he told Marvin he was ready to record. Marvin said, “Nope, you can go home. We got what we needed.” What Eli had played for his warm up, just noodling around, was perfect. What was captured on tape and became part of music history isn’t even a first take– it’s a rehearsal. That part is so memorable, it’s one of the main hooks of the song, and that is the only time that that part appears in the song, just right there at the very beginning. Let’s listen to the whole intro again into the first verse.
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OK, let’s spend some time on how these tracks were put together, because there’s a lot of layers here. There are two guitar parts. I’m going to play them together, but pan them left and right so that you can differentiate them, but also see how they work together.
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There’s a few tracks of drums and percussion. Here’s the drum part.
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There’s a conga part
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And also this percussion part.
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There’s a piano part, which I believe was played by Marvin himself.
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And there’s vibes, played by Jack Brokensha
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There’s more saxophone on there, too
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And of course, the bass played by James Jameson.
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There are also background vocals that are present through the whole song
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So now that we’ve heard those parts in isolation, let’s go back and listen to that verse again and see how all those parts come together.
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I’m just curious if any of those parts jump out at you now, now that you know what they sound like individually, let’s hear the second verse.
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I mentioned before that there were two serendipitous events that ended up becoming a big part of the song. One was that saxophone introduction. The other was a mistake by engineer Ken Sands. Marvin had recorded two different takes for the lead vocal, and he wanted to hear them separately and decide which one to keep. But Ken Sands accidentally played them both back at the same time, and when Marvin heard them together, he liked the way that sounded, the way the two parts weaved around each other. And he decided to keep both vocal parts. This multi layered vocal style became a sound that Marvin would return to throughout his career.
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That multi-layered vocal style became a technique that Marvin would return to on many songs throughout the rest of his career. Now we’re heading towards the chorus and there’s a couple of new elements added here. There are some finger snaps:
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And a string section, arranged by David Van De Pitte, whose arrangements were a critical part of dozens and dozens of Motown hits.
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Let’s listen to it all together now.
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In a song full of great moments, this may be my favorite part. The way Marvin syncopates the phrases “picket lines and picket signs”, the sensitivity in his voice when he sings “don’t punish me with brutality”, something he had plenty of personal experience with. And the way his voice just soars when he hits that chorus, it’s total perfection.
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And barely audible in the mix, you can hear Marvin add this:
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The next section is an instrumental break where you’d normally hear something like a sax solo. But here, Marvin fills the space with his own voice.
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And let’s just take a minute to appreciate the groove that the bass, drums and percussion are laying down behind this party.
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And here’s the last verse.
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Notice right there that Marvin says, “I’ll tell you what’s going on”.
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One small little detail that I actually think is important: most people probably interpret the title of this song as a question “What’s going on?”, question mark. But in the actual song title, there is no question mark. In fact, I’ve heard that in the original lyrics, there was a question mark, but by the time they finished the song, Marvin removed it intentionally. The song, and the album, isn’t phrased as a question. There’s no punctuation. So the song can be read as a question and a statement. Marvin is asking us what’s happening, but he’s also telling you what he’s seeing and feeling. He’s being a reporter, a journalist in song, documenting the world around him.
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And if you ever wondered what the crowd was talking about in the background there, well, here you go.
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At one point, you can hear a voice refer to someone as “Gates”. That was Marvin’s nickname, Gates. Let’s hear that final passage one more time.
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And let’s listen to James Jameson’s bass one more time.
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Marvin Gaye – “What’s Going On”
As the legend goes, when Berry Gordy first heard the song, he said it was the worst thing he’d ever heard and refused to release it. Well, Marvin told them that he wouldn’t record a single thing for Motown until they released this song. He even decided that he’d just quit music and play football for the Detroit Lions. He’d never actually played football before, but that didn’t seem to deter him.
Eventually, Marvin won out. There was just too much demand for a new Marvin Gaye single, and Marvin wasn’t going to give them anything else. “What’s Going On” was their only option. So they released it.
By then, Berry Gordy had pretty much relocated to California, so it was easier for other people to get the single out without Gordy’s approval. Story goes that Gordy was furious that they released the song, until he discovered that it had sold a hundred thousand copies on the first day… then he changed his tune.
Both the single and the album have sold millions of copies and they frequently topped the list of greatest songs and greatest albums of all time. But beyond the charts and the stats, this album endures because it touches people, it moves people, it inspires people. It’s bigger than Motown, it’s bigger than Marvin.
Marvin Gaye would lead a troubled life that ended in tragedy. But this album that he created is a singular perfect piece of art. Nobody can do better than that.
I used a number of sources to research this episode, but my main resource was a book called “What’s Going On” by Ben Edmonds. I think it’s out of print now, might be a little tough to find, but it’s a fantastic book. Highly recommended.
Thanks for listening and for being a part of this journey. The adventure continues in two weeks when we’re back with another new episode. Until then, visit us on Facebook or on Podchaser, where you can leave comments and feedback. And if you enjoyed the show, share it with your friends and follow the show so that you never miss an episode.
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Only love can conquer hate. That was Marvin Gaye and “What’s Going On”.