Tag Archives: Marvin Gaye

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Song of the Day #374: ‘Let’s Get it On’ – Marvin Gaye

gayeThe thing I love best about this, the ultimate booty call song, is that in the middle of nearly 5 minutes of pleading and pressuring this woman to have sex with him, Marvin Gaye sings these lines: “I ain’t gonna worry, no, I ain’t gonna push, I won’t push you, baby.” Gee, imagine what it would sound like if he was gonna push her!

To honor the unabashed carnal desire of ‘Let’s Get it On,’ I will now present the poetic stylings of YouTube commenters who have chimed in on this Marvin Gaye classic.

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Song of the Day #332: ‘What’s Going On’ – Marvin Gaye

marvingayeOne of my musical pet peeves is songs about current events, particularly protest songs. Even worse are songs that name-drop political figures.

A classic example, in an otherwise good song, is this verse from Sting’s ‘They Dance Alone’:

Hey Mr. Pinochet
You’ve sown a bitter crop
It’s foreign money that supports you
One day the money’s going to stop

Hey Sting… spare me.

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Song of the Day #311: ‘I Heard it Through the Grapevine’ – Marvin Gaye

marvingayeLike many young suburban white people, my first exposure to these great Motown songs came via The Big Chill soundtrack. That album, which went 6X platinum, was less a document of the film than a Motown greatest hits collection.

These songs stirred the memories of the college friends reunited in that film and likely did the same for countless boomers who watched the film then ran out to buy the soundtrack. For me, too young at the time for some of the film’s more adult moments and likely to be bored by it anyway, I was just thrilled to discover such great new music.

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