#30 What’s Going On Marvin Gaye
The album What’s Going On uses family language to communicate religious and political themes. A great example of this is “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” This is the last song of the album What’s Going On, and the song ends with the words, “crime is increasing trigger happy policing panic is spreading God knows where we're heading mother, mother everybody thinks we're wrong who are they to judge us simply because we wear our hair long.”
In the lyrics “crime is increasing trigger happy policing panic is spreading” is the political theme of this song. You can see that the issue is addressed through the word “God” and the word “judge.” These words place the issue in religious terms. Then the words “mother mother” and “who are they” to make the issue one of two paths mother or fathers path. The words “mother mother” cause us to consider what Gaye is expressing through the eyes of a mother. Throughout the album father represents war while the mother represents conflict resolution and peace. Such as in “What’s Going On” where the lyrics say “mother, mother there's too many of you crying” whereas in the same song it says “father, father we don't need to escalate.” The words “who are they to judge us simply because we wear our hair long” indicate that those with long hair actually or politically are on the side of the mothers rather than on the side of the fathers.
The album What’s Going On uses paternalistic language to make the abstract issues that Gaye’s music explores more personal and more meaningful. Such as in the song “What’s Happening Brother” where the lyrics say “what's going on across this land ah, what's happening, brother?” Similear themes appear across the album. In “Save the Children” it says, “and if you wanna love
you got love, save the babies.” Also in “Right On” the word baby is used “Hey baby, that's alright people.” The album What’s Going On takes religious language to subvert the cultural narrative towards the values that Gaye supports. The words God, Jesus, and Lord are repeated throughout the album. Such as “Oh Lord, and have laid their bodies down” in “Flyin’ High (in the Friendly Sky)” and “the soul that takes pride in his God” in “Right On.” The album also uses political language. Such as “Picket lines and picket signs” in “What’s Going On.” As well as poison is the wind that blows” to talk about ecology in the song “Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology).”
The album What’s Going On defies expectations of genre. The album is most closely defined as soul music. but the album defies the expectations of the genre. In other popular soul songs the theme focuses on love such as in “My Girl” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.” Or on themes of personal issues such as in “(Sittin' On) the Dock of the Bay” or “Respect.” The album What’s Going On uses the themes of love and personal issues to talk about divisive social issues in such a way that many people could understand them.
When I listen to the album What’s Going On I bring a specific cultural narrative with me. Throughout this quarter and this class I have come to compare two cultural narratives to each other. One narrative says that the arc of history is clear and progressive, classical music is best, and form is valued over function in life and theology. The result of this narrative is that everything makes sense and there is no room for error. But there are many errors in all forms of theology which then contrasts this narrative with another which says that we don’t know if the world is getting better. Function is more important than form. Jazz music might be better then classical. My mind is yet to be settled over these different lines of thought. So I bring them to this album and see the contrast in the music. Gaye seems to communicate that the cultural narrative that most of America was accepting is wrong. While the people who supported the war were sad over the loss of life that the war caused they still supported the war because the form that America was supposed to take in opposition to communism. Whereas the narrative that Gaye was communicating was one of confusion, that function is more important than form. Such that the war was bad because the loss of life. The familial language of the songs makes it out such that the father is cold and calculating, whereas the mother is comforting and cares more for the emotions.
