Fact #117092
When:
Short story:
Marvin Gaye starts work on a new single, What’s Going On, for Tamla Records in Detroit, Michigan, USA.
Full article:
Obie Benson (Four Tops member and co-writer of What’s Going On) : They had the Haight-Ashbury then, all the kids up there with the long hair and everything. The police was beatin' on them, but they weren't bothering anybody. I saw this, and started wondering what the fuck was going on. What is happening here? One question leads to another. Why are they sending kids so far away from their families overseas? Why are they attacking their own children in the streets here?
My partners told me it was a protest song. I said no, man, it's a love song, about love and understanding. I'm not protesting, I want to know what's going on. But they never really understood what was happening.
We were doing a TV show, Top Of The Pops or one of those, and I tried to give it to this girl. This famous folksinger, played a guitar. What's her name? I went into her dressing room, picked up her guitar and played this song. I had some words, but they weren't the finished lyrics yet. She seemed interested, but somehow we got separated and I never got to finish presenting it to her.
Marvin was the perfect artist for it. Marvin already felt like this. He was a rebel, and a real spiritual guy. The first time he sang it, I was playing guitar and he was playing piano, and it was so beautiful. I finally put it to him like this: I'll give you a percentage of the tune if you sing it, but if you do it on anybody else, you can't have none of it. His wife told him, 'Marvin, this is a perfect song for you.' I'll love Anna forever for making him see the truth of that.
Frankie Gaye (brother of Marvin) : Over three months we talked about my time there (in Vietnam). We were in tears. I told him how I saw children killed and suffering, picking food out of GI garbage dumps. He was very attentive to that. But when he went to work, he was very secretive; he didn't want anyone to know what he was writing.
Obie Benson : He added lyrics, and he added some spice to the melody. He fine-tuned the tune, in other words. He added different colours to it. 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. When you heard that song, you could see the people and feel the hurt and pain. We measured him for the suit and he tailored the hell out of it.
Frankie Gaye : When he finished it, he played the song for me. It gave me chills. It was what we had talked about.
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My partners told me it was a protest song. I said no, man, it's a love song, about love and understanding. I'm not protesting, I want to know what's going on. But they never really understood what was happening.
We were doing a TV show, Top Of The Pops or one of those, and I tried to give it to this girl. This famous folksinger, played a guitar. What's her name? I went into her dressing room, picked up her guitar and played this song. I had some words, but they weren't the finished lyrics yet. She seemed interested, but somehow we got separated and I never got to finish presenting it to her.
Marvin was the perfect artist for it. Marvin already felt like this. He was a rebel, and a real spiritual guy. The first time he sang it, I was playing guitar and he was playing piano, and it was so beautiful. I finally put it to him like this: I'll give you a percentage of the tune if you sing it, but if you do it on anybody else, you can't have none of it. His wife told him, 'Marvin, this is a perfect song for you.' I'll love Anna forever for making him see the truth of that.
Frankie Gaye (brother of Marvin) : Over three months we talked about my time there (in Vietnam). We were in tears. I told him how I saw children killed and suffering, picking food out of GI garbage dumps. He was very attentive to that. But when he went to work, he was very secretive; he didn't want anyone to know what he was writing.
Obie Benson : He added lyrics, and he added some spice to the melody. He fine-tuned the tune, in other words. He added different colours to it. 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. When you heard that song, you could see the people and feel the hurt and pain. We measured him for the suit and he tailored the hell out of it.
Frankie Gaye : When he finished it, he played the song for me. It gave me chills. It was what we had talked about.