What’s Going On at 50

By Alexander Robertson-Rose

All in all, 1971 was a fairly consequential year. Muhammad Ali lost the ‘Fight of the Century’ to Joe Frazier, Nixon started the war on drugs and the Stanford Prison Experiment happened. There was even time for two moon landings and for Disneyworld Florida to open. 1971 was also, many argue, the greatest ever year for music. Led Zeppelin, The Who, Joni Mitchell, David Bowie and The Beach Boys all released critically acclaimed albums. Yet all of these have arguably been eclipsed by the album Rolling Stone magazine called the best ever just last year. Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On remains, 50 years on, a sound that defined an era, both politically and socially; one of the great protest songs which became one of the great protest albums. As it turns half a century old this year, and as its main target, the Vietnam War, passes ever further into the mists of history, so much of Gaye’s magnum opus remains painfully relevant.      

After a decade as a smooth Motown hitmaker, What’s Going On was not just a strong political statement, but also a statement of creative independence from Gaye. Presented with the song which was to become the title track, originally written by Motown songwriter Al Cleveland, he tweaked the lyrics, melody and instrumentation before presenting his recording to label owner Berry Gordy. Significantly different in tone and content to Gaye’s previous hits like ‘I Heard It Through the Grapevine’, Gordy reportedly called it “the worst thing I ever heard in my life.”

With jazzy flourishes and layered vocals, the song’s mournful texture is as smooth as Gaye’s earlier hits, but fizzes with energy. The lyrics, while simple, are an emotive, personal plea for peace. “Mother, mother/There’s too many of you crying / Brother brother brother / There’s far too many of you dying”. Gaye’s vocals soar above the instrumental and the background chatter, turning the listener into a spectator, able to observe the world’s ills from afar.    

Needless to say, then, the public disagreed with Gordy, and Gaye was quickly asked to follow the track with an entire album. The result was a flowing, soulful effort, with repeating motifs that make the record feel like one extended track. Over the course of 35 minutes, Gaye addresses such general topics as war, climate change, addiction, religion and police brutality, yet throughout there is an unerring focus - a direction, both lyrically and instrumentally, that makes the album truly compelling.

“With the world exploding around me, how am I supposed to keep writing love songs?” Gaye later asked. By 1970, he had lost his duet partner, Tammi Terrell, to a brain tumour and was struggling with cocaine dependency, a failing marriage and a disillusionment with the music industry. In the midst of this, his brother Frankie was fighting in Vietnam – the inspiration behind the second track, ‘What’s Happening Brother.’ This is a story from the perspective of a veteran returning home from Vietnam to find a society that has changed beyond recognition and has no place for him (“Can’t find no work, can’t find no job my friend). The lush instrumentation returns, with backing vocals and call and response making the song sound less like a political statement from Gaye himself, but rather a plea from a disillusioned generation.

In truth, Gaye might have hoped for the album to sound a little dated by now, given the focus on society’s ills. Yet songs like ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’ and the album closer, ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)’ feel just as relevant today as they did 50 years ago. ‘Mercy Mercy Me’ laments climate destruction; as a resident of Detroit, the industrial hub of the US, Gaye was perhaps well-placed to ask “Where did all the blue skies go? / Poison is the wind that blows from the north and south and east”. ‘Inner City Blues’, meanwhile, could easily have been written today, with provocative lyrics like “Money, we make it / Before we see it, you take it.” Once again, the lyrics do not take much decoding, but rather serve as a cutting reminder of the injustices of society. During a year when billionaires and celebrities are paying for trips into orbit, Gaye’s criticism of the money spent on the space race in the first verse feels especially pertinent today.  

Gaye would die only 13 years after the album was released, shot by his father, a pastor, during a family disagreement. He was 44. Such tragic circumstances give an unintended new meaning to excerpts from the title track like “Father father / We don’t need to escalate / You see, war is not the answer / For only love can conquer hate”. The song ‘God Is Love,’ an ode to the role of religion in Gaye’s life and a more upbeat message, urging families to come together and preach kindness, is another song which has been changed by time, with its references to ‘my father’ especially painful giving the nature of Gaye’s demise. Yet despite this, the shortest song on the album still remains a truly joyous moment of profound hope for the future.  

A heavenly blend of jazz, doo-wop and gospel hymn, What’s Going On represents many things. It represents a snapshot in time, of a year like no other and a world at a cultural crossroads; it represents our world today, beset by so many of the same problems that Gaye lamented, but most of all, in all its soaring beauty and jagged edges, it represents what it is full of – life. Though Gaye is with us no longer, his record stands as a testament to the power of soul music. There are many legendary albums of the modern era that deserve to be called the greatest – several from 1971 alone – but in What’s Going On, Rolling Stone could not have picked a better one.