Whats going on meaning marvin gaye

Then this soulful, jazzy and laid-back chill of the music which belies the elegiac potency of the lyrics, as Gaye moves into the chorus describing protests and accompanying brutality:. But the verse is also directed towards authority figures, the Establishment as it were, who were choosing war over peace.

The Story of... 'What's Going On' by Marvin Gaye

We should not lose sight of the fact that jazz since its beginning has been an agent of political and social change. Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan and a majority of folk musicians, back to its earliest beginnings, were also important social change agents. Your email address will not be published.

History@Work

Musician Elgie Stover, who was later a caterer for Bill Clinton, was the man who opened the song's track with the words, 'hey, man, what's happening? Gaye asked engineer Kenneth Sands to give him his two vocal takes to compare which one he wanted to use, but Sands ended up mixing them together by accident.

Benson then approached Marvin Gaye, who changed the melody and revised the lyrics. The new version became the title track on Gaye's album. Gaye —84 was born in Washington D. He started performing with a doo-wop group as a teenager, and then, following an unhappy year in the Air Force, he began to seriously pursue a career in music in He performed with doo-wop groups in Washington before moving to Detroit and signing with Motown Records in Terrell's death from a brain tumor in had a significant impact on Gaye, and the release of the politically charged album What's Going On the following year marked the start of a new phase in his career.