Marvin Gaye is arguably the greatest musician to ever live. What’s Going On is timeless, an anti-war record that manages to capture a real existential dread living in imperialist America. Let’s Get It On and I Want You are sexy, throbbing albums on love and all the complications around it. Here, My Dear was the precedent for an album like Usher’s Confessions to air all of its dirty laundry. Then, there are just classic songs like the irresistible “Sexual Healing” and “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”.
The only people that could ever exist in the realm of Marvin Gaye are artists like Prince and Stevie Wonder. However, this history nearly never came to fruition. Gaye felt so burnt out by the woes of life, he almost called it quits entirely.
In a 1971 interview with Disc and Music Echo (captured by The Guardian), the Motown legend opened up on why he spent three years without an album heading into What’s Going On. Apparently, the record nearly never came to life because he was going through a lot of soul-searching. Rather than address his problems with the world, he found it important to retreat inward and figure his life out.
Marvin Gaye Was So Depressed It Nearly Made Him Quit Music
“It wasn’t a case of being big-headed or temperamental that kept me from doing interviews during the last three years. I was terribly disillusioned with a lot of things in life and life in general and decided to take time out to try to do something about it,” Gaye explained. “In a sense the rumors suggesting I had quit were true; I had retired, but only from the personal-appearance end. I did that because I had always felt conspicuous onstage and I’m not the sort of person who likes to be an exhibitionist.”
In those three years away, Marvin Gaye reflected on the state of America and all the nuance that comes with it. He loved his country and as a result, it made him grapple with the injustices that much more. “The album and single show the sort of emotion and personal feelings I have about the situations in America and the world. I think I’ve got a real love thing going. I love people, I love life and I love nature and I can’t see why other people can’t be like that,” Gaye said.
Though Marvin Gaye continued making more music, he still insisted on retreating from glamorous life in the spotlight. Ultimately, he didn’t want to tour in America any longer and he really couldn’t foresee doing a duet ever again. After the death of Tammi Terrell, he said he’d never work with another woman again. By the end of his career, he remained true to that statement.
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