What's Going On

Berry Gordy, the founder of Motown Records, told Marvin Gaye the idea was ridiculous. Gaye wanted to make a protest album about the Vietnam War, drug abuse, poverty, and racial injustice. Gordy told him: "Marvin, don't be ridiculous. That's taking things too far." Gaye released it anyway. Stunned by the success of the title track, Gordy drove to Gaye's home and told him he could do whatever he wanted with his music if he finished the full album within 30 days. Gaye went back into the studio and recorded the rest of What's Going On in ten business days.

The opening saxophone riff that defines the title track was played by Eli Fontaine, who was not originally intended to be on the song at all. When Gaye heard him playing around in the studio, he told him the session was over and to go home. Fontaine protested that he was only goofing off. Gaye replied: "you goof off exquisitely, thank you," and kept the riff. The bassist James Jamerson, one of the great unsung musicians in American music history, was in such rough shape when he arrived to record his parts that he lay on the floor and played the entire session from there. His bass lines on this album are considered some of the finest ever recorded.

What's Going On runs as a continuous piece of music, nine songs connected without breaks, told from the perspective of a Vietnam veteran coming home to a country he no longer recognizes. It is the most important soul album ever made, and Rolling Stone has ranked its title track among the greatest songs in history. If you have never spent time with this record, it is one of the most rewarding 35 minutes available to you anywhere in music.