Artist: Marvin Gaye
Song: “Let’s Get It On”
Label: Tamla
Released: 1973
At 10:00 a.m. Sunday morning I switched off the Ron Gardenhire Show and turned on Casey Kasem’s American Top 40, a rebroadcast of a show from late September 1973. Casey just finished introducing the song in the number eight position, “Half Breed,” by Cher. I will admit it was such a corny song I turned it up. “The White Man always called me ‘Indian Squaw.’” Now there are some lyrics you don’t hear anymore. So, Cher was a gypsy, tramp and thief, plus a half-breed. I think she needs some help in figuring out the percentages of her descent.
At number seven was “Brother Louie” by the Stories. Their version conveniently left out the “spook” and “honky” references in the original version by Hot Chocolate. Half-breeds, inter-racial love, Top 40 radio was a civil rights hot bed!
So it was time to find Jesus through the voice of Paul Simon, with “Loves Me Like A Rock.” I never thought Paul to be much of an evangelist for Christianity, that’s why the Dixie Hummingbirds were in tow for gospel authenticity. But we all know how the story ends with Paul finally coming a real African by the time he finished recording Graceland.
So what are we missing? How about a comment on domestic life, where a woman leaves her husband to become a stripper? And who could tell a story more convincingly about a stripper than Tony Orlando, coming in at number four with “Say Has Anybody Seen My Sweet Gypsy Rose.” Tony must have had quite the past, remember he was in prison in “Tie A Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree.” He must have gotten there as a result from his voyeuristic activities in “Knock Three Times.” “Twice on the pipe, if the answer is no.” Dude, no means no!
At number three, Casey told us he thought this song was number one last week and was pretty sure it would remain in the top spot, but it didn’t. This song was about a jilted lover who went crazy from her man’s departure. And this man was of ‘low degree!” The song tells us so. The folks of Brownsville find her nuts because she walks downtown with a suitcase in her hand, looking for a mysterious dark-haired man. Why did Helen Reddy think she needed to re-interpret this song? Tanya Tucker already had charted with it. I really don’t see what Reddy brought to the table that Tucker hadn’t already sung. Bette Midler had a version of it too that was slated to be the lead single from her Divine Miss M album, but it became the “Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” instead because of chart saturation.
At number two, lyrically, Grand Funk’s “We’re An American Band” sounds genius. The “sweet, sweet Connie was doin’ her act” line was in reference to legendary groupie, Connie Hamzy. Rhyming Freddie King with “poker’s his thing” is autobiographically correct, as he would fleece the Grand Funksters of their cash with post-concert card games.
And then there is another reference to groupies with the “four young chiquitas in Omaha,” line. This is where the lyrics take a downward turn. I didn’t know the boys from Flint, Michigan wee so well-versed in Spanish. Our ‘chiquitas’ could speak fine English. “They said, come on dudes, let’s get it on.” And by them saying that, they proceeded to tear that hotel down.
I don’t know if the phrase, “Let’s Get It On,” will ever provoke me to tear a hotel down, but when Marvin Gaye sang it as the number one hit of the week, my radio hit peak volume. That simple opening guitar riff followed by Marvin pleading, “I’ve been really tryin’ baby / tryin’ to hold back this feeling for so long.” The voice is not restrained but you can feel his body tightening up. He needs to get it on.
And it just may be an earth shattering experience that could make the walls tumble in a hotel room, but Marvin reminds us that:
We’re all sensitive people with so much to give
Understanding sugar
Since we got to be, let’s live, I love you
There’s nothing wrong with me loving you, baby no no
And giving yourself to me could never be wrong
If the love is true, oh baby ooh
Who wouldn’t fall for that? But it’s not a game with Marvin in this song. It’s honest. This ain’t groupie love. This ain’t people driven to insanity because they’d been jilted. The fruit is not forbidden here, like it is in “Brother Louie.” It is just ripening! And Marvin says he’s not going to push her into it, but he wants to “stop beatin’ around the bush.” Interpret that anyway you want to, but I think he wants to dive right into that bush. It is one of the greatest double entendres in pop music history.
And when this all comes together, he is not the “consecrated boy,” or the “consummated man” that Paul Simon sang about. Marvin says he feels “sanctified.” And he sings, “Girl, you give me such good feelings, somethin’ like summertime.”
This song cannot be ruined for me. They can play it on the radio fifty times a day. Jack Black can sing it in a movie. Shannon Lawson can cut a bluegrass version of it. But Marvin’s version is the only one that matters and no other artist can touch it and make it feel like Marvin did. Plus, it was a number one hit. A song worth playing over and over again, but yet it was so deeply sensual. It’s not pop art. It’s art without any modifiers. It’s always worth turning up.
I’m pretty sure Tony Orlando’s ‘yellow ribbon’ guy was a soldier returning from Vietnam, and not a guy coming home from prison. Or did the media just turn it into that? I distinctly remember hearing that story.
Lines such as, “I’m coming home, I’ve done my time.” And “I’m really still in prison but my love she holds the key” could be interpreted both ways. I took the more literal translation.
After doing a little research on the yellow ribbon, I found at
:http://www.buzzle.com/articles/history-of-the-yellow-ribbon-why-to-tie-a-yellow-ribbon.html
This:
It was the main theme of the popular song “Tie a Yellow Ribbon ‘Round the Ole Oak Tree”, Written by Irwin Levine and L. Russell Brown and recorded by Tony Orlando and Dawn among many others, as the assurance a released convict requested from his wife or lover, to indicate that she still wanted him and that he would therefore be welcome to return home. He would be able to see it from the bus driving by their house, and would stay on the bus if the yellow ribbon were not there.