1971: The Second Explosion-Marvin Enters My Life

Over the years, I've had many watershed moments occur in my life. They signalled major shifts in my development in profound ways. When I look back on the many different moments, I can think of no one other occurance which hit me as profoundly as the one I'm about to describe to you now.
This was the second musical explosion. Of all of the musical moments I've ever gone through in my life, this is the one that hit me with the greatest impact.
It was cold at the time of year I first heard Marvin Gaye's new single in early 1971 called "What's Going On". The song really struck me as being very different. It also had an urgency and emotional depth that lured me in completely. The voices you hear at the beginning of the song are those of Lem Barney and Mel Farr of the Detroit Lions defensive backfield. They speak in the vernacular of the day and I identified with it right away. And then the saxophone kicks in before Marvin starts singing those opening lines. It was so incredibly dramatic to these young ears. I began to carry the song around with me to school over at St. Paul's in very heavy rotation in my head. Though other music was always in my head (even during this time), I really began obsessing over it. I didn't know it at the time, but I was unconsciously working out what the song really meant to me even though it was obvious. It's just that the moment of clarity hadn't quite come yet. I needn't have worried. It was coming.
I can still clearly visualize and feel the day it happened. I can still feel the moment of impact when it all came together for me.
It was during a morning recess at St. Paul's. I decided to head out to teh area of the schoolyard where the swings were. I guess I decided that I didn't need to communicate to anybody at that particular moment in time. It was damned cold outside and I was bundled up. As it turns out, the weather was appropriate to the song. I noticed that there was a swing open to me and that it was at a comfortable height for me to be able to just hop on and work things out while I was on it. When I got there, I had a choice of either sitting on it facing the school or looking out the other way. I chose to look out the other way. That way was in the direction of the Coburg Hills. It gave me an expansive view. This too was appropriate. I was about to undergo a revolutionary expansion of my mind.
So there I was. I was swinging on the swing and getting the desired height I wanted from the force of my going back and forth. The cool air was hitting my face. And then it happened. "What's Going On" popped into my head. When it did, I was listening to the song straight through as if I was at home on Fir Acres Drive on my radio. It was playing with ease in my head. All at once, as I was thinking of the song, I began to remember thinking about all of the times I had been watching the news with any interest (going back to 1968 on the old Lorane Ranch and on up to the then present day) and seeing all of the reports on the latest casualty figures coming from Vietnam. I was also having visions of the past and present film coverage of the war in the field. It completely fucking hit me at that moment with tremendous force that I did not like the fact that people were being killed. I did not like the fact that there was war. I also realized that this song was really important. This song was telling me that all music was important even if it wasn't about war. As a young child, I became my own little activist as I swung on that swing and looked out at the Coburg Hills. I began imagining that the Coburg Hills were the hot valleys of Vietnam and that there were people with guns killing each other while I was freezing in the cool weather.
What "What's Going On" did for me was encapsulate all of the music I ever heard before that moment and all that I would ever listen to in the future in state of forward progress in my thinking. My own personal evolution had just taken a tremendously great leap. From here on out, my connection was going to grow more personal and also more interconnected with what was going on around in the real world and with how human beings related to each other in so many different regards.
I have spent many years telling people about my love/hate relationship with Oregon and how I commonly refer to myself as a misplaced Californian in having lived here over the past little over 30 years. But I can honestly say that the greatest moment of an event having an impact on me happened right here in Eugene. It is the one I just described to you.
Marvin continued my expansion with the follow-up single that came out later in 1971. That was "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)". The Back To Earth movement was getting into major gear as the disillushionment of the '60s was setting in further within the collective consciousness of all of us living through the times. Marvin Gaye set a tone of seriousness that was on a different level than anybody else and it cut right through me so clearly with straight ahead vision.
Marvin Gaye and the "What's Going On" single changed my life. It also altered the course of my life as well. I carry it with me. For all of his troubles he had in his life, I carry this moment of impact as a tribute to him for getting it all rolling for me. "What's Going On" made the impact of what I had felt with George Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" in the Fall of 1970 on my way to Valley River Center seem so much more clearer to me. It even made me realize why "Hey Jude" from The Beatles hit me so hard. I understood now. My intuitive voice that doesn't always speak in words as we know it became much more developed as a result of "What's Going On". From here on out, my sense of sophistication with music was only going grow even deeper. I learned that music isn't background entertainment. It's a front and center, demanding of your full attention cultural barometer of what is happening in your life as you are living it.
It is here that I want to take a moment to urge all of you to please consider getting yourself a copy of the What's Going On album and listen to the whole thing yourself. It is a 5-star album. Every track on the album is strong and profound. It is an album that is universal to all of us. It is also unique to the Black experience as well. It is an album that should be a lesson to white people like myself to learn from. For those of you who have standard CD players, please go out and buy the 2-CD Deluxe Edition of What's Going On on Universal. You can hear the original album mix as well as the mix Marvin envisioned it having before it was changed to become what we would know as the album. You will also hear the original single mix of "What's Going On" that I heard before the album even came out. You will also hear an unreleased live performance from 1972 of Marvin performing the entire album. For the record, I never owned a copy of the full album until the early 1980's. The rest of the album would have hit me like a ton of bricks had I bought a copy and brought it home with me.
This is a landmark album which needs to be required as being in anybody's music collection. It radically altered the musical landscape for everybody-to say the least for Soul Music. That's the other thing. Listening and taking in these precious singles of Marvin Gaye fully legitimized that Soul Music was vital and definitely great music for me to be listening to as well as Rock and Roll.
For those of you fortunate enough to have Universal or SACD players, I encourage you to pick up another copy of What's Going On to supplement the 2-disc Deluxe Edition from Universal Music. I highly encourage you to get the Gold SACD hybrid of What's Going On from Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs. Though it is only a 2-channel mix, the SACD will bring out elements as only SACDS can. If you are capable of having both kinds of systems, I highly encourage you to get two of the copies I have mentioned. They can also be found at online retailers as well.
In closing this post for now. I just want to say that What's Going On as we know it came from a very troubled soul in Marvin. A late friend of mine who played in the NFL in the '50s and '60s discussed Marvin a few times. One of the teams he played for was the Detroit Lions. He used to hang out at some of the watering holes that a lot of Motown people used to go to to unwind. The word going around about Marvin back then was that Marvin was an incredible talent and that people were blown away by that talent. Unfortunately, they were also saying that he was a very disturbed man who had very deep moods. The story is well known among music fans, but Marvin once tried out for the Detroit Lions because he had an obsession with wanting to do it. That's how Lem Barney and Mel Farr became associated with Marvin. They became his friend while the Lions players were trying to get down to the serious business at hand of trying to prepare for another season. They had to do this while this great singer had it in his head that he wanted to be an NFL football player. My friend used to tell me that that people in the Lions organization thought the poor guy was a little nuts. But that was Marvin. Bless him for it. I can't imagine "What's Going On" without Lem and Mel being on the track.
For all of my friends and classmates in California that I wouldn't get to see again until the Fall of '72, the changed person you saw when I walked into the schoolyard across the street to start 5th Grade was so changed because of the event I have just described to you. If you want to know why I took to music as my identity and when you communicated with me, I point you straight to this moment. That's the one that did it for me.
To those people whom I know at this current moment in time, I say the same thing. Look to that moment on a cold day in 1971. That's the one. That's the epicenter of my personality.