What is whats going on by marvin gaye about

The next song follows one of those young men home to a nation grappling with an unemployment rate of 6 percent. Watch on. InMarvin Gaye was Motown’s top male vocal star, yet he was frustrated by the assembly. The call and response communicates a sense of shared concern, shared struggle, and shared redemption — an ethos Gaye took from the gospel tradition that informs his musicality.

The first Earth Day, April 22,focused attention on the emerging U. Meanwhile, anti-war activists protested the draft, escalating violence, and the sight of body bags returning from Vietnam. [3] It is the opening track of Gaye's studio album of the same name.

The result is a painfully beautiful protest album from first track to last. The Real Dreamgirls. Lyrics grapple with the effects of the war on families and the lives of young men sent overseas. The album remained on the charts for 58 weeks.

As a scholar of race and culture in the U. The release commemorated the Walk to Freedoma Detroit mass march from earlier that summer, and featured a speech by Martin Luther King Jr. But the world had changed by The freedom struggle had taken a more radical turn with the emergence of the Black Power movement, the Chicano Movement, the Young Lords and the American Indian Movement.

Learn the meaning behind the lyrics in "What's Going On" by Marvin Gaye, a song about peace, protest, and the pain of a divided world. Remarkably crafted in just 10 days, “What’s Going On. " What's Going On " is a song by the American singer-songwriter Marvin Gaye, released on January 21,on the Motown subsidiary Tamla.

Here is the real meaning behind it. Get the latest History stories in your inbox. In the heart ofthe airwaves were graced by the profound melodies of what many regard as Marvin Gaye’s crowning achievement. What’s Going On is an exquisite plea for peace on Earth, sung by a man at the height of crisis.

Marvin Gaye's powerful protest song "What's Going On" is cemented in music history. The album also marked a turning point for Motown and for Marvin Gaye as an artist. The U. Meanwhile, Black Power-driven messages started to emanate from the soul and gospel music distributed by the Stax label in Memphis and a host of other musicians who offered searing critiques of U.

Alongside this political shift came internal pressure in Motown to give artists more agency over their own output.