Essential Albums: Marvin Gaye’s Here My Dear

The essential thing to read about this is not this, but probably the liner notes written for its re-release by Marvin Gaye’s biographer David Ritz in 1994, and the biography Ritz later wrote because of the album’s existence.

That will take you longer than this. So if you approach this without either that or this, you will dismiss this album as quickly as it was dismissed.

It fits in well with Nolan Dalla’s list because a lot of his choices have been misunderstood albums or overlooked albums. This album isn’t really widely misunderstood. If you actually listen to it, it may be very hard or easy to misunderstand, but it continues to be overlooked even if the amazing story behind it and its greatness continue to be related often.

It probably isn’t listened to because it has no song that you can put on and make love to someone with, but the entire album is instead a meditation about love.

Album’s like this would not even exist by black pop artists were it not for Marvin Gaye.

Berry Gordy ran Motown like the Ford assembly line that was in his city. He did not deny it. He bragged about it. He was interested in selling hit singles.

Had you bought a random Motown album in the ’60s you were wasting your money because it usually contained the two or three songs you already had as singles and a bunch of throwaways.

This was actually, the Isley Brothers’ first Motown album release.

Times were what they were, and that album cover had that picture on it for a reason. Gordy had plenty of artistic impulses, but he was a businessman and white kids had a lot more money than black kids.

This can all be endlessly debated. Legend or myth, a lot of Motown songs had beats to them that were so blatant that even whites could find the ability to dance to them, and I learned to dance (if I can dance at all) alone in my dorm room to early Marvin Gaye singles.

Stax definitely sounded blacker than Motown, but that doesn’t really mean on its face that anything by either is better or worse than anything else.

A ton of people will tell you that Florence Ballard was a better singer than Diana Ross. Maybe that was true, but you can’t rewrite history and throw away all of the Supremes songs that you love because you wish Ballard had sung lead on them instead of Ross. Well, you can, but I don’t see the point in it.

Do I hate that Isley Brothers’ cover? I have mixed feelings about it but look at a purist like Kurt Cobain, who in some ways killed himself because of his romantic notions of purity.

This was the original back cover to In Utero.

This was the Walmart cover.

Why did “I would rather die than sell out” Kurt Cobain allow that to happen?

Because as a kid Kurt Cobain could only buy his music from stores like Walmart and knew that a lot of the kids that cherished his music could only buy theirs at Walmart.

As for the content of the Isley Brother’s album, you definitely want that hit song that it’s named for, and there are other hit songs released by others, which were released by others because they were considered to have been done better by those that did release them, and a lot of junk.

Marvin Gaye changed all of that.

First, he recorded the definitive version of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” with Norman Whitfield. Whitfield thought it was a masterpiece and wanted it released as a single yesterday. Gordy didn’t want to release it at all.

Gladys Knight and the Pips had a huge hit with it. Whitfield still wanted Marvin’s version out as a single, but Gordy saw no point in doing that since it had already been a hit. Whitfield was forced to toss it on one of Gaye’s albums and pray.

Radio stations, somehow ignoring what they knew about Motown albums, started playing Gaye’s version so much that Gordy had to release it as a single as fast as he possibly could.

Then there is this.

This is perhaps the most important album ever recorded that needs to be listened to as an album.

The title track can stand on its own. The title track is universally loved. Berry Gordy hated it. Allegedly, he said it was “the worst thing he had ever heard in his life.”

It’s possible Gordy just didn’t like the song, but it’s almost undeniable that he didn’t want a record that political released.

It was Gordy’s company and he had final say on everything that was or was not released. Marvin knew that and essentially said, “Well, it IS up to you, but until it is released there will never be anything else by me to release.”

There are professional football players on the intro of that song, and Marvin would have been content to hang out with them until he could record for someone else even if that took a decade or two. Pretty heroic and without that happening, Stevie Wonder’s ’70s albums would be completely different.

Marvin Gaye was a really complicated man with a really complicated life. His father was very religious, very strict, and had a lot of sexual issues that he passed on to his son. He passed a lot of issues on to his son. He also passed on the last name Gay, which Marvin added an E to.

Marvin Gaye could do nearly anything musically. What he actually wanted to do was be a crooner like Frank Sinatra.

He had sung with many Doo-wop groups, but this was his first single as a solo artist. He pretty much never wanted to be an R&B singer.

The world did not want Marvin as a black Sinatra, they sort of accepted Nat King Cole as one, but that record flopped.

This wasn’t a passing phase. Marvin wanted this his entire life and this was recorded late in his life and not released until after his death.

You can debate how good he was at that type of music, but you can’t debate that it is what he wanted to sing.

In fact, Marvin Gaye, whose records I learned to dance to, hated nothing more than dancing onstage.

This is a song about a dance, with the intention to start a dance craze and you can see he has middling feelings at best about dancing to it.

I guess he gives it the old college try, but he’s clearly not trying to be James Brown, and he doesn’t seem anywhere near excited about “his dance” as the backup dancers and extras because he wasn’t. He hated every second of it.

Anyway, without the means to becoming the ultimate black Sinatra, Marvin Gaye played drums for a while at a Soul label possessing a Soul voice of unbelievable magnitude.

A lot of music from the 1950’s on had a simple formula to it, but nowhere was this formula more evident than in Soul music. Church + Sex.

This had a lot of implications for a lot of singers.

Jerry Lee Lewis not only thought, but knew that he was going to hell for doing it.

Little Richard stopped doing it when he decided he was going to hell for doing it.

Sam Cook, who also added an E to his name, went from gospel role model to villain just for singing something as benign as “You Send Me.”

For no one did it have bigger implications than for Marvin Gaye, because Marvin Gay Sr embodied everything uncomfortable about both church and sex.

Marvin Gaye lost his virginity at 17 to a prostitute while in the army and soon told the army he was mentally ill. He was honorably distarged and wasn’t lying like Jimi Hendrix was.

You may know that Prince had a God/Sex fixation, and he did. Compared to Marvin Gaye, Prince was a virgin who had never even heard or considered the birds and the bees and never knew there was a concept of anything pertaining to religion.

But Marvin had that voice and much to his dismay, probably almost every second of his life, whenever he used his voice in its most effective fashion people wanted to have sex to it.

This song from What’s Going On is perhaps the best, most mature, earliest recording about trying to save the environment I can find in the annals of man, but people in love or lust can still somehow play it in the background as they act that out.

Marvin Gaye started dated Anna Gordy, Berry’s sister at 20, in 1960. She was 37. They got married three years later. Was it a political move by Marvin or was he head over heels in love? Most likely both.

When they met Marvin had no hits. When they married Marvin had a couple of small hits.

At some point, Marvin Gaye was dubbed the “Prince of Motown.” I don’t know the first time he was called that, but realize that it may have had two meanings.

If it only had one, it was because Berry Gordy was the “King of Motown,” and Marvin Gaye would be the first to admit that he likely would have recorded nothing of note without that marriage both from its real love and its economic implications.

His first real hit was called “A Stubborn Kind of Fellow.” If you don’t want to read any books about Marvin Gaye, you don’t have to because that is his “autobiography” and it would fit for the rest of his life.

He was conflicted while he was writing it. It was already a compromise, and when Berry Gordy heard it, Marvin Gaye who rarely compromised, compromised more.

It’s an unbelievable record that I danced to alone maybe 150 times, and the guy singing it below has no idea how to feel about singing it or anything else in his life.

You have to leave this page to see it, but do so.

 

That’s four years after he recorded it and he still hasn’t made peace with it. Everyone else is dancing in some form. Marvin is mostly leaning against a rail and rolling his eyes, but there is still loads of passion surging forth.

Marvin and Anna’s marriage was tumultuous. It was full of love; full of violence from both side;, inspired and led to many great songs; and included the adoption of a boy who was given the name Marvin Gaye III, who was birthed by Anna’s 17-year-old niece. Anna was not capable of conceiving children.

So you have a very complicated marriage. The son has a ton of issues because his parents had a very complicated marriage, mostly because of the son’s very complicated father, and when he adopts a son he names him to maintain his father’s tradition.

In all ways, this life and marriage were destined to be rocky and perhaps doomed even if what came out of both was incredible music.

By 1973, Gaye had recorded tons of unbelievable music and been through all kinds of hell, some of it his doing some of it fate.

He’d battled with his brother in law for creative freedom. He’d had a rocky, intense marriage and perhaps lovers on the side.

He had lived through the post Martin Luther King and Viet Nam era in the city of Detroit where there was intense rioting over the death of Martin Luther King. The bloodiest worst race riot perhaps of all time happened in Detroit while King was still alive.

Marvin didn’t go to Viet Nam, but his brother did and the stories he came back with led to What’s Going On.

Marvin was often paired with female singers to sing duets this led to the best and worst part of Marvin Gaye’s very complex life.

In 1967, he was paired with Tammi Terrell, and they became the ultimate singing duet of all time.

There are people that will try to prove that their relationship was not platonic, but I haven’t found much good evidence to prove that.

However, if you watch that two minute and twenty-three second clip, there is no acting going on in either the singing or the performance, possibly for the first time in Marvin’s career.

Those two people probably never would have married or had sex, but they had endless love and respect for each other.

Marvin Gaye who hated performing on stage, suddenly would have been happy to perform on stage with her for the rest of his life.

Marvin Gaye who never had a healthy sexual relationship in his life would never hurt that woman in any way or let anyone else hurt her. He would take every bullet in the world before he let that happened.

That idyll did not even last for a year. Tammi Terrell collapsed on stage performing with Marvin in October of 1967 and Marvin rushed over and helped her offstage. She was soon diagnosed with a cancerous brain tumor and was dead by 1970 at 24.

Right before she died she went to see Marvin perform at the famed Apollo Theater. Marvin either knew she was in the audience or saw her in the audience and left the stage and sang with her one last time.

It was probably her final happy moment in the short time she had left.

It was probably Marvin’s final truly happy moment, and he had 14 more turbulent years to live.

Tammi Terrell’s family hated Motown and no one from Motown was allowed at her funeral with one exception. Marvin Gaye gave the eulogy.

This was a guy with tons of scar tissue. Something made some of it heal, but it led to the biggest scar of all, and although he was a fighter he was never the same again.

Marvin Gaye and Anna separated in 1972 and attempts were made to save the marriage.

In 1973, Marvin who hated bumping and grinding recorded the greatest bumping and grinding album of all time Let’s Get It On.

He also met and started to fall in love with a 17-year-old girl named Janis Hunter. He was 17 years older than her, the same number of years that he was younger than his wife.

Marvin Gaye hated performing on stage except with Tammi Terrell. After she collapsed onstage, he was afraid to; rarely did; and was even more conflicted about it.

In 1974 he finally conceded to fan demand for a national tour, and on the opening night of that tour, this happened.

Not one of his better performances. Not in the studio or onstage, but it did mean that his marriage was over.

Anna Gordy could put up with a lot and did.

Anna Gordy had no reason to be threatened by Tammi Terrell.

Anna Gordy could not put up with that and of course, it was an announcement by Marvin that she shouldn’t try to and that there was nothing left to save.

Tumultuous marriages lead to tumultuous divorces  and even if there is nothing left to fight for, there continue to be fights.

The only thing that can be resolved can be resolved with money and often access to children are used as a weapon and are collateral damage for all involved.

I have no idea how the financial status of that marriage was set up, but Marvin Gaye was a tortured soul who mostly was in pain, had dabbled in drugs, and made music.

Anna Gordy was the sister of one of the best businessmen of all time.

I don’t know how financially set Anna was when their divorce was negotiated, but Marvin’s finances were a mess.

Pretty much all he had to his name was that just about anything he would release would sell a lot of records.

So in some form, after much ugliness, a deal was made to resolve the divorce with proceeds from Marvin’s next record.

There is an easy way out of that kind of a deal. Van Morrison did it, the Rolling Stones did it, and many others did it.

Record the shittiest album possible in as little time as it takes you to do so.

When Van Morrison did it, he recorded 31 random, incomprehensible songs that nothing could be gleaned from except his hostility at having to do so.

The Rolling Stones only had to record one song. but did so in the most offensive fashion that even they could conceive.

Marvin may have considered that for about 15 seconds, but that wasn’t Marvin Gaye.

Instead, he obsessively recorded a double album using every part of his voice he had ever used, discussing everything about his life: mostly love, sex, pride, infidelity, divorce, attorneys, and money.

It sounds like a brutal attack on Anna, but it is really 99% only an attack on himself and his life. On first listen, it will probably sound like only a brutal attack on Anna.

It starts out with what he started out with Doo-wop and falling in love. Then it covers everything in every voice he had. Most tracks have endless layers of Marvin’s different voices all sung by Marvin.

It even has room for an endlessly odd outer space funk jam that makes Jimi Hendrix’ and George Clinton’s work in that area look earthbound and straight-forward.

Here are the album tracks.

I. Here My Dear (2:48)

II. I Met A Little Girl (5:02)

III. When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You (6:16)

IV. Anger (4:03)

V. Is That Enough (7:46)

VI. Everybody Needs Love (5:46)

VII. Time To Get It Together (3:54)

VIII. Sparrow (6:11)

IX. Anna’s Song (5:54)

X. When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You (Instrumental) (6:03)

XI. A Funky Space Reincarnation (8:17)

XII. You Can Leave, But It’s Going To Cost You (5:30)

XIII. Falling In Love Again (4:39)

XIV. When Did You Stop Loving You, When Did I Stop Loving You [Reprise] (0:47)

Here are some sample lyrics:

All of track one, which explains all of what is to come.

I guess I’d have to say this album is
Dedicated to you
Although perhaps I may not be happy
This is what you want
So I conceded

I hope it makes you happy
There’s a lot of truth in it, babe
I don’t think I’ll have many regrets, baby
Things didn’t have to be the way they was, baby

You don’t have the right to use the son of mine
To keep me in line
One thing I can’t do without
Is the boy whom God gave to both of us

I’m so happy, oh, for the son of mine
So here it is, babe
I hope you enjoy, reminisce, be happy

Think about the kisses and the joy
But there were those other moments too
The times that were cloudy and grey
Bad

But you taught me that was life
May love ever protect you
May peace come into your life
Always think of me the way I was

Ha, I was your baby
This is what you wanted
Here, dear, here it is
Here, my dear, here it is

Some of track two:

Most of my life I had been all, all alone
And you’re so sweet to me, don’t think I’ll ever roam

And then one day as time will pass
I had this feeling that our love would last

Nothing could go wrong and it seemed everything I did
Seemed to please you; all the heartaches you hid

Then one night after we made it, and we were through
That’s when I decided I wanted to marry you

Parts of track three which is the album’s theme. Some ugly, some loving, most sad:

You know, when you say your marriage vows, they’re supposed to be for real
I mean, if you think back about what you really said about honor, loving and obeying till death do us part and all

But it shouldn’t be that way, it should, it should, it should be lies because it turns out to be lies
If you don’t honor what you said, you lie to God. The words should be changed

…

Ooh now as I recall, we tried a million times
Again and again and again, and that isn’t all
I gave my love to you each time to make amends
Suddenly I start to realize I can’t make it

…

Memories of the things we did; some we’re proud of, some we hid
So when two people have to part, sometimes it makes them stronger

Do you remember all of the bullshit, baby?
You say you love me with all your heart
If you ever loved me will all of your heart
You’d never take a million dollars to part

…

Pains of love, miles of tears, enough to last me for my lifetime
Broken hearts last for years, so break away to the new-day sunshine
One thing I can promise, friend; I’ll never be back again

But I’m not really bitter, babe
I wish you all the luck and all the love in the world

Good luck in the world
But I know you’ll never be satisfied
No, you still want me standin’ by your side

…

I’d rather remember, remember the joy we shared baby
I’d rather remember all the fun we had
All I ever really wanted was
To love you and treat you right
All we did was fuss and fight

…

When did you stop loving me?
When did I stop loving you?
When did you stop loving me?
When did I stop loving you?
When did you stop loving me?
When did I stop loving you?

Some of track four:

Anger destroys your soul
Rage, there’s no room for rage in there
There’s no room for rage in here
Line up some place to go to be mad

It’s a sin to treat your body bad
When anger really gets the best of us
We’ve really lost our heads
We often say a lot of things, oh darlin’

Wish we’d never said
Oh, reason is beyond control
And the things we do spite
Makes me ashamed

And I mean this, baby, makes me want to the things right
Someday soon I hope and pray like Jesus
I’ll reach that wiser age

Hope I will learn I really never never profit
From things I do in rage

Some of track five:

What could I do
The judge said she got to keep on living
The way she accustomed to
She trying to break a man
I don’t understand
Somebody tell me please, tell me please
Why do I have to pay attorney fees (My baby’s)
Attorney fees (Ooh baby)
This is a joke
I need a smoke

Some of track six:

See those flowers, they need love
See the bluebirds, they need love
See the babies, they need love
All God’s children, oh need love

See your mother, she needs love
And my father, he needs love
That’s true baby, and I need love too

Some of track nine “Anna’s Song” named because it was about her, and she would profit most from it, but nobody profited from it.

Oooh work so hard, see me make a dollar
(never worked so hard)
I know I should for my own good
“What’s it, husband, makes you so stubborn?”
And oh
Didn’t you notice the snow, starting to fall
Come let us sit a while, just listen
To the children laughing and running wild

Anna!
Anna!
Anna!

…

Hey Anna, here’s your song yeah
The one that I promise baby, promise you all along
I knew all the time that I’d find the rhyme
Never have a fear, here it is, my dear

It’s pretty senseless and unproductive to quote all that and edit some of it out. It actually is pretty sinful, because no other album ever needs to be heard as an album more than this one.

No lyrics need to be heard sung in the intricately complex, endlessly obsessive, and multiply voiced way these were sung with the music that was meant to accompany it more than these lyrics.

I only did so to show you how insanely complex and obsessive this album is and all the ranges of emotions it covers. He has love for his ex-wife, his son, even for his father, for himself, and everyone.

He has rage and anger at everyone but his son, but mostly for himself.

He knows how much people need love and wants everyone to have it.

He has little understanding or willingness to understand the divorce process.

He has blame for everyone, but mostly in context for himself.

I did so begging you to listen to the entire album as an entire album.

Even the album art was obsessed over. Look at the gatefold. You don’t even need the complex, long backstory to know what you are going to hear you just have to look at this.

 

As the album progresses, he tries to heal himself and everyone.

In the second to last song, he proclaims that he has found a new love and thinks he will be happier.

But the album ends with the refrain of the theme “When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You.”

During the album, he tells you who first called him stubborn and how that led to his first hit and his whole career. He’s still stubborn, and he’s still obsessed with his first love.

So he knew he would never be any happier. Things tragically got worse and worse.

His final hit song was called “Sexual Healing,” but he never healed sexually or otherwise.

There was tons of unproductive drug use.

You know that the infinitely complex relationship with his father led to the end of his life.

If you actually read about it, Marvin Gaye wasn’t really just shot by his father. He commited suicide via his father for he bought the gun and gave it to his father.

Here My Dear, whether by design or not, did not sell many copies and soon went out of print.

All of the sexiness of Marvin Gaye’s voice is in there, but no one, not even the two most lustful, attractive, and motivated people in the world can fuck to any of it.

It wasn’t heard much. It’s been written about more than it’s been heard.

It should be heard, because it is the greatest, most insane, infinitely complex, masterwork concept album ever recorded. I don’t see how it could be possible for anyone with any intent to come close to any of it.

Marvin and Anna still loved each other and got along to some extent after it was released until he died.

I know some heard it because this sounds exactly like almost every big hit ever recorded by Dr. Dre when he launched his career.

 

If you do listen to it one of three things will happen:

1. You won’t make it through the first four songs
2. You will listen to it once and only once, but if you give it a chance and really listen to all those different voices and emotions from that very complex, very scarred, very tragic loving man:
3. You will become as obsessed with it as its creator and listen to it obsessively as I have.