‘Inner City Blues’: Marvin Gaye’s greatest protest song
If you ever questioned the everlasting genius of Marvin Gaye‘s work, play his What’s Going On album and focus on the lyrics. Better yet, put your headphones on and take a walk through your nearest city and listen, for they are a worryingly sharp depiction of the world we live in today.
Released in 1971, it was a record that showcased Gaye as a masterful commentator and compositional craftsman who extended far beyond the label of a sultry soul singer. Pulling upon jazz sensibilities, psychedelic interludes and conventional rhythm and blues, it flourished with experimentation while remaining firmly rooted in one sonic idea. It had all the elements to give it the appropriate concept album qualifications that allowed Gaye free reign to deliver 35 minutes of non-stop social commentary.
The record’s A-side is undoubtedly compelling and has its listeners’ rapt attention, who are treated to more of Gaye’s masterful melodies when the title track bleeds into ‘What’s Happening Brother’ and ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’. But Gaye is less preoccupied with flexing his sonic muscles through compositional segues and overly cleaver tone shifts; instead, they’re performed subtly and with restraint so that his soaring vocals and desperately empathetic lyrics have the necessary space to flourish.
It’s a concept that crystallises in the record’s closing track ‘Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)’. While he addresses direct concerns of police brutality and picket line hopelessness in earlier tracks, ‘Inner City Blues’ gives Gaye space to exhale his despair in a more primal fashion. Quips about inflation and war are sparingly stabbed at in between soulful ad-libs that leave you simultaneously tapping your feet and wiping your eyes.
It was a sonic representation of the very real paradoxes that existed in 1970s America and ones Gaye himself experienced. “We laughed about putting lyrics in about high taxes,” co-writer James Nyx Jr recalled, “’cause both of us owed a lot. And we talked about how the government would send guys to the moon, but not help folks in the ghetto.”
In one verse, he is ‘throwing up both his hands’, while in the next, he freely sings triplet da’s to turn a simple gesture of submission into willful freedom, raising his hands not to beg but to escape. For the entirety of the record, and up until this track has made its point, the social landscape of the 1970s is dire, and he provides the diagnostics. The only way to prevail is to move on to the soft percussion of ‘Inner City Blues’ and collectively join in the harmonising of his achingly painful lyrics.
Ultimately, Gaye didn’t need ‘Inner City Blues’ to prove the effortlessness of his vocal ability, but boy, does it show it. It’s the sonic equivalent of Usain Bolt breaking a 100m world on a diet of chicken nuggets while his competitors are bursting at the seams to eke out an extra yard of pace. Gaye’s breath never trembles as he executes a flawless vocal take, riding the melody in the first act, soaring above it in the second before slowly fluttering down to earth in the third.
It’s a perfect song on a near-flawless album and remains an apt protest anthem over half a century later. While our recklessness as a species largely contributes to the piece’s everlasting impact, I will forever refuse to underplay the role Gaye’s genius played in bringing our attention to a burning world.
With social despair staring you in the face from every angle, it would have been relatively easy to write a scattergun protest song that crams in critical quips at every beat of the kick drum. Instead, Gaye fired up flares of compassionate callouts that burn brighter with each passing day.
