Marvin Gaye: What's Happening Brother

“Brother, brother, brother. There’s far too many of you dying.”— Marvin Gaye

The Original Cover of What's Going On

You know, I can admit that I am young. Far more juvenile than juvenile can account for. Be that as it may, the consequence of love, the consequence of song, has bred a sense akin to knowledge but far more softer. The likes of love, song and dance have shaped in me what we might have regarded as inscrutable — what I am desperately endeavouring to convey, as carefully as I might ever be able to, is that I sat down one Sunday and heard Marvin Gaye sing.

How lucky I might be to address, an ear lent, that Marvin sings the same melody your soul promises to whisper to your pain. Your heartbreak, your confusion, your terror, your frustration — your torture. Marvin moulds a sort of truth that tends to be forgotten once we open our eyes for the second time and the world is not as bright as before.

Marvin holds our fists shut closed after purging the utmost degree of aspiration unto our palm. Marvin sings a tale of the impossible and makes it feel — makes me feel — parallel to a reality that is not distant anymore. Marvin gazes into the empty lens of torture, smiles and all of a sudden — for a moment far longer than what my dreams oathed — torture erodes. Torture is eroded.

I can assert, with almost no doubt, that you are stood here today and a great deal of that stance is owed to music. What this might translate to, to each dreamer — or at least just the two of us — is that a new world is coming soon, and a great deal of its stature is owed to Marvin Gaye.

The raspiness of his assurance teaches his listeners that unabashed demonstrations of love are what is sure to set us free.

"Talk to me, so you can see what’s going on."

My shame was impeached. I mean eventually, my shame was impeached. But before that allowance was granted to me, I was asked “What’s going on?” and all I vividly recall are my lips running dry and my being folding into itself. I mean, I witness it, every day almost, but I find that there is nothing to report. Nothing to say.

At this point, I am hoping you can imagine why I, for some time, sat in my shame for longer than I stood up to it. I was being asked what is going on & there was nothing that I could implore enough to offer anyone a response that was telling of the times. There aren’t any terms, there is almost nothing to sum up the agony. The pain. The drought.

Marvin is not accusatory in his tone. Marvin is not confrontational. Marvin is simply asking his brother, his mother — Marvin is asking us, his family, what is going on. Am I not so suddenly moved, transported, from the shame when I come to realise that I am not being condemned? No, I am being looked after. The same way my beloved might ask how my day, how my life has been. Love is being extended to me and by this sense, war has been intercepted.

I clicked play and was transported from my shame. Marvin was kind enough to love me, shamelessly, softly and wholly. The consequence of such was sight. I saw what love might do for me, what love might do for humanity. How love is my saviour, my compass, my stature and my sight. Love is my truth. And all I did was click play. All I did was fall in love & now I see. I see that I might be brave enough. I am brave enough to have faith.

“Only love can conquer hate.”

I sat down one Sunday and now I have faith enough to say that emancipation through love is humanity’s fate.

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Edited by Daniela Roux

Photos courtesy of Marvin Gaye