God knows where we're heading

Marvin Gaye - 'Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)' - (What's Going on - 1971)

Here’s one of those album closers released as a single, the third¹ and final one from Marvin Gaye’s most acclaimed album, What’s Going On, in late 1971. It would be Gaye’s third R&B #1 from the album. The single had a music video showing what was happening in the inner cities, poverty and depression, but it didn’t see the light of day until 1994.

'Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)' was written by Gaye and James Nyx Jr. Like that video, it fixates on the negative economic position that many American cities were seeing at the start of the 1970s.

In 1998, Nyx Jr. recalled;

Marvin had a good tune, sort of blues-like, but didn't have any words for it. We started putting some stuff in there about how rough things were around town. We laughed about putting lyrics in about high taxes, '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. But we still didn't have a name or a good idea of the song. Then, I was home reading the paper one morning, and saw a headline that said something about the 'inner city' of Detroit. And I said, 'Damn, that's it. 'Inner City Blues'.

The backing track is moodier and displays a funkier DNA that doesn’t jump out on other songs on the album because the tone is lighter and more positive elsewhere. ‘Inner City Blues’ is darker and doesn’t send the listener’s spirit away with a spring in their step. This funkiness was delivered but the Funk Brothers themselves, including Bob Babbitt on bass and Eddie Brown.

As soon as the lyrics start, we have Gaye questioning why the US Government has spent so much money on “Rockets, moon shots” - namely the Apollo programme and Apollo 11 in 1969. Suppose you were living in an inner city in the US at the time and saw so much public money leaving the Earth’s atmosphere when you were suffering at home. You could understand the disenfranchisement, especially when taxes took a lot away from lower-income households to pay for the space programme.

So there you have Marvin Gaye, lamenting the poverty, treatment from the police, inflation, taxes and unemployment 50 years ago, and it sounds contemporary even almost 40 years after Gaye’s death. In Steve Turner’s Trouble Man: The Life and Death of Marvin Gaye says

Gaye added the line “makes me wanna holler” which Nyx considers to be the best thing he did with the song because it said everything in just a few words.

Sometimes, after the pressure builds and builds, hollering is the only thing we have left that we feel we can control.

To add to the woes that feel like they’ve been mirrored in the early 2020s, you also had the more contemporary issues such as The Vietnam War - which of course, saw thousands of Vietnamese civilians killed and many young men sent over from the USA for what many people would view as superficial causes. One of those young men was Marvin’s brother, Frankie, who served in the armed forces. You can also imagine that joining the army was an option open to many disadvantaged youth lacking opportunities.

As the song comes to a close, the full version of the song on the album becomes a reprise of the title track, which as the opener, allows the album to come full circle and tie back to the start of the record.

The song has also seen cover versions by the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, The Impressions and A Tribe Called Quest - thankfully it hasn’t been tackled like ‘What’s Goin’ On’ was by All Star Tribute in 2001.

1. The title track and ‘Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)’ are the other two.