What's Going On? Marvin Gaye 40 Years Ago

What's going on? Trauma is what I heard through the grapevine

The 60's and early 70's were an age of poetry, frequently sung. Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On,' which came out forty years ago, is a prime example expressing the age.

I was born in 1950, so the 60's were my teen years, mostly. I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis. When a paint factory in Oakland blew up in early 1963, I thought it was a nuclear explosion. JFK was shot later that year.  The cities blew up when Dr. King was murdered, then RFK. Members of my family went to Vietnam. It was absolutely terrifying, even when I had moved from Oakland to a little burb in San Diego County called Chula Vista. So cut us Baby Boomers a break. Our formative years were freaky times. I will say it ticks me off when folks talk about 'the summer of love,' and Woodstock representing my generation. I was not one of the rich East Coast kids zoned out on drugs, or up in the Haight. We lived reality. We studied, worked our way through college, worried about the country. And this music describes our reality.

  What's Going On

Brother, brother, brother

Mother, too many of you crying

Mother, mother
There's too many of you crying
Brother, brother, brother
There's far too many of you dying
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today 

We don't need to escalate.

Father, father
We don't need to escalate

Anti-war demonstration, Kent State 

Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that

You see, war is not the               answer       
For only love can conquer hate
You know we've got to find a way
To bring some lovin' here today


Picket lines and picket signs
Don't punish me with brutality
Talk to me, so you can see

San Francisco 1968--the real San Francisco

Oh, what's going on

What's going on
Ya, what's going on
Ah, what's going on

In the mean time
Right on, baby
Right on
Right on

Father, father, everybody thinks we're wrong
Oh, but who are they to judge us
Simply because our hair is long
Oh, you know we've got to find a way
To bring some understanding here today
                                                                                      

MzTeachuh 1969 CVHS

                                  Picket lines and picket signs
                                  Don't punish me with brutality
                                  Talk to me
                                  So you can see
                                  What's going on
                                  Ya, what's going on
                                   Tell me what's going on
                                   I'll tell you what's going on 
                                   Right on baby
                                   Right on baby

Interesting read.

I don't pretend to know the answers to these difficult questions. But I do know this is great poetry and music.

These topics deserve more attention:

Vietnam War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,_Jr.

Anti-War demonstrations http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/vietnam/antiwar.html

Kent State shootings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_State_shootings

NPR's article about Marvin Gaye  http://www.npr.org/2011/05/21/136459286/marvin-gayes-whats-going-on-songs-we-love

And now for the remarkable music:

Marvin Gaye - What's Going On 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-kA3UtBj4M&feature=related 

We're still figuring out what's going on...