It's like a sequel to "What's Going On". Similar musical ideas, done in a subtler manner. It's more meditative, forces you to really listen to it. Both, the vocal and the sax solo sections are as good as it gets. Then there's that heavenly Mellotron...

Its ending always clutches me in the gut. It's so dissonant to the rest of the song, and I can't help but get a feeling of sheer pessimism/depair from it. That fits with the lyrics, of course, but damn does it leave an impact.

Oh. Ok. I thought I was going to have to get violent.

Yeah, I thought people would see the title of the thread and be like "Oh no, now you've gone too far!", click, click, click...

But if I managed to point out how similar the track is to the title track from the album I'm fine with that. It might be that this track was written as simply a variation on the title track. I was trying to figure out how to play both of those songs on keyboards and realized they're really just variations of each other.

That was a nice one, nova.

But yeah, Mercy Mercy Me is a great track.

A great song and an undeniable classic.

...but "What's Going On" is better.

AlexdeParis said:

A great song and an undeniable classic.

...but "What's Going On" is better.

Gotta say, the intro is

Inner City blues though is the height of the album.

Gunsnhalen said:

Inner City blues though is the height of the album.

YESSSSSS!!!!!!!

Gunsnhalen said:

Inner City blues though is the height of the album.

I always called Inner City Blues the centerpiece of the entire album. You can actually put yourself around some city seeing all the activity as the song was relating... you see the police brutality, the person struggling to deal with taxes after taxes after taxes, people going off to war overseas and in the streets, people getting robbed, SWAT teams breaking down the doors, going to someone's funeral after they got killed, all of that. It was riveting and scary at the same time. Even chilly is that 43 years on, the same mess is going on...and will continue until we finally find a way out of the "inner city blues". We're all living it in a way. Makes you wanna holler, don't it?

Timmy84 said:

Gunsnhalen said:

Inner City blues though is the height of the album.

I always called Inner City Blues the centerpiece of the entire album. You can actually put yourself around some city seeing all the activity as the song was relating... you see the police brutality, the person struggling to deal with taxes after taxes after taxes, people going off to war overseas and in the streets, people getting robbed, SWAT teams breaking down the doors, going to someone's funeral after they got killed, all of that. It was riveting and scary at the same time. Even chilly is that 43 years on, the same mess is going on...and will continue until we finally find a way out of the "inner city blues". We're all living it in a way. Makes you wanna holler, don't it?

There will probably never be another musical, social commentator like Mr Gaye. Him and Stevland Morris...

JoeyC said:

Timmy84 said:

I always called Inner City Blues the centerpiece of the entire album. You can actually put yourself around some city seeing all the activity as the song was relating... you see the police brutality, the person struggling to deal with taxes after taxes after taxes, people going off to war overseas and in the streets, people getting robbed, SWAT teams breaking down the doors, going to someone's funeral after they got killed, all of that. It was riveting and scary at the same time. Even chilly is that 43 years on, the same mess is going on...and will continue until we finally find a way out of the "inner city blues". We're all living it in a way. Makes you wanna holler, don't it?

There will probably never be another musical, social commentator like Mr Gaye. Him and Stevland Morris...

You can say that again.

Oh, poop, I thought this would be about 4 Non Blondes

ginusher said:

Its ending always clutches me in the gut. It's so dissonant to the rest of the song, and I can't help but get a feeling of sheer pessimism/depair from it. That fits with the lyrics, of course, but damn does it leave an impact.

It was not until recently that I even noticed the ending (I never listened to the album in full and is used to the radio version) , and it gave me the chills for a bit.

Gunsnhalen said:

Inner City blues though is the height of the album.

YES!!!! Love the whole album of "What's Going On" but "Inner City Blues" is the ultimate masterpiece song...from the intro, to the "ba-bada-baaaa", to the end.

Timmy84 said:

Gunsnhalen said:

Inner City blues though is the height of the album.

I always called Inner City Blues the centerpiece of the entire album. You can actually put yourself around some city seeing all the activity as the song was relating... you see the police brutality, the person struggling to deal with taxes after taxes after taxes, people going off to war overseas and in the streets, people getting robbed, SWAT teams breaking down the doors, going to someone's funeral after they got killed, all of that. It was riveting and scary at the same time. Even chilly is that 43 years on, the same mess is going on...and will continue until we finally find a way out of the "inner city blues". We're all living it in a way. Makes you wanna holler, don't it?

PREACH Pastor Timmy, PREACH!

[Edited 1/28/14 9:30am]

Love this live version of "What's Going On":

missfee said:

Timmy84 said:

I always called Inner City Blues the centerpiece of the entire album. You can actually put yourself around some city seeing all the activity as the song was relating... you see the police brutality, the person struggling to deal with taxes after taxes after taxes, people going off to war overseas and in the streets, people getting robbed, SWAT teams breaking down the doors, going to someone's funeral after they got killed, all of that. It was riveting and scary at the same time. Even chilly is that 43 years on, the same mess is going on...and will continue until we finally find a way out of the "inner city blues". We're all living it in a way. Makes you wanna holler, don't it?

PREACH Pastor Timmy, PREACH!

[Edited 1/28/14 9:30am]

Thanks Missfee.

[Edited 1/28/14 11:20am]

I do like it, and its a great song, but Whats goin on is longer and has more depth to it. Still Marvin's vocals and the top notch playing by the Funk Brothers pushes this one up. I am not sure if its a Norman Whitfield producation, but it sounds like him and it works.

That whole album is great, but I would put Lets Get It on and I want you up there too. The quality is so fresh, its hard to believe its Motown as by the mid 70s their music was becoming cliched and cookie cutter and just could not keep up with all the funk and disco of the time.

I mean 70s Motown, who do you really ahve thats killing, Stevie, Marvin and to a lesser degree Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5, Diana Ross had some great songs, but was drowning in her own ego and the other artists were treading water with the occasional moment of genius (Quiet Storm comes to mind, that thing is just mind blowing - Smokey reinvented himself there), I mean you know a song is not only a classic and groundbreaking when a whole sub genre of smooth R and B is named after it.

THen in the late 70s we get the Commodores and Rick James, but yeah Marvin's 70s albums along with Stevie's are the most memorable 70's Motown artefacts.

[Edited 1/28/14 13:22pm]

As Motown was being dominated by its most creative artists (Stevie and Marvin first and foremost) breaking new ground, the assembly line Sound of Young America gave way to the Sound of Philadelphia. '60s icons like the Four Tops and the Temptations were overshadowed by the O'Jays and (ironically) the Spinners. The J5 was the last gasp of that Motown era and it's telling they covered a Delfonics song on each of their first 3 albums and later jumped to Gamble & Huff's camp at PIR.

AlexdeParis said:

As Motown was being dominated by its most creative artists (Stevie and Marvin first and foremost) breaking new ground, the assembly line Sound of Young America gave way to the Sound of Philadelphia. '60s icons like the Four Tops and the Temptations were overshadowed by the O'Jays and (ironically) the Spinners. The J5 was the last gasp of that Motown era and it's telling they covered a Delfonics song on each of their first 3 albums and later jumped to Gamble & Huff's camp at PIR.

Totally and later in the 70s, you had disco and the Chic Organisation giving everyone a run for their money. With the J5, it did take them to the third album (Destiny) for things to move forward. The first two were pretty much flops and did as bad as all the Motown albums from Skywriter onwards (Only Dancing machine was a hit in this period, and that track appears on 1973's GIT and 1974's Dancing Machine, typical Motown milking something to death).

But there was a bright spot with the Commodores who had hits into the 80s, and then Lionel Richies solo career which pretty much saved Motown in early 80s along with Stevie Wonder's well received material up to 1985's In Square circle. And you could say De Barge in the 80s too, but by this stage, Motown had become a tacky a reissuing label with new greatest hit compilations popping out daily.

Its about trends too.

Motown to me peaked around 1967, just as Holland Dozier Holland left to set up Invictus (Apparently a pay and creativity dispute with Gordy), and Norman Whitfield arrived. Motown's first huge year was 1964 and it pretty much dominated Black pop music until 1972, so What's going On comes in right at the end of its strong period.

1973/74 is also a strong period, but a lot of the big hits then, change from soul, funk and message soul to bedroom sex epics, like Keep on Truckin, Do it do it baby etc and as good as this mid 70s sex is, its merely imitating Barry White and the Philadelphia Productions. Before 1972, Motown had pretty much led the way. Notice back in 1966, nearly every black pop song and even white ones by the Yardbirds and Spencer Davis Group sounded like a Motown one. 1973 was the year it went all wrong, Record Companies got tired of protest,awareness and consciousness songs along with bubblegum and message soul and decided they wanted sex on wax, seriously by 1975 you would not get a contract unless your music was about fucking or had a pounding disco beat to it. True funk got roasted.

Sexual music had a lot of great albums like Lets get it on, but also a lot of cliched rubbish, even Barry White had become a bad parody of himself. A lot of black people saw this as a racist ethos as it promoted music about the stereotypes of blacks as over promiscuous and especially since BW was grossly obese and looked nothing like the sex symbol he was in the music. You can compare this to the over reliance of shit hoppers being signed for an album f nihilistic garbage and then being dumped today.

Philly International peaked about 1974 and 1975 and despite its lush symphonic sounds had pretty much become dated by late 1976, but generally early disco to 1976/77 has a symphonic edge to it and a lot of this comes from the Philly sound. Philly was a good label as the music was diverse (Message soul like Backstabbers/Sex on wax and true dance song along with a great Black Diva sound like "Dirty Old man" and the theme of "I am going to wash that man right out of my hair" songs - gay boys like me love it.

But eventually, Marvin, Motown and Philadelphia International had to roll over for that beast called disco and by 1977, all were making it. Got to Give it up, has a catchy and funky disco beat and lyrics about dancing and party scream disco themes. Also new labels dominate like Solar (Shalamar, Skyy etc), RSO (Bee Gees) and Casablanca (Donna Summer). But better groups who played instruments came through too, like Earth Wind and Fire and Kool and the Gang, both had been around before "Whats goin on", but only broke through to the mainstream in the 1973/75 period with disco themed songs.

However all the majors signed trendy acts through the 70s, and fortunately Warner Brothers signed an original sounding artist in 1977 and he would make a lot of impact in the 80s, with a new sparse, dance floor ethic.

AlexdeParis said:

As Motown was being dominated by its most creative artists (Stevie and Marvin first and foremost) breaking new ground, the assembly line Sound of Young America gave way to the Sound of Philadelphia. '60s icons like the Four Tops and the Temptations were overshadowed by the O'Jays and (ironically) the Spinners. The J5 was the last gasp of that Motown era and it's telling they covered a Delfonics song on each of their first 3 albums and later jumped to Gamble & Huff's camp at PIR.

He didn't really crossover, but Willie Hutch was kinda popular. I heard him all the time. The Four Tops were on ABC Records in the 1970s, That's where they had hits like Catfish and Ain't No Woman. Jerry Butler was on Motown in the mid 1970s. Motown attempted to get into country music with TG Shepherd. They signed a few older acts like Pat Boone & Sammy Davis Jr, but I don't think they really promoted them.

Adorecream said:

I do like it, and its a great song, but Whats goin on is longer and has more depth to it. Still Marvin's vocals and the top notch playing by the Funk Brothers pushes this one up. I am not sure if its a Norman Whitfield producation, but it sounds like him and it works.

I agree. I like Mercy Mercy a lot, but it always felt like a post script to What's Goin On. It's a similar song, but What's Goin On feels like it expresses a similar sentiment with more power. I like the lyrics a lot more to What's Goin On, and the music builds better.

But Mercy Mercy Me is a classic in its own right