When Marvin Gaye was working on his 13th album, Let’s Get It On, his marriage to Motown Records founder and producer Berry Gordy’s sister Anna was already on the rocks, and his more erotically charged songs were inspired by his future wife Janis Hunter. Produced and co-written by late producer Ed Townsend, Let’s Get It On was Gaye’s musical dispatch of sex, romance, and some of the more spiritual intricacies in between.
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Commemorating the 50th anniversary of Let’s Get It On, is a Deluxe Edition release of the album, out Aug 25, the day before its original release in 1973. The Let’s Get It On: Deluxe Edition features 33 bonus tracks, including 18 previously unreleased songs, including instrumentals and other extra recordings pulled from Gaye’s multiple sessions.
Originally recorded during six months of sessions in Los Angeles in ’73, Let’s Get It On came together during a particularly tumultuous time in Gaye’s life, while he was at a crossroads in his career, a crumbling marriage, and in the midst of his drug addiction.
“I’d just come out of rehab, where I’d beaten a monstrous addiction to alcohol,” said Townsend. “I was looking to move ahead with my life, to ‘get it on.’ Marvin grasped this completely. But he didn’t stop learning the lyrics. He bypassed superficiality, questioning where you were coming from when you composed the song.”
Townsend added, “He couldn’t just sing it; he had to connect with it as deeply as he’d written it himself. I witnessed the pain he was going through in his life. I was also blessed to witness the joy of an artist fully engaging with his work.”
“Let’s Get It On” shot to No. 1 on the pop and R&B charts and remained at the top of the Soul Albums chart for 11 weeks, while the album went to No. 2 on the Billboard Top LPs chart. The album kept its momentum with its second single “Distant Lover,” along with tracks “Come Get To This” and the closing ballad “Just To Keep You Satisfied,” and was later inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2004.
In honor of the 50th anniversary of Let’s Get It On, the Grammy Museum in Los Angeles will also hold a special event on Aug. 23 featuring Smokey Robinson, Marvin Gaye biographer David Ritz, and producer Jimmy Jam.
[RELATED: 4 Songs You Didn’t Know Marvin Gaye Wrote for Other Artists)]
“The paradox is this: The sexiest of Marvin Gaye’s work is also his most spiritual, said Ritz, who co-wrote Gaye’s 1982 classic “Sexual Healing” and also penned the 1985 biography Divided Soul: The Life of Marvin Gaye, on the album. “That’s the paradox of Marvin himself. In his struggle to wed body and soul, in his exploration of sexual passion, he expresses the most human of hunger—the hunger for God.”
Ritz continued, “In those songs of loss and lament—the sense of separation is heartbreaking. On one level, the separation is between man and woman. On a deeper level, the separation is between man and God.”
Let’s Get It On: Deluxe Edition Track Listing:
Original Album
1. “Let’s Get It On”
2. “Please Stay (Once You Go Away)”
3. “If I Should Die Tonight”
4. “Keep Gettin’ It On”
5. “Come Get To This”
6. “Distant Lover”
7. “You Sure Love To Ball”
8. “Just To Keep You Satisfied”
Single Edits
9. “Let’s Get It On” (single version) *
10. “You Sure Love To Ball” (single version) *
11. “If I Should Die Tonight” (original LP edit) *
Album Bonus Tracks
12. “Let’s Get It On” (demo) **
13. “Let’s Get It On – Pt. II” (a.k.a. Keep Gettin’ It On) **
14. “I Knew One Day My Day Would Come” (instrumental)
15. “Interlude #1”
16. “Please Stay (Once You Go Away)” – alternate mix 1 **
17. “Lovely Lady” (instrumental)
18. “If I Should Die Tonight” (demo) **
19. “I Don’t Have To Get High To Do It” (instrumental)
20. “Come Get To This” (alternate mix 1) **
21. “Distant Lover” (alternate mix 1) **
22. “You Sure Love To Ball” -(alternate mix 1 w/alternate vocal) **
23. “Just To Keep You Satisfied” (alternate mix w/alternate vocal) **
24. “Interlude #2”
25. “If I Should Die Tonight” (SaLaAM ReMi’s Piano Mix)
26. “Just To Keep You Satisfied” (John Morales’s Stripped Mix)
* Previously released
** Previously released bonus songs with fresh mixes
All other tracks are previously unreleased
Photo: Rob Verhorst/Redferns
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