The Marvin Gaye Lyric that Vented His Frustration at the Priorities of the Powers that Be

Some artists are content to hum along on the same wavelength for the entirety of their careers once they’ve found a formula for success, and there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Then there are those who take chances and veer away from the tried-and-true because their artistic sensibilities insist that they do so.

Marvin Gaye fit the latter category. Instead of sticking with the smooth love songs of his early career, Gaye dared to speak out about the injustice he perceived on the album What’s Going On. From that album, “Inner City Blues” fearlessly laid bare the way urban communities were being neglected by the powers that be of the era.

Changing Times and a Changing Artist

Marvin Gaye was the epitome of the tortured artist, someone who struggled with his personal demons but somehow culled together an incredible recording career. Perhaps the restlessness inside of him spurred him in his musical growth. While that’s all speculative, there’s no doubt Gaye made a 180-degree turn of sorts when he created the 1971 album What’s Going On.

Frustrated by what he perceived to be a lack of substance in the songs that had made him a star, and inspired—along with others in his inner creative circle like Obie Benson and James Nyx Jr.—by the turbulent times, Gaye’s decision to tackle social ills in a song cycle devoid of the typical sweet songs of old put him at odds with Motown head (and his brother-in-law at the time) Berry Gordy. Gaye went for it anyway, and made a masterpiece.

While some of What’s Going On gently pleads its case, “Inner City Blues” is far more forceful in calling out the destruction of urban communities and those within it. Nyx detailed the song’s origins in a Detroit Free Press interview:

“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 really 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.’”

Behind the Lyrics of “Inner City Blues”

Gaye and Nyx didn’t soft-shoe their views with “Inner City Blues,” instead putting one of their most incendiary ideas in the song’s first lines at a time when much of America was enthralled with the Space Race: Rockets, moon shots / Spend it on the have nots. By beginning the song that way, they established a baseline of fearlessness and integrity the rest of the song sustains.

From there, Gaye sings about a litany of societal constructs that hit the poorest the hardest. Inflation no chance, he sings. He makes the point that one injustice leads to another by bringing his concerns about the Vietnam War to the fore: Bills pile up sky high / Send that boy off to die.

Gaye then steps away from the specific ills to get inside the character of the narrator, showing how all these calamities conspire and pile up: Hang-ups, let downs / Bad breaks, set backs. This is a crucial part of “Inner City Blues” because much of its impact comes from showing how the macro conditions impact the life of a single person. This ain’t livin’, he laments.

He later goes on to talk of trigger-happy policing, yet another blight that burdens this character and the people around him, As the song nears its close, the narrator can’t even imagine what might come next: Panic is spreading / God knows where we’re heading.

Make me want to holler / And throw up both my hands, he moans in the refrains. On “Inner City Blue,” Marvin Gaye does let out a kind of figurative cry for help, all while his and Nyx’s lyrics articulate so well the reason such assistance is needed.

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Photo by Angela Deane-Drummond/Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images