All language subtitles for MARVIN GAYE - Life And Death Of MG (2005)

I've spent my whole life fighting.

First my family, then my record
company, then my two wives,

and my dear father.

The hardest fight
has been with my own demons.

That made me who I am.

...songs from pain

Some songs were done by chosen me

Some from men insane...

Tonight I am so proud to have
the greatest singer in the world

in the auditorium tonight.
It's Marvin Gaye!

Let the good times roll

Let the good times roll

Distant lover, baby

Distant lover

Oh, oh, baby...

I've known since childhood
I'd be in show business,

but not until much later
that I'd be an artist,

writing songs that are my life story

About relationships
and...separations.

Oh, baby

Honey, please

Come back

Ooh

Come back home, little darlin'...

When I was a child,
I used to have these dreams -

there was a sea of humanity
and I was performing for them.

I was singing for what seemed like
millions of people,

and towards the end of this dream,
which I dreamed often as a child,

I was acclaimed the greatest singer
on Earth.

I dreamed that constantly.

Father was a man of
"spare the rod, spoil the child".

And he never spared the rod.

He was very, very, very strict.

So we all were punished if we did
things that my father didn't like.

And I think one of the problems that
my father had with my brother was

that he didn't realise that Marvin
was a free spirit.

He doesn't like to be chained
or bound.

Father, stop

Criticising your son...

Sometimes, we would have to undress
down to our underwear,

cos he thought
the clothing got in the way.

My goodness, I knew my heart would
sink, cos I knew he was in trouble.

Father liked mind games.
He played with me.

He'd make me wait up to an hour
while he jangled that belt buckle

just loud enough.

There was something inside him

enjoying the pain he caused
the whole family.

Everybody wants somebody

To be their own piece of clay...

It was like the Oedipus story
transposed to Washington DC.

Only ours was a fight for the love
of my mother

between son and father.

Marvin's dad was the Gestapo. What we
would call him was

holier-than-thou disciplinarian.
You know what I mean by that?

He would always recite something
from the Bible.

One thing we used to remember,
he would always tell Marvin

he didn't know where he came from.

"I don't know where you came from,
boy! You're not mine!

"There's too much of the devil
in you."

So there's this whole
painful dynamic,

and I think as Marvin grew older,

when he was looking
for paternal love,

paternal attention, he would do it
through provocation.

I had learned from experience

that my fight to win love would
always be accompanied by pain.

The punishment and guilt that Father
inflicted on us was reflected

in our church,
where he was preacher.

A mix of Jewish Orthodox severity

and black Pentecostal joy.

HORN BLOWS

I understood that, in my life,

the pleasures of the devil were
going to give the joys of God.

Some mighty stiff competition.

THEY SING HYMN

He carried the extremes of his
childhood church,

the fundamentalist Pentecostal
attitude of all or nothing,

of doom or total ecstasy,
throughout his entire life.

Our father

Which art in Heaven

Hallowed be Thy name...

I think we have two sets of gods
in us,

and I think we have to decide which
we are going to serve.

It's simple as that.

Deliver us from evil

For Thine is the kingdom

And the power

And the glory

Forever...

The Lord's music in Marvin's mind
was at odds with the Devil's music.

The Devil's music was defined
by Marvin's dad.

Marvin went from the Lord's Prayer
to doo-wop.

Ba-ba-ba-ba

I knew from the start
That you were the only girl for me

And I knew from the start...

Doo-wop groups, with their sharp
clothes and their sharper harmonies,

always fascinated me,
but Father was convinced

that my joining the Moonglows
would be a terrible mistake.

And his voice telling me,
"No, no, no," haunted me.

My Mama Loochie

She's a brand new coochie

Ding-dong baby...

So I left home
with my mother's blessing

and hooked up with Harvey Fuqua,
leader of the Moonglows.

We worked the road for a year or so
and then moved towards Detroit.

Hey, yeah

She can dance

And she can sing...

Motown Records was unique
at that time.

A black-owned record company run
with a fist of iron

by its pugilistic boss Berry Gordy.

We didn't do music to preach
or to...

tell people what they should do.

We were really... Our focus
was on good music.

Naturally, we were in business and we
wanted to make everybody hear it.

Marvin's new Motown family

offered him a replacement father
figure in Berry Gordy.

Over the years,
they'd fight about everything.

Patience is a virtue
That's what I've been told...

But you must understand, at that
time, I was totally obscure

as an artist, and I hadn't even had
a single record or anything.

I was just a studio musician,
a session musician,

drummer and songwriter, trying to
hustle my way round Motown,

to get started.

We just thought of Motown being the
greatest place in the world to be.

It was the place,
if you wanted the opportunity

of accomplishing your dream,

reaching your goals, musically,

that Motown was the place to be.

And most of the people that came
to Berry Gordy at that time

has absolutely no clue

of what we were to do
and how we were to achieve it.

We were expecting Berry Gordy
to make us over,

to make us a star.

And Marvin knew how, in his music
and his moves and his actions,

with his eyes, with his hands,
with his body language, period.

Make you feel so good

Hitch hike

Hitch like Marvin

Hitch like Susan Woo!

Hitch like Marvin
Hitch like Susan...

It wasn't shaking my ass on stage
that made me a star,
that's for sure.

Motown never understood it was my
voice that people wanted to buy.

Hitch hike, baby
Yeah, it's all right

Bye-bye, baby...

Motown producers cut everything as
high as they could for anybody.

On all those records, I was just
discovering my voice,

and they were killing me with them,
and the keys were atrocious.

He would give us a lot of mouth,
a lot of lip

about, "You're cutting me
in these keys!

"I can't sing this stuff like this!"

Then he would sing and he would take
the demo and transform...

He'd start sliding into falsetto

and the parts that were too high,
he'd scream it out.

And he would subtly make
the song his own.

Ooh, baby

I needed the shelter

Of someone's arms

And there you were

I needed someone

To understand my ups and downs

And there you were

With sweet love and devotion

Deeply touching my emotions

I wanna stop Stop

And thank you, baby

I want to stop Stop

And thank you, baby

Yeah, now

How sweet it is to be loved
by you...

He gave you a spice of life
in his voice, that you heard.

You heard the pain and the anguish.

And the sweet and the love,
cos he would got from hot to cold

and meet lukewarm... You would get
all of these different feelings.

How sweet it is to be loved
by you

Ooh, baby

I needed the shelter
of someone's arms...

In terms of the black
record-buying public,

I think I broke through
rather early,

although I couldn't sell

near the volume of records
that my contemporaries could.

During the '60s,
there was a struggle

for black music acceptance
amongst whites.

Before Berry Gordy,

it was thought of as not
particularly chic

to have black record collections
in your homes, if you were white.

Motown has done a great deal to
alleviate that.

There was enough rhythm and blues
interjected into their music

for white record buyers to say,
"This is good black music,

"because we can recognise a bit of
ourselves in it."

Which I think is the secret
to many things in life -

if you're clever enough
and you want to reach people,

you have to try to give them
a taste of themselves.

You are my pride and joy

And I just love you

Love you, darlin'

Like a baby boy
loves his toy...

The lyrics of my songs are always
about what's happening in my life.

Right then, I was head over heels
in love with Anna Gordy,

the boss's sister.

She was 17 years older than I, but
I just wrote what I felt about her.

Pride and joy

I believe I'm no Baby boy

Baby boy Baby boy

And I know you're mine
My pride and joy

Yeah, baby

Yeah, baby...

Oh, he was always good looking

and he was always flirting around

and jostling with me.

And I don't really know, cos,
you know, I was kind of...

a hard-to-get person.

And everybody knew that, and...

I think they thought
he was the one to get after me.

I believe one of the reasons Marvin
was attracted to his wife

was because I think she reminded
him of his mother.

And then I'm sure the fact that
she was the sister of the president

of the record company
didn't hurt any either!

He knew that if he married the boss's
sister, that the boss would look

at him a little differently
and do more for him

than if he hadn't married his sister.

Cos I got to get my hands
on some loving...

Anna appreciated my every move.

When we were married, she knew what
she wanted, and got it.

But I also knew what I wanted,

never mind what other artists
thought.

We didn't say very much
because it was Berry Gordy's sister.

So we accepted it, we just thought
it was a shame it wasn't us.

All of us were jealous and resented
the fact that he married Anna.

They used to call Motown Records
"Patent Place".

There was always talk
about Marvin being gay.

"Look at his last name".
That's really ignorance.

I said, "Look in your phone book,

"you'll find lots of gay people
then!" That's stupidity.

People would be very cruel,
they'd say very unkind things.

And so, without the "E"...

..it would give people reason to say,

"Hm!"

So Marvin decided he would put
an "E" on his name.

And he did this
to silence the gossips

and to distance himself
from his father's name.

Marvin's father was the weird one.

When you're a kid, you sneak
and look in people's houses.

Marvin's dad had this thing where we
would see him putting on stockings,

garter belts,

you know, underwear.

We didn't understand why.

Father liked to wear
women's clothing.

It may have been
just to embarrass me

but there were times

his hair was long and curled

and he seemed determined

to show the world
the girl inside of himself.

Marvin seeing his dad, who on
one hand was a charismatic preacher

and on the other hand
was a cross-dresser

was a source of great confusion
for him.

It was something he felt
he inherited in his DNA

that he didn't want there.

So...a lot of what Marvin
did in later life,

in searching for a macho role, the
boxer, the athlete, was a reaction

to his dad's effeminate demeanour.

On the inside of Marvin...

lived...three people.

There was the spirit man Marvin

that was sensitive and kind

and spiritual.

There was the other Marvin

that was the star

and there was the Marvin

that WAS the Stubborn Kind Of Fellow

so you're going to have
confrontation.

And I'm not moving from here
until I get what I want.

Oooh

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I try to put my arms around you

All because I wanna hold you tight
To hold you tight

But every time I reach for you,
baby, and try to kiss you

You jump out of sight Out of sight

Hey now, I've got news for you

Don't you know
I've made plans for two

I guess I'm a stubborn
kind of fellow

Got my mind made up to love you

Oooh-ooh-ooh

Baby, yeah-yeah-yeah,
yeah-yeah-yeah

Hey-eh

Yeah!

Yeah-yeah-yeah, yeah-yeah-yeah

Whoo!

Marvin was a good storyteller so
you would imagine...what you wanted
to imagine, he would make you feel.

All of that came out
in the performance, in his voice,

he would adjust his tones

to fit whatever
we were talking about.

So everybody would get a sense
of, "I've been there, I can relate."

Marvin would do anything to...

..to captivate an audience.

And he would captivate us
in the studio the same way

because he was a music SELLER.

You sell yourself.

I was a bit spoiled,
I was a prima donna,

I was the president's brother-in-law

and I was rather ridiculous
about things.

I've always had a big ego problem.

And I was going anyway,
in my mind,

I was better than everybody,
anywhere.

I seemed to enjoy being able
to say, "I don't have to do that.

"You guys do that."

Most people think Marvin Gaye
was this great artist.

Ah, he could do that, do that.

He was a great artist -
in the studio.

When it came to the stage,
Marvin couldn't dance a lick.

Couldn't pat his foot on
the two and four.

He pat his foot...excuse me,
he pat his foot like a white boy.

He had, what I'd call,
performance anxiety in many areas.

And I think that came
from being insecure about himself

and his image.

Quiet nights and quiet stars

Quiet chords from my guitar

Floating on the silence
that surrounds us...

He had this thing in his head
about being more of a balladeer.

He wanted to follow in the footsteps

of the Frank Sinatras and the
Dean Martins and the Tony Bennetts.

I who was lost and lonely

Believing life was only

A bitter, tragic joke

Have found with you

The meaning of existence

Oh, my love...

The problem was nobody bought
my smooth crooner records.

Motown hated them.

We fought repeatedly
about my image.

But concealed behind that ego

and his heartthrob image,

Marvin was going through
all kinds of hell.

He had a very complicated
relationship to...

er...women,

particularly to Anna, his wife.

And his life was full of betrayal,

most of which was his own invention.

And you know,

Marvin even went as far
as going to motels

where he was convinced
Anna was having an affair

and he would show up at motels
in the middle of the night,

knocking on doors.

So he needed this kind of drama

to excite his creative imagination.

Oh, I heard it
through the grapevine

And I'm just about to lose my mind

Honey, honey, well...

Grapevine was my first
number one hit.

I believed every word of that song.

It was happening to me.

The doubting,
the friends whispering in my ear,

the suspicions.

People say believe
half of what you see

Son, and none of what you hear

But I can't help bein' confused

If it's true, please tell me, dear

Do you plan to let me go

For the other guy
you loved before?

Don't you know
I heard it through the grapevine

Not much longer would you be mine,
baby...

To help cement
his troubled marriage with Anna,

and also to tie him
to the family home,

they adopted a child
they called Marvin Pentz Gaye III

after Marvin's dad.

As big as my dad was,

he never played the big shot.

He always came in as the underdog.

He...times were very normal as far
as what normal is that I know of.

He wanted domestic happiness,

he wanted simple domestic happiness.

One woman, his children,
an uncomplicated home life.

But at the very same time,

he did all he could to undermine
that happiness.

In the years leading up
to Grapevine,

there'd been plenty of gossip about
what I was up to behind Anna's back.

Berry had paired me with some
pretty glamorous singing partners

for a series of duet albums.

First Mary Wells
and then Kim Weston.

He was a perfect gentleman,

first of all.

But he was very shy,

he was rather insecure.

And, er...when they say a ladies man,

they mean that the ladies
ran after him.

I think Marvin, on some level,
was scared of women.

He was scared of aggressive women
- he didn't like aggressive women.

The ones who never had a chance were
the ones who were most assertive.

After my first two partners
left Motown,

I was paired with Tammy Terrell.

Tammy was vulnerable
and misunderstood -

my perfect partner.

..or winter cold can stop me, baby

No, no, baby

Cos you are my goal

If you're ever in trouble,
I'll be there on the double

Just send for me Oh, baby

My love is alive

Way down in my heart

Although we are miles apart

If you ever need a helping hand

I'll be there on the double
just as fast as I can

BOTH: Don't you know that there
ain't no mountain high enough

Ain't no valley low enough

Ain't no river wide enough

To keep me from getting to you,
babe...

My singing partnerships at Motown
were all fragile affairs.

After Tammy collapsed in my arms

and later died of a brain tumour,
I had to stop.

Behind its glossy images,
I could see the bottom line

of what this business
was really about.

After Tammy died, Marvin didn't
perform for four years.

And the music they had created
together,

those wonderful hits,

and the image they had created
as a couple,

which was the image of innocence,

was all about to change.

SIRENS WAIL

The social turmoil,
the violence of those years,

was happening all around here.

Inside me too, where my own problems
were burning me up.

Meanwhile, on the other side
of the world,

my own family was fighting
and dying for Uncle Sam.

I think it was around 1969, 1970,

when I stopped thinking so much

about my erotic fantasies

and I started to...

think about the war in Vietnam
with my brother

who used to tell me...

he'd respond with some pretty
horrible stories about the war.

I became quite affected by it.

What's going on? What's going on?

What's going on? What's going on?
Yeah, what's going on?

Frankie told me

that he used to sit up night
after night with Marvin

and they'd go back and forth
discussing

all the horrors in Vietnam
and how unnecessary the war was

and all the innocent people
being hurt

and how sad it was.

And the two of them
used to sit there and cry.

Hang in there, baby

Mother, mother

Thank you

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

Oh, baby

Father, father

We don't need to escalate, oh baby

War is not the answer

Only love can conquer hate

You know we've got
to find a way...

There was a great deal of unrest
in there...but in any event,

it caused me to look at society,
take a hard look at society,

and something happened with me
during that period

and I felt a strong urge to write
music and to write lyrics

that would touch the souls of men.

Oh, what's going on?
What's going on?

What's going on? What's going on?

Yeah, what's going on?

What's Going On was my masterpiece,

made with the help of God
and the recording studio.

That was the one place

I knew I could control
the forces of chaos around me.

At last I felt free to make things
happen the way I wanted.

Right on, right on,
ay-ay-ay-ay-ay...

Marvin was in total control
of his production - dictator.

Everything was dictated.
He would dictate to the musicians,

dictated to me,
dictated to the singers.

Whatever he wanted to do,
he was total control, total control.

And he knew what he wanted, cos
it was not a typical Motown sound.

It was not typical love songs
that Motown were putting out.

It was an album about what man
is doing to the ecology,
what man is doing to himself.

Oh, make me wanna holler
And throw up both my hands

Yeah, it make me wanna holler

And throw up both my hands Ow!

Crime is increasing

Trigger-happy policing

Panic is spreading

God knows where we're heading

Oh, dah-dah, dah-dah, dah-dah

Dah-dah, dah, dah-dah

Dah, dah-dah, dah-dah

Dah-dah, dah, dah-dah...

He wanted to do something
talking about police brutality,

the Vietnam War, um,
all the things that, um...

that were bad in our society.

And I was just very scared that
he was going to ruin his image.

And many times it sort of spilled
over into personal disagreements

and in some cases some violent,
semi-violent disagreements,

between Berry and myself,
politically speaking.

It should have been my moment
of artistic triumph

but Berry's supporters
in the Motown marketing meetings
ridiculed What's Going On.

They trashed it,
they threw it in the garbage can.

Said it wasn't no good,
it wasn't nothin'.

You know? Because they didn't have
anything like it to compare with it.

Obviously, I learned a great deal
because the album
was What's Going On,

probably the greatest piece of work
that Motown has ever put out.

Father, father
Father, father

We don't need to escalate
Father, father

Oh, baby
War is not the answer

Only love can conquer hate...

When he calls out "Father, father",

Marvin is really calling on God
AND his earthly father for support.

Father Gaye should have been proud

but the man was eaten up with envy.

For Marvin's album, in truth,
was a much better sermon

than his father ever preached,
and certainly a more rewarding one.

Marvin brought home an attache case

with a million dollars in it.

And when he threw it
on the bed and said,
"What do you think now, Father?"

Um, he says,

"I still say,
what does it profit a man to gain
the whole world and lose his soul?"

No matter where Marvin was,

no matter what stage of his life
or his career,

he continued to be haunted
by his dad,

he continued to hear
his father's voice ask him,

"Why are you doing this? Why aren't
you preaching? Where's your church?

"Why are you singing
the wrong kind of music?"

As long as I know you have
a humble mind and as long
as you know there's a God upstairs

and you can call on him,
and respect the people,
I think you are a wonderful person.

I needed space
from both my father's warnings

and from Berry Gordy, the surrogate
father of my Motown family.

It was time to strike out.

Marvin loved combat.

He didn't know how to go
from one stage in his life

to another without combat.

So that, rather than leave Motown

with good understanding
and goodwill and peacefully,

he had to fight his way
out of the company, in his own mind.

I put distance between us
when I uprooted to the brighter
skies of Los Angeles.

I was still under contract
to Motown but I was free now
to record whatever I wanted.

I wrote a soundtrack for a movie
and called it Troubled Man.

MUSIC: "Troubled Man" by Marvin Gaye

APPLAUSE

Now Marvin made the biggest
turnaround any artist ever made.

From anthems of political protest

to ballads about love,

physical love.

I've been really tryin', baby

Tryin' to hold back this feeling
so long

And if you feel like I feel, baby

Then come on, oh, come on, ooh

And let's get it on
CHEERS

Oh, baby, let's get it on

Let's love, baby

Let's get it on, oh, sugar

Let's get it on

Hoo, hoo-oo...

I'd left behind all the constraints
of Motown and my marriage.

My new life was a roller coaster
ride of parties, drugs

and one-night stands.

Until I met a 17-year-old
called Janice Hunter.

We met in 1973 in Hollywood.

And...something magical happened

when we...when our eyes met.

And it sounds a little corny but
it was really, for me, it was love
at first sight.

And he told me later that it was
love at first sight for him too.

I just want to show you
all my love

All my love, all of the love

I feel for you, baby, oh...

I remember the first time
he drove me home,

the first time he kissed me.

And we were standing
at the bottom of my stairs

and he took my face in his hands...

..and I thought he was going
to kiss me on the lips,
and he kissed me on my forehead

and it was one of the sweetest kisses
I've ever had.

And that was really the beginning
of our relationship.

You know I love you, baby

You know I love you so much

Oh, that's much better baby...

Let's Get It On,
it was straight-up sexual.

It was about sexual freedom,
it was about his sexual freedom,

it was about what he felt about
men and women and being physical

and he was not afraid
to express any of it.

Turn the music lower, babe

Uh, turn the lights down low,
baby

Turn the lights down

Oh, don't go nowhere, girl
Don't go nowhere...

We found a hideaway
from the glare of publicity
way up in Topanga Canyon.

Never mind I was still wedded to
Anna and the nightmares of the past.

For me, love carries the seeds
of its own destruction.

I needed a mother's love
to help me through.

So I bought her a gated mansion

and father moved there too.

Marvin loved his mother so much
because she was there to defend him

in just about everything,

and to encourage him
in just about everything

Any problem, no matter what it was,

he would tell her.

And she in turn
would give him answers.

She became his confidante

and his spiritual guru.

But even mother couldn't protect me
from the temptations of the road.

Ironically, the huge success
of Let's Get It On

meant all the old commercial
pressures which I thought
I had escaped now reappeared.

I was back on tour.

..Yeah, OK.

Just give him some water.
He wants water.

Plain, out of the tap?

They wanted me to jump back
out there and shake my booty
just like a teenager all over again.

I just wanted to be alone with Jan.

Touring always tears at my gut.

I do enough drugs in ordinary life
but on the road, quantities triple.

..Instead of chemicalised tap water,
which you can drink...

And then I have to act
like every woman's lost lover

so she'll go out and buy three
more copies of my latest record.

Are you serious? Is this me?

Save our sweet world

Help, somebody

Save the world, save the world
Save the babies, save the kids

Save the children, yeah...

What kept me going was having
children of my own with Janice,

something Anna
was never able to give me.

They were more important to me
than money and so-called success.

I wanted to give them the love
I never had from my father.

He did have family values,

as distorted as they may have been

and as dysfunctional as his own
family was as he was growing up,

he did his best

to create his own family,
to have his children around him,

to have a wife, to have a home.

And for us it wasn't
an easy thing to do

because we were both heavily addicted
to drugs and alcohol

and it's very difficult
to base a marriage...

relationship...or anything else

when you have that as a major issue
on both sides.

I want you

But I want you to want me too...

My next album, I Want You,
was my way of telling Janice

I wanted her as my wife,

both of us needing
the stability of marriage.

..Yes, baby, ooh

Get down, baby

Ooh, I want you...

This record represented more
Marvin's love,

first for Janice,

and I think he was probably
more happier in this album

than probably any album he ever did
because this album from top to bottom

was excessively sensual.

VOCAL HARMONIES TRACK PLAYS

He's doing background and a lead.

And the background is four to five
different harmony parts.

And that's what you're hearing.

Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh

Hoo, ah-ah

I want you...

I think the irony about Marvin
is that the inner turmoil he had

between the spirit and the flesh,

that turmoil found perfect peace
in his art.

..Just like I want you...

So that the different voices
in his head -

one whispering, "Love God",
the other whispering,
"Get everything you can" -

these warring voices
which tore him up,

he was able to harmonise,
literally harmonise,

in his art.

..A one-way love is just a fantasy

Oh, sugar

To share is precious,
pure and fair

Ooh
Don't play with something...

One thing that actually blew me away,
if I can use that phrase,

is one afternoon and Marvin's singing
his ass off, but I don't see Marvin.

I looked out of the control room
and there was Marvin

extremely relaxed,
totally on his back,

and he was singing...

I've never seen an artist sing...
Sung like he's standing up.

He's singing his ass off.

It's just too bad, just too sad

You-ou don't want me now

But I'll get along some way

Baby, some, somehow, baby...

Marvin was able to communicate

what people were experiencing
in their own lives,

through his voice.

Certain notes he would hit
had a sound

which meant it was
coming from his gut,

coming from his heart, from his soul.

You can actually hear it.

..Don't you wanna care?

Ain't it lonely out there?

I want you, want you, baby

But I want you
I want you to want me too...

He would use his voice
to elevate whatever it is
he's talkin' and singin' about

and lower his voice to let people
know, "Hey, this is comin'
from my gut, from my soul."

And then he will soothe it out
and you say, "Ah, this is melody,
I think I'm feelin' good now."

He fought back through his music.

He fought back through his voice.

I was also using my music, my songs,
to fight my old wars with Anna.

I'd been waiting to divorce
both her and Motown for 14 years

and now the moment had arrived
and all I felt was pain.

..makes you so stubborn...

The courts ordered Marvin Gaye
that all of the moneys that was
to be made off of his next album

was to go to Anna
because of their divorce.

So he did an album called
Here My Dear that sold about six.

Laughing and running wild

Anna

Anna

An-naaa!

Yeah

Now this is Anna's song

Hey baby

Hey baby...

I felt trapped.

Though legally free now
to marry Jan,

our relationship was
already turning rotten

because of all the skeletons
in my closet.

Marvin's relationship with Anna
always intimidated me.

And...being that young,
I really didn't know what to do.

I still believe he loved Anna

and that was a great source of
jealousy for me.

At the end of the '70s you have this
amazing situation where, you know,

marriage number two
had fallen apart.

The acrimony deepens, uh,
he owes the IRS millions,

he's out of money entirely.

He leaves the United States,

he goes to Hawaii where he lives
in a bread van.

Marvin continues to feud with wife
number two

so the...the pattern continues of
going from romantic hope

to romantic despair.

In spite of the fact that I had
boyfriends, he had girlfriends,

we had other relationships outside
of our marriage,

I believe it's impossible to have
a healthy relationship

when you have two sick people
involved in it.

The more I loved Jan,
the more I hated her.

I just want to be left alone

to blow my brains away
with high-octane coke.

If he's really an artist...

he has these fits of depression
that he can't seem to shake

because if he's really concerned
and...

if he can really see then he feels.
Just like a sponge, he picks up...

and he retains it and the only way
you can get these feelings off

is to put it in your music.

Oh, please

Come back home

Whoa-ooh-oh, baby

Oh!

Oh, baby!

Please

Oh!

Oooh, come back home

Oh!

Yeah!

I still did the occasional show just
to keep body and soul together.

And it was while I was holed up
in Hawaii

that a promoter from England,
Jeffrey Kruger, arrived

and offered to take me there.

I flew over to see Marvin

and we had to track him down
through drug dealers.

Which we did.

And he was a shock to me
when I saw him again.

He'd lost a lot of weight,
told me he hadn't eaten,

hadn't even washed,
which was so unlike Marvin
cos he was a very sharp character.

Kruger helped to clean me up
by taking me on tour to England.

And the highlight of that tour
was to be a command performance
for Princess Margaret.

Little did I know
it would never take place

and he'd be the one to sabotage it
but I should have known.

It was a wonderful evening,
except there was no Marvin!

The Princess left about 10.30.

I was leaving about 10.40, there
was nobody left in the audience,

and Mr Marvin Gaye rolls up,

unsteady, and sat at the piano

and wanted to know what time
the show was gonna start.

I said, "There's the cleaner.
You can sing to her. We're going."

And that's exactly what happened.

Huh!

The headlines in every paper
that I can think of

was that
Marvin Gaye Snubs Royal Family.

TRAIN HOOTS

I was down and out,
at my lowest ebb,

and I met boxing promoter
Freddy.

And he took me to dry out in the
fresh sea air of Ostend, Belgium.

Of all places!

Marvin sees Freddy
as a boxing trainer,

as the guy who's going to get him
into shape again.

And it's here in Belgium that Marvin
begins to plan his comeback.

My next fight's going to be my wife.

15 round...elimination bout.

For all the property.

I was fighting back at last.

I get to Ostend, Belgium,
we're working on Marvin's biography,

I go up to his apartment

and there on the coffee table are
lots of books of S&M pornography.

Marvin was still struggling
with the devil,

still struggling with his demons.

I said, "Marvin, what you need
is sexual healing.

"Not sexual pain."

And he says, "What does that mean?"

and I said, "The love of one woman
who would love you for being you."

And he said, "I LOVE that idea.

"Write a poem." And I wrote a poem
and he wrote a melody.

Get up, get up, get up, get up.

'And sexual healing was born.'

Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up

Oh, baby,
now let's get down tonight

Oooh

Ba-a-by

I'm hot just like an oven

I need some lovin'

Yeah, ba-a-by

I can't hold it much longer

It's getting stronger and stronger

And when I get that feelin'

I want sexual healing

Sexual...healing

Oh, baby

Makes me feel so fine

Helps to relieve my mind

Sexual...healing, baby,
is good for me

Sexual...healing is something
that's good for me

Whenever blue teardrops
are falling...

Sexual Healing was a massive hit,
my knockout punch

for all those who doubted
my ability to make a comeback.

There is something...

CBS had finally bought me out of
my Motown contract.

I flew home to Los Angeles where
my mother and father were waiting.

I was inundated with honours. In 22
years I made 26 albums and 40 hits.

I went back on tour.

I needed the love of my fans,
and a pay cheque, too.

..Darling,
that's sexual healing.

It was a crazy tour during which
he had a preacher in one room

and his cocaine dealer
in the other room

so the sort of metaphor became
the literal condition of his life.

God in one room,
the devil in the next.

The war continued and continued.

Whoo!

Sexual

Oh, sexy...

Marvin was convinced
he HAD to give his public

more and more of his
raw sexuality so...

so you have him making something
of a spectacle of himself.

Ow! Sexual...

The last tour was a very sad tour

because Marvin had got
really paranoid.

He thought that
somebody was after him to kill him.

We would argue, either about money,
the children, drugs,

who I was seeing,
who he was seeing...

It was just...
It was a constant battle with
interference from everyone around us.

Janice would not
let the children near him.

And that just broke his heart.
Absolutely destroyed him.

Absolutely destroyed him.

DISTANT CHEERS OF CROWD, MUSIC FADES

He returned home to his mom and dad

and I think the reason is
he was scared.

He became a child again
and in his mind he was convinced

that he would be safe from harm
in his mother's home.

And, of course, the terrible irony
of it all is

that is where he would meet
his death.

Oh mother mother

There's too many
of you crying...

Marvin wanted to see her

because I think he needed to feel
he was loved.

I went over to the big house and I
said, "Marvin, why are you crying?"

He said, "Cos nobody loves me."

Marvin had really deteriorated

to the point where he... At one time
he wasn't putting on any clothes.

Uh, except, just, uh, walking around
with his bathrobe on

with a loaded .38 revolver in his,
in his pocket.

Uh, just in the house,
pretty much paranoid.

'There was a strange cold...

'It's hard to describe the coldness.
It was like...weird.'

Marvin! Woo-hoo!

The girls would be in the garden,
screaming, "Marvin! Let me in!"

And they would come night and day.

They had no respect for Marvin's
father or his mother.

So I think it was things like that,

that father really felt that
he was losing control of his home.

It was like...the devil, almost,
inside of him.

Marvin was beating his old man.
He was beating Pops up.

Something he'd always wanted to do.

And Father kept the gun that Marvin
bought for him.

Under his pillow.

I definitely believe
that Marvin's death

was a way of him
basically committing suicide

because he gave his father the gun,

and, basically,
went and provoked his father

to the point that he shot
and killed him.

TWO GUNSHOTS

And so this lifetime of vitriol

and endless antagonism,

which began in violence,
ended in violence.

The ultimate act of revenge.

As I look back at my defeats
and my problems

and all of the things that I can
sink into depression about,

I can also look back and I can think
of all the blessings I've had.

And my blessings actually
outweigh all of the negative things
that have...

that have occurred in my life

and it's that fact that probably
makes me happiest of all.

I know somebody up there loves me.

Mm, there are songs from wisdom
Doo-be-doo Be-doo-be-doo

There are songs from Satan

There are songs from lovin'
Yeah

And there are songs from hatin'

There are songs from lust

And there are songs from pain

Some songs were done by chosen men

Some from men insane

Groove, baby

Groove on the light

One time

Groove, baby

On the right

Ooh, dance, baby

To the light

This time

Dance, sugar...

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