Marvin Gaye, "What's Going On" Lyric Analysis

The Vietnam War. A matter of life and death, lost love and gunfires. A giant moment in the 20th century. Motown artist, Marvin Gaye, decided to write this song in the 80s because his best friend, Tammi Terrell, had just died. i chose these lyrics because he sings about the Vietnam War and the controversy that went on during that era. This song relates to our society back when the song was written and now. It relates to our society in which we live because of the Iraq War. It relates to his era because of the Vietnam War. He thought that "war was not the answer".

First, I'll make a connection to the times it was written b y the words in the song. "Picket lines and Picket signs, Don't punish me with brutally". This was saying that there were picket signs of protesters protesting to stop the war. The signs probably said, "End the war, bring our soldiers home". This connects to us today with the Iraq war. Many are dying for our country...just for OIL! I think that people everywhere should try to stop the toughest war America has been in... next to WWII (World War Two).

Our Society wasn't so different from when this song was written. We still have wars and musicians stepping up against the war. We still have people protesting about war, some for war and some against it. A lot of soldiers are dying and like in the song, we still ask ourself's, "Why is this happening?". This part of the song relates to our society today. "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".

Marvin Gaye wrote this song because he did not like what was going on in the world. He was against the war. He wrote this song as his way of protesting about the war. "You know we got to find a way, to bring some love in here today!". These are some lyrics from the song that relate to him knowing what's going on with the war. Marvin Gaye became a famous singer but, his life was a so tragic one.

"What's Going On" really changed my perspectives of music. Now, I'm going to listen to the lyrics instead of just the beat because some of those lyrics could be very enlightening. I saw throughout this song that lyrics from the 80's and lyrics from this time period are sort of the same.