Got to Give It Up

Throughout 1976, Marvin Gaye's popularity was still at a high in America and abroad, but the singer struggled throughout the year due to pending lawsuits from former bandmates. Divorce court proceedings between Gaye and first wife Anna Gordy had put a strain on him. Financial difficulties almost led to imprisonment for the singer when Gordy accused him of failing to pay child support payments for their only child, son Marvin Pentz Gaye III.

To relieve Gaye from his debt, his European concert promoter Jeffrey Kruger booked the singer on a lengthy European tour. Gaye began the tour in the United Kingdom where he had a strong fan base dating back to his early career in the 1960s, making his first stop in the country since 1964. His performances there were given rave reviews. One of the shows, filmed at London's Palladium, was recorded for a live album, later released as Live at the London Palladium, in the spring of 1977. Around the same time, Gaye's label Motown tried to get the artist to record in disco music, the current sound of the times. Gaye criticized the music, claiming it lacked substance and vowed against recording in the genre. His label mate Diana Ross had recorded "Love Hangover", her first disco song. The song's producer Hal Davis debated over giving that song to either Ross or Gaye. After working over the song, he went with Ross, and it became her fourth solo number one hit. Motown struggled to get Gaye in the studio as Gaye focused on work on an album (which later was released as Here, My Dear, dedicated to Gaye's troubled first marriage). After months of holding off from recording anything resembling disco, the singer set upon writing a song parodying a disco setting.

The first recording session for "Got to Give It Up", originally titled "Dancing Lady", was on December 13, 1976. Influenced by Johnnie Taylor's hit "Disco Lady", Gaye was inspired to create his answer song to Taylor's hit. To help set up a "disco" atmosphere, Gaye hired Motown producer and engineer Art Stewart to oversee the song's production. Gaye and Stewart brought in several musicians and Gaye's friends, his brother Frankie, and girlfriend Janis Hunter to Marvin's Room, Gaye's recording studio complex. From December 14 to 17, 1976, Gaye performed the lead vocal track, instrumentation (which included Gaye, Fernando Harkness, Johnny McGhee, Frankie Beverly and Bugsy Wilcox and Funk Brother member Jack Ashford) and background vocals. In the song, Gaye added background vocals from his brother and his girlfriend. During the second half of the song, the song introduces vocal layered doo-wop styled scatting from Gaye and produced a funk-influenced vamp. Fernando Harkness performs a tenor saxophone solo in the second half of the song.

Gaye recorded his vocals on the first date of sessions, adding instrumentation on the following day, and then adding other effects in the latter two days, mixing it by January 1977. Influenced by the vocal chatter on his previous hit "What's Going On", Gaye decided to create a party scene outside the recording studio where different voices are heard either greeting each other or partying. Gaye is heard on the track greeting people and laughing while mingling in with the crowd. During the bridge, Gaye is heard yelling "Say Don! Hey man, I didn't know you was in here!" The "Don" later was confirmed as Soul Train host Don Cornelius, who was one of Gaye's close friends. Gaye overlapped the party sounds over and over, making a loop. In the second half of the song, Gaye sings mainly the initial title, "dancing lady" over and over while a saxophone is playing a solo. All the background vocals on the second part of the song were from Gaye. He also played percussion, bass keyboards and RMI synthesisers in the final fade of the song. In the second half, he can be heard playing on a glass bottle halfway filled with grapefruit juice.[1] L.T.D. guitarist Johnny McGhee added guitar. McGhee and Frankie Beverly were the only non-bandmates featured on the song playing instruments. Beverly also added assorted percussion.

After the start of the song, which includes vocal chatter, the song kicks off with a standard drum beat: kick, snare and hi-hat, and synthesizers are heard soon afterward. After nearly a minute, Gaye's vocals appear in a falsetto, which he sings in for most of the song. In the second half, after harmonizing in falsetto, Gaye's tenor vocals take over.

The song's story focuses on a man who is a wallflower when he comes into a nightclub nervous to perform on the dance floor. But after a minute of this, the music takes over and his body starts to lose any inhibitions. Midway, he finally cuts loose before shouting the chant "non-stop express, party y'all; feel no distress, I'm at my best — let's dance, let's shout, gettin' funky what it's all about!" proving the power of the dance can overtake any shyness. The dance is focused on Gaye and a suitable female partner he seeks. In the second half, a funkier jazz arrangement is helped in guitar, bass and a tambourine. After this, he continues chanting until the song fades.

The record was released in March 1977 and eventually topped the U.S. Billboard charts. The song held the number one position on the US Billboard Hot 100 for one week, from June 18 to 25, 1977. It replaced "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac, and was replaced by "Gonna Fly Now" by Bill Conti. On the R&B singles charts, it held the number one spot for five weeks from April 30 until June 17, 1977 (being interrupted twice at the number one position for one week by "Whodunit" by Tavares for the week of May 21, 1977 and Stevie Wonder's "Sir Duke" for the week of May 28, 1977 respectively).[2] On the disco charts, the single was a number one hit.[3] Billboard ranked it as the No. 20 song of 1977.

It reached number one on the dance charts in May. The single also found success outside the United States reaching number seven on the UK Singles Chart, his biggest charted hit as a solo artist since his version of "Abraham, Martin & John" had peaked at number nine on the chart in 1970. Previously, Gaye had modest success with two singles: "Save the Children" (released as a double-A side with Gaye's 1966 recording "Little Darling (I Need You)") in 1971 and "Let's Get It On" in 1973 (which peaked at number 31 on the UK chart). The single also found modest success in some countries, peaking at number 24 on the Dutch singles chart and number 31 on the New Zealand charts. The single's success helped its parent album Live at the London Palladium find substantial success on the Billboard 200, where it stayed at the top 10 for several weeks. Sales of the album eventually reached two million.

Gaye lip-synched the song with a band on Soul Train soon after the song's release. This video was edited to achieve a music video format.

Gaye's song became an important influence and motivation for Michael Jackson, who was searching to write a potential hit after The Jacksons had struggled with previous offerings. Jackson later wrote, with brother Randy, "Shake Your Body (Down to the Ground)", adapting parts of Gaye's chant, transforming it into "let's dance, let's shout, shake your body down to the ground". The song "Don't Stop 'til You Get Enough", written solely by Jackson and recorded the same year as "Shake Your Body", took even more of Gaye's approach with "Got to Give It Up", using percussive instruments and a continued funk guitar riff. Jackson sings most of the song in falsetto. Jackson's producer Quincy Jones added in string instruments used during the instrumental intro and a synthesizer guitar during the song's bridge. Much like the party chatter in "Got to Give It Up", Jackson added in vocal chatter; however, the chatter later was debated as two people having a verbal argument while the tape was recording (a woman could be heard hollering "I love your little ass anyway!"). Jackson and Jones allowed the argument in the recording.

"Got to Give It Up" has been featured in the films Menace II Society (1993), Boogie Nights (1997), Practical Magic (1998), Summer of Sam (1999), Charlie's Angels (2000), Barbershop (2002), This Christmas (2007), Eat Pray Love (2010), Paul (2011), and Da 5 Bloods (2020).

The song was featured in the television shows The Wire, True Blood, and Scandal.

The 2013 hit single "Blurred Lines" by Robin Thicke, Pharrell Williams and song co-writer T.I. was the subject of a lawsuit for allegedly copying "Got to Give It Up". Thicke originally told the public both he and Williams were in the recording studio, and suddenly Thicke told Pharrell "Damn, we should make something like that, something with that groove" and they wrote the song in less than an hour. However, Thicke later claimed this was all a lie, and the song was written entirely by Pharrell.[4] Thicke stated "I was high on Vicodin and alcohol when I showed up at the studio."[5] On March 10, 2015, a federal jury found "Blurred Lines" infringed on "Got to Give It Up" and awarded nearly $7.4 million to Gaye's children. Jurors found against Williams and Thicke, but held harmless the record company and T.I.[6] While damages were reduced to $5.3 million, the jury's decision was upheld on appeal.[7] As an additional remedy, Gaye was credited as a songwriter for "Blurred Lines".[8] This in turn affected "Weird Al" Yankovic's parody of "Blurred Lines", titled "Word Crimes", where Gaye has been added as a songwriter.[9]

• Written and composed by Marvin Gaye
• Produced and engineered by Art Stewart
• Mixing by Art Stewart and Marvin Gaye
• Marvin Gaye: Lead Vocals, RMI synthesizer bass, keyboards, percussion, bottle
• Johnny McGhee: guitar
• Fernando Harkness: saxophone
• Bugsy Wilcox: drums
• Jack Ashford: tambourine
• Frankie Gaye: background vocals (Part I)
• Janis Gaye: background vocals (Part I)
• Vocal, rhythm and synthesizer arrangement by Marvin Gaye
• Background vocals by Marvin Gaye (Part II)

Tenor saxophonist Pharoah Sanders included the song on his 1977 album Love Will Find a Way. Another saxophonist David Sanborn included the song on his 1994 album Hearsay.[26] Urban Knights, a contemporary jazz group led by legendary pianist Ramsey Lewis performed a version of this song that was included on their 2003 album Urban Knights V.[27][28] A second known instrumental version is by saxophonist Kim Waters from his 2007 album You Are My Lady.[29][30] The song has been featured in several films and soundtracks since its release, including the soundtracks to movies such as 54, Summer of Sam and The Nanny Diaries; it was featured in the movies Charlie's Angels, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Menace 2 Society and Barbershop. Justin Timberlake performed the song live at the 2008 Fashion Rocks concert. Gaye's daughter Nona recorded an unreleased version with Prince's band New Power Generation. Zhane performed this song on a tribute album of various artists titled Marvin Is 60. The song was performed by Thom Yorke's band Atoms for Peace during a live concert performance.[31] In 2015, South African band Van Coke Kartel released their version of the song.

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics