You Can Leave, But It’s Going To Cost You
Marvin Gaye
Here, My Dear, 1978

When I was first trying to get into soul albums, I seem to remember that every online review I would read of this album was really negative; at the same time, people I would talk to would always rave about it. I tried to find some of the bad reviews just now and they seem to have disappeared, which is nice - it seems to getting it’s due, apparently it was even included in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. What I didn’t know is that when the album came out “it was panned by consumers and critics alike” according to the Here, My Dear wikipedia page. Thinking of the current era bad reviews as lazy regurgitative journalism makes more sense to me than imagining someone sitting down with the album outside of the context of what was expected of Marvin in 1978 and still thinking it’s bad.

You can read more on wikipedia but this album has one of the more interesting back stories of any album ever. Marvin and Anna Gordy (Motown Records founder Berry Gordy’s older sister) were in the process of getting divorced because, among other things, Marvin was carrying on a public relationship with another woman who he had two children with during his marriage to Anna. He was low on cash because he’d been living the rock star lifestyle so the judge awarded a large portion of his next album’s royalties to Anna. This happened before he made the album so “Here, My Dear” is what ensued - one of the most literal albums ever. Apparently, Anna actually considered sueing him for invasion of privacy because the album revealed so much.

I remember like it was yesterday, we were over Gwen’s
And was trying one more time to make amends
Oh yes we was
Suddenly it occurred to me, it did not matter
Whether I was mad at her
Or she was made at me
Nah, babe, understanding my condition
I must surely be a-wishing
And a-hoping to be free

Some say “you can leave but it’s going to cost”
She said “yeah, you can leave but it’s going to cost you dearly”

Dusty Groove is selling this album for $6.99!

>> songs are available for two weeks 192 kbps [7.7 MB] or 320 kbps [12.8 MB]

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 8th, 2008 at 2:46 pm and is filed under Music Appreciation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.