It’s Saturday morning and most likely, it’s raining. Your bed is still warm and you don’t have to be any place in a hurry. Part of you thinks maybe I’ll make some coffee, day dream to that old Mazzy Star album and read through the Tape Op I never finished. Another part of you wants to take in the sweet heaviness of the morning by crawling back into bed and pouring yourself into the choral works of Arvo Part. I’m here to tell you that that is the last thing you should do today. Instead, put on your tennis shoes, close your eyes and listen to the beat of your own heart. Then go to your computer (or CD/record collection) and find this song, that song that you’ve heard so many times and have sadly taken for granted:
Marvin Gaye’s “Got to Give it Up, Part I.”
Reason why this song kills it: this is a song about a man who is too shy to get on the floor and dance. It is the groove that allows him to get lost in the music. In the recording of this song, Marvin Gaye plays a glass bottle filled halfway with grapefruit juice, in addition to keyboards and an RMI synthesizer bass. The percussion-led, falsetto sung, party-filled atmosphere style has been borrowed by great musicians such as Michael Jackson in “Don’t Stop til You Get Enough”. Start your day off with Gaye. He would like it that way.
