“I have been apathetic, because I know the end is near. “I take it this process hasn’t been going on within you in quite some time.” It calls for fasting, feeling, praying, lots of prayer, and maybe we can come up with a more spiritual social statement, to give people more food for thought.” “It seems to me I have to do some soul searching to see what I want to say,” he said. I said to him, “The times seem to call for the kind of social commentary you provided on ‘What’s Going On.'” His reviewed acclaim had in no way silenced the demons that made his last Motown album In Our Lifetime (despite its premature release by Motown) an explicit battle between the devil and the Lord for his heart, soul, and future. These were words of isolation, alienation, and downright confusion. His precise elocution was reminiscent of your stereotypical English gentleman, but he spoke of a world far removed from delicacy and style. Gaye’s voice was soft, relaxed, and strangely monotonous (he spoke with almost no inflection). The night before, at San Mateo’s Circle Star Theater, he had been brilliant, performing all the good stuff, and even reviving Mary Wells’s “Two Lovers,” one of Smokey’s best early songs, about a total schizophrenic, a man who was both lovingly faithful and totally amoral. Even his stage act, in the past marked by a palpable diffidence, had been spellbinding. “Sexual Healing,” some freedom from the IRS, CBS’s mammoth music machine in high gear for him, and adoration from two generations of fans, were all part of a wave of prosperity. After all, Gaye was in the midst of one of the most thrilling comebacks in pop music history. I anticipated an upbeat conversation full of the self-righteous I-told-you-so fervor so many performers, back from commercial death, inflict upon interviewers and the public. Marvin and I sat next to each other in tacky motel chairs, his attention wandering from our conversation to the fight.

March 1983 - In the motel’s living room two women in their late 30s, wearing much too much makeup, and clothes too tight covering too much flesh, hovered over a hot plate, concerned that everything would taste right “for him.” In the bedroom, behind closed doors, dressed in a robe and stocking cap, his face covered with a facial mask, Marvin Gaye accompanied by three biceped roadies (bodyguards?) watched a fight on Wide World of Sports.

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