What's Happening Brother?

The other day I was really down in the dumps. Disappointment, frustration, and boredom conferred to offer me a horrible cup of coffee. I would remain down, drinking my crappy coffee, until I was confronted with a vast epiphany. All the world came together. Brothers and sisters who had once grown apart were now together. Obama and Boehner no doubt played another round of golf. The moon and stars conferred to offer me a lighted path. Eternal enemies assisted one another as allies. It seemed as if all of nature had extended its glorious hand to me for the warmest of greetings. What's going on?

Marvin Gaye, that's what.

Forty years ago, the understated genius that was Marvin Gaye recorded What's Going On. The brother's beautiful and succinct album sparked an intellectual journey in my mind. I'll try to recreate this peregrination for your reading pleasure.

So I'm sitting at home, depressed, as I've said. Drinking my week old coffee, tears mixing in with the discolored dark brown swirls. Then suddenly, a track came through my computer speakers and it blasted across my apartment.

I'd heard the song many times before, but I wasn't listening. I hadn't dipped my toe past the title track in my measly years of existence. Go ahead, play it while you read.

Now at this point, 4 paragraphs in, you might be wondering if I have a point related to politics or science. I'm starting to wonder myself. Apart from Gaye's brilliant social commentary, he hits his political and scientific stride with this track.

"Oh mercy mercy me. Things ain't what they used to be. Where did all the blue skies go?"

Mercy Mercy Me represents the apex of the album's political commentary. He says not only are the unrest, police brutality, endless war, and social erosion harming people, but it's ruining the environment. Tell me if I'm overreaching here, but the album's 36 minutes are about as close to a complete social critique as music can get. Genius.

When I'm there listening to this, finally putting things together, I realize that I'm nothing. Literally nothing. Barely functional in society. Not even a dot on a map. A man caught in a grand society of narcissism. A collective third person effect has eroded the populace's thinking. We don't conceive of horrible things happening to us individually, those things happen to "them". Am I gauging our contemporary society correctly? The songs brought a sense that we're all in this thing together. We can't escape it. I have yet to wake up as someone else.

After I played through the album a few times a thought permeated into my head. Times are always in change. As Jobs called death the great agent of change, things are never set in stone. As radical as it sounds, the system as it is now, will not be existent in the centuries to come. The pollution, the lack of social and economic justice, are all fluid. Gaye was commenting on his own brother returning from Vietnam, riots, the environment, and economic injustice. Isn't it funny how we see the same predicaments now as 40 years ago? Iraq, protests around the globe, the most pollution ever, and the largest gap in wealth ever.

It always seems as if the current situation is worse than it has ever been. Every generation can imagine their own situation worse than the previous. It's always upheaval and a crisis. The reality is that a path forward with brotherly and sisterly love can only lead to a better place.

Notes:

This was edited down, but I might revisit this post in a few days to add some more.

Rolling Stone named What's Going On number 6 on it's list of top albums. I would have to agree with that. Perhaps a little higher in my book.

I included the Steve Jobs reference because he died on October 5th, 2011. Since I finished writing this on that day I thought it was appropriate.

I also threw out that coffee.