"Let's Get It On" | |||||||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1973 U.K. single release
|
|||||||||||||||||
Single by Marvin Gaye | |||||||||||||||||
from the album Let's Get It On | |||||||||||||||||
B-side | "I Wish It Would Rain" | ||||||||||||||||
Released | June 15, 1973 | ||||||||||||||||
Format | 7" single (45 RPM) | ||||||||||||||||
Recorded | March 22, 1973 Hitsville West (Los Angeles, California) |
||||||||||||||||
Genre | Soul, funk | ||||||||||||||||
Length | 4:53 (Album version) 3:58 (Single edit) |
||||||||||||||||
Label | Tamla (T-54234) | ||||||||||||||||
Writer(s) | Marvin Gaye, Ed Townsend | ||||||||||||||||
Producer(s) | Marvin Gaye | ||||||||||||||||
Marvin Gaye singles chronology | |||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||
|
"Let's Get It On" is a song and hit single by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released June 15, 1973, on Motown-subsidiary label Tamla Records. The song was recorded on March 22, 1973, at Hitsville West in Los Angeles, California. The song features romantic and sexual lyricism and funk instrumentation by The Funk Brothers. The title track of Gaye's landmark 1973 album of the same name, it was written by Marvin Gaye and producer Ed Townsend. "Let's Get It On" became Gaye's most successful single for Motown and one of his most well-known songs. With the help of the song's sexually explicit content, "Let's Get It On" helped give Gaye a reputation as a sex icon during its initial popularity.
Co-written with producer Ed Townsend, "Let's Get It On" was Gaye's plea for sexual liberation. When originally conceived by Townsend, who was released from a rehab facility for alcoholism, it was written with a religious theme. Gaye confidante Kenneth Stover changed some of the words around as a political song and Gaye recorded the version as it was written, but Townsend protested that the song wasn't a politically conscious song but a song dedicated to love and sex. Gaye and Townsend then collaborated on new lyrics and using the original backing tracks as recorded, Gaye transformed the song into an emotional centerpiece. The album version of "Let's Get It On" features soulful and emotional singing by Gaye that is backed by multi-tracked background vocals, also provided by Gaye, along with the song's signature, and most notable, funky guitar arrangements. In an article for Rolling Stone magazine, music critic Jon Landau wrote of the song: