Song · Marvin Gaye
“Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” by Marvin Gaye
From the album What’s Going On (1971)
“Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” by Marvin Gaye appears on 6 radio countdowns from 6 stations between 2007 and 2026. It was first released in 1971 on the album What’s Going On. Its best result is #176 on the WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #2,151 indie & aaa song of all time.
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Marvin Gaye built What's Going On, his 1971 Motown album, toward a climax, and "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" is it; it also became the record's third and final single. Gaye produced it himself, David Van dePitte arranged it, and Gaye plays piano over a slow-burning, mellow funk groove.
He wrote it with James Nyx Jr., who later remembered Gaye turning up with a bluesy tune and no words. The two filled it with how rough life had got around town: the taxes they both owed, a government that could fly men to the moon but wouldn't lift a hand for people in the ghetto. The title only arrived when Nyx spotted a newspaper headline about Detroit's inner city. The finished song lays out the poverty of America's inner cities and what it does to the people stuck in them.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2007 | 662 | WTMD | WTMD Top 897 Songs of All Time | 897 |
| 2018 | 857 | The Current | The Current's 893 Essential Songs | 892 |
| 2020 | 176 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2022 | 537 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '70s | 908 |
| 2023 | 245 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 800 Songs About Places | 800 |
| 2026 | 1096 | WYEP | WYEP Greatest Songs of All Time | 1180 |
Also listed as: Inner City Blues.
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