“Sexual Healing” by Marvin Gaye

"Sexual Healing" was the song that pulled Marvin Gaye back from the brink in 1982: the lead single from Midnight Love and his first record after leaving Motown, now on Columbia. It was born in Ostend, where he'd moved after more than a year as a tax exile in London. Journalist David Ritz spotted sadomasochistic drawings in Gaye's apartment and told him what he needed was sexual healing; Gaye talked Ritz into writing lyrics, then reworked them and built the music with Odell Brown.

Gaye plays nearly everything himself: drums, congas, bongos, organ, electric piano, synthesizer, even glockenspiel and finger cymbals, with Gordon Banks on guitar and the L.A. Horn Section on winds. He produced it too. It became his biggest single, won him 2 Grammys, and turned out to be his last hit; he died in April 1984.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.