Recording
Gaye's confidant in his later years, collaborator and brother-in-law Gordon Banks and longtime mentor Harvey Fuqua, assembled a collection of unreleased and unfinished songs Gaye left behind after his death. Gaye had recorded several songs for the Midnight Love album but Gaye left the songs from the final track listing as he had yet to finish them. Among the songs left off were "Sanctified Lady" (which was modified from Gaye's original title, "Sanctified Pussy") and the S&M ode, "Masochistic Beauty". Both songs were co-written by Gaye and Banks. In the former song, Gaye tells listeners he wanted a "sanctified woman" he can love for life rather than just have her for sexual favors, which was a contrast with the latter song, as Gaye, speaking in a mock-British tone, plays a dominatrix. The other songs were culled from leftover Motown sessions including the self-parodying "Savage in the Sack" (which included the vamp lyric, "dem niggers," which was changed in the final version by background vocalists, The Waters, to "it's gettin' bigger."). Gaye told David Ritz that he had no intention to seriously release the record, as he was high when he wrote it and recorded portions of the song. Inexplicably Harvey Fuqua helped to "finish" the recording. "Savage in the Sack" was recorded in a late 1978 recording session. The mellow track, "Ain't It Funny How Things Turn Around", was recorded in 1977 for the Here, My Dear album, but was left off its release. After it was issued on this album, Bootsy Collins would produce a remix of the track, featured on a deluxe edition issue of Here, My Dear, with extra verses from Gaye. Other songs went back as far as 1972 including "Dream of a Lifetime" and "Life's Opera", though the latter was written in 1972, it wouldn't be recorded by Marvin until 1976 though it remained unreleased. Finally, Fuqua gave the song a new production and had it issued on the album. "Dream of a Lifetime", according to Gaye, was inspired by hearing that Sammy Davis Jr. had signed with Motown, however, Davis never got to record the song. "It's Madness" and the Gaye/Smokey Robinson composition, "Symphony", were recorded during the Let's Get It On sessions in 1973. The original version of "Symphony" was included in the deluxe edition issue of Let's Get It On whereas the 1985 version included hip-hop-emulated sounds.
Read more about this topic: Dream Of A Lifetime
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“Too many photographers try too hard. They try to lift photography into the realm of Art, because they have an inferiority complex about their Craft. You and I would see more interesting photography if they would stop worrying, and instead, apply horse-sense to the problem of recording the look and feel of their own era.”
—Jessie Tarbox Beals (1870–1942)
“Self-expression is not enough; experiment is not enough; the recording of special moments or cases is not enough. All of the arts have broken faith or lost connection with their origin and function. They have ceased to be concerned with the legitimate and permanent material of art.”
—Jane Heap (c. 1880–1964)
“I didn’t have to think up so much as a comma or a semicolon; it was all given, straight from the celestial recording room. Weary, I would beg for a break, an intermission, time enough, let’s say, to go to the toilet or take a breath of fresh air on the balcony. Nothing doing!”
—Henry Miller (1891–1980)