Background
Throughout 1976, Marvin Gaye's popularity was still at a high in America and abroad, but the singer struggled throughout the year due to pending lawsuits from former band mates. Divorce court proceedings between Gaye and first wife Anna Gordy had put a strain on Gaye. Financial difficulties almost led to imprisonment for the singer when Gordy accused him of failing to pay alimony payments for their only child, son Marvin Pentz Gay III.
To relieve Gaye from his debt, his European concert promoter Freddy Kruger booked the singer on a lengthy European tour, his first since 1967. Gaye began the tour in the United Kingdom where he had a strong fan base dating back to his early career in the 1960s. His performances there were given rave reviews. One of the shows, filmed at London's Palladium, was recorded for a live album, later released as Live at the London Palladium, in the spring of 1977. Around the same time, Gaye's label Motown tried to get the artist to record in the current sound of the times, disco music. Gaye criticized the music, claiming it lacked substance and vowed against recording in the genre. His label mate Diana Ross had recorded her first disco song, "Love Hangover". The song's producer Hal Davis debated over giving that song to either Ross or Gaye. After working over the song, he went with Ross, and it became her 4th solo number one hit. Motown struggled to get Gaye in the studio as Gaye focused on work on an album (which would later be released as Here, My Dear, dedicated to Gaye's troubled first marriage). After months of holding off from recording anything resembling disco, the singer set upon writing a song parodying a disco setting.
Read more about this topic: Got To Give It Up
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