Recording
The first recording sessions for the album took place at Marvin Gaye Studios in Hollywood and then at Honolulu's Seawest Recording Studios. Upon arriving to London in 1980 where he settled, Gaye recorded his new concept for the album at London's Odyssey and Air Studios. Songs that Gaye had recorded while in Los Angeles and Hawaii changed from their original approach. The original version of "Love Party" was titled "Dance 'N Be Happy" and mainly focused on his fallout of his marriage to Janis Hunter, only to be rewritten as a pseudo dance song with gospel-influenced lyrics. The blues song, "Just Because You're So Pretty" transformed into "Love Me Now or Love Me Later", which focused on the concept of "good and evil" souls that Gaye felt existed inside human beings. The funk song, "I Offer You Nothing But Love", was transformed into "In Our Lifetime", which included chants from one of Gaye's musicians ("come let's all get funky if you dig the right/come let's all get funky if you dig the wrong"), with the lyrics talking about a possible Armageddon approaching. The mild disco sound of "Lover's Plea" again was altered for more gospel influences in the song "Praise", even praising Stevie Wonder for the inspired riff for the song ("Stevie, we really dig you/hope you don't mind this riff from you"). "Life is For Learning" didn't change from the original song much except for the song's original title with the singer focusing on how he approached his music ("the artist pays the price/so you won't have to pay/if we would listen to what he has to say"). "Funk Me" was altered from the more sexually-charged version from Love Man (its original title chanted "funk me" three times) and "Heavy Love Affair", his one song in which he discusses his fallout with Janis Hunter, was originally "Life's a Game of Give and Take", ironically doing the reverse of his other songs in which the original song discussed personal issues with his own life and flipping them around to focus on his fallout with Hunter. "Far Cry" was the only newer song from the sessions in London to be featured along with the instrumental "Nuclear Juice". Gaye also revived "Ego Tripping Out" as a possible entry into the album.
By late December, Gaye had finished the rough draft of the album and later revised the album in a concept album format adding in synthesizer sounds to segue each song into the next, a style he had originally done with albums such as What's Going On, Let's Get It On and I Want You. However, around this time, one of Marvin's touring and recording musicians, bassist Frank Blair, decided to take the contents of the album's master tapes to Motown's Hollywood offices, which was done unbeknownst to Gaye, who was remixing and editing the album in Odyssey Studios in London. Motown, still angered over Gaye's backing away from the Love Man project, revised the album for several months.
Read more about this topic: In Our Lifetime (Marvin Gaye Album)
Famous quotes containing the word recording:
“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)
“Write while the heat is in you.... The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“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)