Here, My Dear is a singular achievement in music. Marvin Gaye took the entirety of his divorce and put it on a record to pay the alimony for that same divorce. Tender, bitter and very, very human, Here, My Dear is a classic that everyone should listen to.
Musically, it is nothing short of gorgeous. Marvin Gaye was blessed with a beautiful voice capable of layering a song expertly, and he uses it fully. While this is an album that is built to flow, delving into the grooves is deeply rewarding. It’s a surprisingly smooth album given the subject matter. The funk of “Time To Get It Together” is extremely strong as is that of “Is That Enough” and the latter is exquisitely bitter as well. Similarly, the jazz in the background of the instrumental version of “When Did You Stop Loving Me, When Did I Stop Loving You” has a large amount of space to play in and is excellent therein and Marvin Gaye himself sings beautifully.
Speaking of “When Did You…”, the phrase acts as a motif for the entire album. There are no less than three songs with that title in the album, and the simplicity and directness of the question really brings home the painfulness of the situation. It’s an album that swings from emotion to emotion and from thought to thought, sometimes contradicting itself over the course of a single song. The overriding emotion though is bitterness. A song like “Is That Enough” holds nothing back in its barbs against his ex-wife and “You Can Leave, But It’s Going To Cost You” is unabashedly one-sided in its presentation of Anna’s criticisms of Marvin’s infidelity.
And yet, “I Met A Little Girl” is heartbreakingly tender as it tells the story of Marvin meeting Anna, and their coming together and falling apart. Again, it doesn’t pretend to be fair, but it doesn’t forget the good times either. Similarly, while “Anna’s Song” is satirical, Marvin Gaye’s voice imbues it with a fascinating longing.
The album takes an interlude after that song to revisit “When Did You…” but then goes into something completely different with “A Funky Space Reincarnation”, an eight and a half minute side trip about sex on Pluto. It seems disjoint, but conveys the restlessness accompanying a major break-up in a way that a more direct statement could never have gotten across. We then take another moment of bitterness, but close with “Falling In Love Again”, which while clearly meant to wound, also reaffirms Marvin’s belief in love, only to undercut it again with the final cut of “When Did You…”. How else could Marvin Gaye have ended the album but with those two statements?
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