After the Dance: My Life With Marvin Gaye by Jan Gaye Page B

goes like this.”
    Suddenly my excitement took a nosedive. I had never asked himto write it. He offered. I was disappointed that he told the audience that I asked him to write it. It took away some of the pleasure and the romance of it all. However, it remains one of my favorite songs to this day.
    I understood that the presence of the Motown execs had affected him. Everyone pretended to like the song and that he wrote it for me, but they typically didn’t like reissues on any albums. They especially hated the fact that he had left Anna and was living with some young chick. So if he was going to write a song about the chick, it was only because the chick asked him to. No big deal.
    But to me it was a huge deal. The fact that he was singing this song at a concert being recorded as a live album was confirmation of his commitment to me. This concert would become a historical document. But now that document would indicate that the song was my idea. I was completely humiliated. Yet the song was out there—and so were his feelings for me. At the same time, I hated being portrayed as an insecure teenage girl who had to beg her man to write a song for her. Of course I had wanted Marvin to compose such a song—what woman wouldn’t?—but I’d never made that request. I knew him well enough to know how he resented such requests.
    Thus it was with heavy equivocation that I heard him sing how Janis was his girl, how there was no one sweeter, how his life would be tragic without her, how she was unique and how he was her greatest fan.
    The words got to me. His performance got to me. Throughout the show, my heart never stopped pounding. The longer he performed, the more confident he grew, the louder the response of his adoring fans. When it finally came time to do his current red-hot hit, just the opening guitar lick of “Let’s Get It On” was enough to drive the fans into a complete frenzy.
    Afterward, the dressing room was a madhouse. Everyone wanted to join in the celebration, get close to him, tell him how great he was, take a picture.
    Hours later in the hotel suite, he and I were finally alone.
    “It was beautiful,” I said. “You were beautiful.”
    “I didn’t forget to sing your song.”
    “Why did you tell the audience that I asked you to write it?”
    “Well, dear, I didn’t want to upset anyone.”
    I knew what he meant. As a superstar, you have to make all the ladies believe that they are special. If he wrote a song for me on his own, it would mean that they are not special to him. He was also afraid to upset the Motown execs, and surely, Anna.
    I considered complaining about his inaccurate introduction to the song but didn’t. “Thank you,” was all I said.
    “Did it make you feel special?”
    “It did.”
    “And did it make you want to go back to Topanga so we could be alone again?”
    “Yes, if we ever could really be alone.”
    “We can. We will. I’ll tell Frankie to leave. It will all work out.”
    I agreed, but the calm never came.
    Nestled back in the canyon, I saw that Marvin’s usual cool had been undermined by the triumph in Oakland. His ego had been excited. The moments of quiet humility were noticeably fewer. When Motown delivered a million-dollar check reflecting royalties, Marvin made a copy and hung it above the fireplace.
    “Why put it there?” I asked.
    “To remind me,” said Marvin.
    “Of what?”
    “That I’ve already made and spent three other fortunes.”
    “And you intend to squander this one?”
    “No, I intend to ignore the demands of this cold world and stay here with you, dear.”
    “But what about this manager of yours who keeps talking about a world tour?”
    That manager was Stephen Hill, a highly educated black Jamaican with green eyes and wavy hair who spoke in an aristocratic tone and had won Marvin’s confidence.
    “Stephen is brilliant—and also strong enough to take on the Gordys. He has no fear of anyone.”
    Do you? I wanted to ask Marvin, but