Remembering When Marvin Gaye’s Biographer Nudged Him Toward His Comeback Hit in 1982

Many people don’t pay much attention to the credits when they listen to music. Those who do will often find some surprises. Names you might not expect can pop up, proof that songs come from the unlikeliest of sources.

Such is the case with “Sexual Healing”, Marvin Gaye’s comeback smash from 1982. One of the credited songwriters is the guy who was, at that point, writing Gaye’s biography.

A Track Needing Words

The overwhelming success of “Sexual Healing” was followed by a series of career highs before Marvin Gaye’s death in 1984. As such, it’s easy to forget how far he’d fallen from his 60s and 70s heyday right before the song came out in October 1982.

Gaye had no recording contract at the time, as he’d been dropped by Motown, his longtime label. A costly divorce had depleted his coffers. He was lying low in Belgium to avoid some of his American creditors while also making plans for a new record deal.

It had been around five years since Gaye had scored a hit of any magnitude. But he and Odell Brown, one of his longtime friends and backing musicians, had put together a slinky midtempo piece of music that had some promise. Now all that they needed was some lyrics.

“Healing” Power

It’s at this point of the story that we should note that there is little to no agreement among the principals in Marvin Gaye’s camp about the extent of David Ritz’s involvement in writing “Sexual Healing”. However, the fact remains that Ritz sued for writing credit after not getting it immediately. After a settlement with Gaye’s estate following the artist’s death, Ritz received his credit next to Gaye and Brown.

Who is David Ritz? He’s a longtime music journalist whose specialty is helping artists write their life stories. And he just happened to be working in that capacity for Gaye when he visited the artist in Belgium.

According to Ritz, he heard the track that Gaye and Brown had concocted. As they struggled for lyrics, Ritz was sitting around when he noticed a comic book that had pornographic content lying around. Frowning at it, Ritz suggested that Gaye needed “sexual healing.”

Contested Credit

Marvin Gaye did credit Ritz on the Midnight Love album for inspiring the title of “Sexual Healing”. But according to Ritz, his involvement went much further. He claimed that Gaye then asked him to go off and try to write a poem using that title, a poem that could then be used as song lyrics.

Ritz said he did just that, trying to put himself in Gaye’s shoes as he composed the lyrics. The opposing view is that Gaye himself finished the lyrics after being inspired by Ritz’s title. In any case, those words were indeed the perfect fit, both for the music that had been written and for the artist singing them.

David Ritz went on to complete his Marvin Gaye biography. Divided Soul: The Life Of Marvin Gaye presented a touching, complex portrait of one of music’s most unforgettable artists. Thanks to “Sexual Healing”, the biographer ended up being a pretty substantial part of his subject’s story.

(Photo by Afro American Newspapers/Gado/Getty Images)