Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On: A Number One That Got Bumped
Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 twice in September 1973.
Between those two weeks, another song knocked it off the top spot entirely.
The song did not start out as a love song either.
Songwriter Ed Townsend wrote the first draft about getting sober, not getting close to anyone.
A Motown staffer then rewrote it as a political song.
Gaye and Townsend threw that draft out and started over.
The final lyrics only took shape after Gaye met a 17-year-old named Janis Hunter.
What became the title track of Motown's best-selling album of his career almost sounded nothing like the record that topped the charts.
Marvin Gaye performing live in 1974.
Image credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On Started as a Song About Getting Sober
A Draft Rewritten Twice
Ed Townsend co-wrote the title track with Marvin Gaye in early 1973.
Townsend was a 1958 one-hit wonder, best known for "For Your Love."
He came to the sessions fresh out of treatment for alcoholism.
His original version of the song was about getting on with life after getting sober, not about romance.
Motown songwriter Kenneth Stover took a pass at the lyrics next, and turned them political.
Townsend heard Gaye's rough mix of Stover's draft and objected.
He argued the song belonged on love and sex, not politics.
Gaye agreed, and the two rewrote the lyrics together over Stover's original backing track.
Janis Hunter Changed the Words Again
Gaye met 17-year-old Janis Hunter through Townsend during the same sessions.
Hunter was the daughter of jazz guitarist Slim Gaillard.
Gaye became infatuated with her almost immediately.
The lyrics shifted again once he did, aimed squarely at her instead of the earlier drafts.
Hunter and Gaye married in 1977 and had two children together.
The Marvin Gaye profile on this site covers what came after that relationship, including the album he built from its ending four years later.
The Number That Got Interrupted
Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for the week of September 8, 1973.
It did not stay there.
Helen Reddy's "Delta Dawn" took over the top spot for the week of September 15.
Gaye's single reclaimed number one the very next week, September 22.
Two weeks at the top, split by someone else's turn, a comeback rather than a straight run.
| Week | Song | Artist |
|---|---|---|
| Sept 1 | Brother Louie | Stories |
| Sept 8 | Let's Get It On | Marvin Gaye |
| Sept 15 | Delta Dawn | Helen Reddy |
| Sept 22 | Let's Get It On | Marvin Gaye |
| Sept 29 | We're an American Band | Grand Funk |
This site's own year-end chart data ranks the song fourth for all of 1973, matching Billboard's own published year-end tally.
Curious what else charted that high without a longer run at the top?
The Random 70s Song Generator turns up plenty of songs with a similar story.
An Even Longer Run on the R&B Chart
The Hot 100 story is only half of it.
This site's own R&B chart data shows Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On opening an 11-week run at number one on the R&B chart.
That run started the week of September 29, 1973, the same week Grand Funk took over the Hot 100.
That run on the R&B chart lasted far longer than the song's two interrupted weeks on the pop side.
Prefer to hear it before reading how it was made? Stream Let's Get It On on Listen Now.
Recorded at Hitsville West With the Funk Brothers
Music of the 70s tracks this session the same way it tracks every other 70s record on the site, straight from the release date forward.
Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend produced the track together.
Motown's in-house band, the Funk Brothers, played the instrumental arrangements.
- Recorded: March 22, 1973, Hitsville West, Los Angeles
- Produced by: Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend
- Key and tempo: E-flat major, 82 beats per minute
- Length: 4:53 (album version), 3:58 (single edit)
- Released: June 15, 1973, Tamla Records, b/w "I Wish It Would Rain"
Marvin Gaye in a 1973 publicity photo, the same year Let's Get It On was released.
Image credit: Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
A Platinum Single That Outsold Everything Motown Had Released
The single sold more than four million copies between 1973 and 1974.
At the time, that made it Motown's largest-selling recording ever.
The RIAA certified it platinum for a million units sold.
A 2005 remix version later earned its own separate RIAA gold certification.
Rolling Stone ranked it 167th on its 2004 list of the 500 greatest songs of all time, then 168th on the 2012 revision.
Critic Jon Landau called it "a classic Motown single, endlessly repeatable and always enjoyable."
The album of the same name became the best-selling record of Gaye's Motown career.
Its success won him the full creative control the label had denied him two years earlier.
That creative control was set up by What's Going On, the album that came right before it.
Songs built around a single steady mood like this one are exactly what the Mood Song Matcher is built to surface.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On about?
Marvin Gaye's Let's Get It On is a song about physical and emotional intimacy between two people in love.
Songwriter Ed Townsend originally wrote it about getting sober, and a later draft turned it political.
Gaye rewrote the lyrics around his new relationship with Janis Hunter, who became his second wife in 1977.
Who wrote Let's Get It On?
Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend share the writing credit on Let's Get It On.
Townsend brought the original musical idea to the sessions, and Motown songwriter Kenneth Stover wrote an interim political draft that both men rejected.
Gaye and Townsend then wrote the final lyrics together, keeping Townsend's original backing track.
How many weeks was Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On number one?
Marvin Gaye Let's Get It On spent two weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1973, but not back to back.
Helen Reddy's Delta Dawn took the top spot for the week of September 15 before Gaye's single reclaimed number one the following week, September 22.
Where was Let's Get It On recorded?
Let's Get It On was recorded on March 22, 1973, at Hitsville West, Motown's studio in Los Angeles.
The label's in-house band, the Funk Brothers, played the instrumental track.
Marvin Gaye and Ed Townsend produced the session together, and Motown released the finished single on June 15, 1973, on its Tamla label.
Is Let's Get It On certified platinum?
Let's Get It On earned an RIAA platinum certification for selling one million copies in the United States.
Total sales reached more than four million copies by 1974, making it Motown's best-selling single up to that point.
A 2005 remix version later received its own RIAA gold certification.
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