| "Life is for Learning" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Song by Marvin Gaye | |
| from the album In Our Lifetime | |
| Released | 1981 |
| Recorded | 1980, Air Studios, London, England |
| Genre | Soul |
| Length | 3:41 |
| Label | Tamla |
| Songwriter(s) | Marvin Gaye |
| Producer(s) | Marvin Gaye |
"Life Is for Learning" is a song recorded by singer Marvin Gaye for his "In Our Lifetime" album in 1981, released by Tamla. [1] It has been sampled by 2nd II None on "Underground Terror" in 1991; by Esham on "No Singing/misery" in 1993; by 8Ball on "The Artist Pays the Price" in 1998; and by Mista Rodd feat. Jazze Pha on "Cheeze" in 1999. [2]
Marvin Gaye was an American singer, songwriter, and record producer. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo artist with a string of hits, including "Ain't That Peculiar", "How Sweet It Is ", and "I Heard It Through the Grapevine", and duet recordings with Mary Wells, Kim Weston, Diana Ross, and Tammi Terrell. He earned the titles "Prince of Motown" and "Prince of Soul".
In Our Lifetime? is the sixteenth studio album by soul musician Marvin Gaye, released January 15, 1981, on Motown label Tamla Records. Recording sessions for the album took place at Marvin's Room in Los Angeles, California, Seawest Recording Studio in Honolulu, Hawaii, and at Odyssey Studios in London, England, throughout 1979 and 1980. The album cover was designed by Neil Breeden. Gaye's final album for Motown before leaving for Columbia Records, the album was the follow-up to the commercial failure of Here, My Dear, a double album which chronicled the singer's divorce from Anna Gordy. Entirely written, produced, arranged, and mixed by Gaye, In Our Lifetime? was a departure for Gaye from the disco stylings of his previous two studio efforts and was seen as one of the best albums of the singer's late-Motown period.
Motown Records is an American record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was originally founded by Berry Gordy Jr. as Tamla Records on January 12, 1959, and was incorporated as Motown Record Corporation on April 14, 1960. Its name, a portmanteau of motor and town, has become a nickname for Detroit, where the label was originally headquartered.
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Recorded in 1980, the singer expressed the differences between songs that preached or talked about love, forgiveness and other positive subjects and songs that talked about pain and lust and were mostly negative in nature. Recorded during the singer's exile in London, the song could relate to Marvin's state of mind when recording songs both of a spiritual and sexual nature; explaining his "divided soul" as author David Ritz commented in his biography of the singer. The song was originally titled "Life is Now in Session" and was originally supposed to be included in Marvin's '"Love Man'" album from 1979 but the album was shelved. [3]
David Ritz is an American author. He has written novels, biographies, magazine articles, and over a hundred liner notes for artists such as Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, and Nat King Cole. He has coauthored 36 autobiographies, including some celebrity's autobiographies.
In the volume "Afro-Pentecostalism: Black Pentecostal and Charismatic Christianity in History and Culture" Professor Amos Yong considers " Life Is for Learning". He draws attention to the lines "The Devil has his special plan to make hot songs for sinners, Thank God we'll turn it around and make good songs for winners" and notes Gaye's struggles with the temptation of "flesh, stupid flesh". Yong found that "No one male black singer, outside of the contemporary singer R. Kelly, has so openly and honestly dealt with both his sexuality and his spirituality in such raw terms." [4]
Amos Yong is an Asian-American Pentecostal theologian and Director Of The Center For Missiological Research And Professor Of Theology And Mission at Fuller Theological Seminary. He will be Dean of School of Theology and School of Intercultural Studies at Fuller Seminary, effective from July 1, 2019.
Robert Sylvester Kelly is an American singer, songwriter, record producer, and former professional basketball player. A native of Chicago, Kelly began performing during the late 1980s and debuted in 1992 with the group Public Announcement. In 1993, Kelly went solo with the album 12 Play. He is known for various songs including "I Believe I Can Fly", "Bump N' Grind", "Your Body's Callin'", "Gotham City", "Ignition (Remix)", "If I Could Turn Back the Hands of Time", "The World's Greatest", "I'm a Flirt (Remix)", and the hip-hopera "Trapped in the Closet". In 1998, Kelly won three Grammy Awards for "I Believe I Can Fly".
That conflict was examined by the author Michael Eric Dyson who commented that "Marvin Gaye struggled his entire career to reconcile sweet flesh and sustaining faith.The tension between sexuality and spirituality led him down troubled paths in his personal life and to artistic glory." Analysing '"Life Is for Learning", Dyson felt the artist was expressing his love for God while torn by his love of women, his broken relationships had "left marks all over his art". In "Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves and Demons of Marvin Gaye", Dyson noted the song's "seductive, grinding, funk groove, carved from sax and vibes" which contrasted with the theological theme. [5]
Michael Eric Dyson is an academic, author, preacher, and radio host. He is a Professor of Sociology at Georgetown University. Described by Michael A. Fletcher as "a Princeton Ph.D. and a child of the streets who takes pains never to separate the two", Dyson has authored or edited more than twenty books dealing with subjects such as Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., Marvin Gaye, Nas's debut album Illmatic, Bill Cosby, Tupac Shakur, and Hurricane Katrina.
A more controversial interpretation of the song was given by David Ritz: "In Life Is for Learning" Marvin saw himself as Jesus suffering for the world's sins though he didn't evoke the actual name of Christ." Ritz again felt the tension in the song between the artist's thirst for God with his desire for women, claiming that when composing this song and the rest of the album Gaye "was haunted by the same sexual image, the dancing woman moving towards him. Her presence excited his poetry, blessing it with a spiritual sensuality that turned his dark mood bright." [3]
