"Trouble Man" is a song composed and written by American

recording artist A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

Marvin Gaye Marvin Pentz Gay Jr., who also spelled his surname as Gaye (April 2, 1939 – April 1, 1984), was an American singer and songwriter. He helped to shape the sound of Motown in the 1960s, first as an in-house session player and later as a solo ar ...

released on the Motown subsidiary, Tamla, in November

1972 Within the context of Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) it was the longest year ever, as two leap seconds were added during this 366-day year, an event which has not since been repeated. (If its start and end are defined using Solar time, me ...

. The song became one of Gaye's

signature song A signature (; from la, signare, "to sign") is a Handwriting, handwritten (and often Stylization, stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname, or even a simple "X" or other mark that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and ...

s for the remainder of his life and would later be the basis of a

biography A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or ...

as a sort of nickname for him. The album version of the song was the only one released as a single in November 1972, where it became a top ten hit on the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 reaching number seven on that chart in January 1973.

Background

The song is the title track and theme for the

blaxploitation Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president o ...

film of the same name. The song is about the travails of the movie's lead character, "Mister T", and also relates to issues in Gaye's private life. Gaye described the song as one of the most honest recordings he ever made. He played drums and piano on the record and performs all the vocals himself. Gaye sings most of the song in

falsetto ''Falsetto'' (, ; Italian diminutive of , "false") is the vocal register occupying the frequency range just above the modal voice register and overlapping with it by approximately one octave. It is produced by the vibration of the ligamentous ed ...

while reaching a

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message ("the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words an ...

-styled growl during the bridges of the song. The performances of the song during Gaye's later concerts became one of his highlights during his 1970s and early 1980s tours. The song was also used as two instrumental "theme songs" on the accompanying album, in which Gaye played

synthesizers A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and ...

to accompany

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to pr ...

solos from his musicians. Gaye also recorded a slightly different version of the song primarily for the movie's opening, in which he sang in both tenor and falsetto.

Reception

Cash Box ''Cashbox'', also known as ''Cash Box'', was an American music industry trade magazine, originally published weekly from July 1942 to November 1996. Ten years after its dissolution, it was revived and continues as ''Cashbox Magazine'', an online ...

'' described it as a "fine blend of smooth vocals and intriguing musical ventures."

Chart performance

Popular culture

*It was featured on the

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

for the

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

'' Driver: Parallel Lines''. *It was also featured on the soundtrack for the films: '' Four Brothers'', ''

Seven 7 is a number, numeral, and glyph. 7 or seven may also refer to: * AD 7, the seventh year of the AD era * 7 BC, the seventh year before the AD era * The month of July Music Artists * Seven (Swiss singer) (born 1978), a Swiss recording artist ...

'', '' Captain America: The Winter Soldier'' *The song is also referenced in ''

The Falcon and the Winter Soldier ''The Falcon and the Winter Soldier'' is an American television miniseries created by Malcolm Spellman for the streaming service Disney+, based on Marvel Comics featuring the characters Sam Wilson / Falcon and Bucky Barnes / Winter Soldier. ...

''.

Samples

* T.I's album, Trouble Man: Heavy is the Head, is made after this song and on his first track, T.I samples Gaye's voice in the song.

References

1972 singles 1973 singles Marvin Gaye songs Songs written by Marvin Gaye Song recordings produced by Marvin Gaye Tamla Records singles {{1970s-single-stub