"Sexual Healing" by Marvin Gaye

I've never met anyone who didn't like this song. There's something magic about this one that it manages to be totally groovy without being skeevy. You can hear it in a doctor's office or a hardware store (where I heard it today) without feeling weird, unlike with other sexually frank songs that you can't hear without feeling like you can't look at the people around you without them thinking you're coming on to them. Like, say, Warrent's "Cherry Pie". I don't want to hear freakin' "Cherry Pie" when I am anywhere around other people. (I'm kind of horrified that that was my counter-example song, but it's the first one that came to mind.) Or, okay, "I Touch Myself". Did people stop writing songs like that?

I was a prudish child, but even I loved this song as soon as it first came on the radio.

Maybe it's a shame that Mr. Gaye's most accessible song is his least challenging, or maybe it's a complement to his ability to expertly convey a feeling everyone has sooner or later.

I still can't go over the fact that his own father shot him to death.