♫ Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)♫

Posted on by under Bits 'n Pieces, Environmental Issues, Global Issues, music, music history, Social commentary

I’ve only played this one once before, a couple of years ago, so I’m hoping you’re ready to hear it again!  It’s one that carries an important message, but also makes for some good listening.

Many years before global warming became a hot topic, Marvin Gaye wrote this song about the environment and how we have an obligation to care for the Earth. For his What’s Going On album (1971), Gaye got away from love ballads and explored deeper social themes, which at first didn’t sit well with Motown boss Berry Gordy (to whose daughter Gaye was married at the time!), who thought these songs wouldn’t be marketable. The success of the title track proved otherwise, and Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) became a #1 R&B hit and soared to #4 on the Hot 100.

Gaye elaborated on this song and his spiritual quest in a 1976 interview …

“I am a student of Don Juan and Carlos Castaneda. I’ve read many books by many authors. My idea of living is, I would love to become an impeccable warrior, one who has no need for earthly things such as the wine, the women, the clothes and the diamonds, and the fine things to wear. I’d love to develop a distaste for those things and become only interested in knowledge and power that this earth will give us, if we’re only willing to put in the time and effort.

I would love to quit show-business and go after that knowledge and that power that the truly gifted sorcerer has. The power’s here, it’s in the rocks, it’s in the air, it’s in the animals. There are men of knowledge who could take these forces and elements and cause mysterious things to happen to the body, transform themselves and do many, many marvelous things. I would like to become a man of power, and I would like to use it in a good fashion.

The knowledge that we have is enough to catapult ourselves over the hurdle into super-knowledge, where we become super-beings. But at that point we always destroy ourselves. That will always happen because super-knowledge is only for the chosen few. But the few can be of a greater number, that’s why I talk about it. If only we would adhere to certain laws that Mother Nature… THAT’S THE KEY!

We appear to have reached the bottom line. And, just like Bunny says (here he’s referring to the Jamaican musician Bunny Wailer), it’s in obeying the laws of nature that this wisdom and freedom lies. Those songs aren’t written for nothing. A lot of the time, they don’t even know it as writers, but they’re just forced to put Mother Nature into the picture, like in ‘You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.'”

Marvin Gaye was shot to death by his own father while trying to break up an argument between his parents in 1984, at the age of only 44, one day short of his 45th birthday.

This song, written solely by Gaye, became regarded as one of popular music’s most poignant anthems of sorrow regarding the environment.  The song rose to #4 in the U.S. but I cannot find whether it charted in Canada or the UK.

Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)
Marvin Gaye

Here we have something for you folks, we hope
You enjoy it as we enter our social section, thank you

Woah, ah, mercy, mercy me
Ah, things ain’t what they used to be (ain’t what they used to be)
Where did all the blue skies go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north and south and east

Woah mercy, mercy me, yeah
Ah, things ain’t what they used to be (ain’t what they used to be)
Oil wasted on the ocean and upon our seas
Fish full of mercury

Oh Jesus, yeah, mercy, mercy me, ah
Ah, things ain’t what they used to be (ain’t what they used to be)
Radiation underground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying

Hey, mercy, mercy me, oh
Hey, things ain’t what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land?
How much more abuse from man can she stand?

Oh, na, na, na
Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh
Hey, ooh, woo

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Gaye Marvin P

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38 thoughts on “♫ Mercy, Mercy Me (The Ecology)♫”

  1. Carlos Castaneda. I gifted my therapist with the Second Ring of Power. I loved the melody but it’s lyrics lacked the power the subject requires.😒

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  2. Absolutely one of his best, though I’ve not heard a bad Marvin Gaye piece. I hadn’t ever read the 1976 interview portion you included here, of his wishes to work more with earth-related things in earth-related ways. If I generally understand basic Paganism (not a given!), I’d say he was Pagan, which to me is admirable. Before I read he was breaking up that argument, I wondered if Paganism was why his dad shot him; I’d understood at the time that the argument was between Marvin Gaye and his father. sigh That was a big loss.

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    • I’m like you in that I can’t think of a Marvin Gaye song I didn’t like! I don’t know what Paganism is … is it a religion of sorts? As you know by now, I am not religious, not even a believer, for that matter, and I know just a smattering about a few religions — Christianity, Judaism, Islam. Yes, his death was, as so many others have been, a big loss — but on the bright side, he left us a legacy of some really great music!

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      • Well, what I know about Pagans is they have a respect for and knowledge of the Earth and all Creation, and how it all works. What I understand about it is similar to what Marvin Gaye said, which is that some are able to connect so well and deeply that they can affect things for the better, in regard to some or all of creation. I think I understand it can merge well with Wicca, as I’ve e-friends who are either/or Pagans and Wiccans, and some who consider themselves both. Anyway, that struck me. I’m a Christian believer, but my best worship place is in a forest or my backyard, some Pagans have included me as a Pagan as I’m also pacifist, have an affinity for the critters, and I’m a do-no-harm person (sometimes I fail because I’m snarky, but always in matters of truth, so I hope the truth outweighs the harm.) Also this is the most I reveal about my religion, as I try to keep it to myself as a personal thing. I just want to be a good person who does no harm is mostly all I usually share. So no worries about proselytization, or me being offended if there’re jokes. I have a great sense of humor!

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  7. I don’t think this one got much airplay here: I recognised it, but can’t say that it was a favourite. Considering the importance of its subject matter it feels a bit bland to me. Wiki says it made #9 in Canada and #52 here, but it doesn’t say when: could have been on re-release…

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      • They do list those rankings I quoted, but there’s nothing on the specific page for the song. To be honest, his chart success here was patchy – at best – after the 60s.

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              • And that wasn’t as relevant here at that time, though we have had several version of something similar. The Windrush scandal is one such, but we don’t tend so easily towards marching on the streets waving guns around.

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                • True … no other country in the world has quite the gun culture we have … in fact, another school shooting this morning. Sigh. Our Civil Rights movement in the ’60s, though, was so major and so long overdue that it’s not surprising it inspired many a song, and for the first time, Black musicians were given a stage and respect.

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  9. I practically raised my sons on this song, and on Marvin’s music. Only one took this to heart and lives almost completely off the grid, using solar and wind power, to heat, cool, and run his electrics, raises his own food, cans extra produce, rides a bike back and forth to work. I’m proud of him and a bit jealous I can not do the same.

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    • Wow … that one son sounds like exactly what this world needs more of!!! I’m like you … I cannot do the same, either, but I sure do admire those who can and do! You and I, my friend, do as much as we can. I use reusable canvas grocery bags, try to keep plastic to a bare minimum, us less heat/air conditioning, don’t drive my car much (I only fill up my tank about every 3-4 months!). Our biggest problem here is food waste, and the girls and I have committed to cooking smaller batches and having more leftover nights! We do what we can. Thumbs up to your son!!!!

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