I have to thank Jim Sangrey for getting me to listen to this one. . . it has slowly woven a spell from my cd player.
Released way way too long after it was conceived, this is a deeply emotional presentation of romantic hindsight or something like that. . . . The arrangements and playing are just right, Gaye's singing is just so on target and his extra special personal harmonizations with himself so right, and the tone just smack there where it should be; this is just a masterwork.
I get the sense of a lonely evening of soul searching (probably with a bottle. . . I mean I never have a bottle around, and I didn't when I've gone through dark nights like this in the past, but I am sure that were this to hit me now and in the future, if my Helen were ever to leave me, there WOULD BE A BOTTLE and many dark long nights).
The ebb and flow of the arrangements and the songs and the sentiments all lead up to an awareness in the end of "Why did I Choose You" and then a resignation. . . .
Yeah. Thanks Jim.