25. A song by an artist no longer living.
It's an old, old story, and a hard one to tell. If you tell it without sentiment, you risk sounding judgmental; no one is all bad. If you tell it with sympathy, you anger yourself and everyone else who knows that childhood trauma doesn't make a monster of everyone who's been through it.
So. On the one hand, we have a sexist drug addict whose father, on killing him, was only charged with voluntary manslaughter because the son had injured him so seriously in the fight that preceded the shooting.
On the other hand, we have a black man in 1960s America, a survivor of grievous childhood physical, verbal, and emotional abuse who, like his father, was a cross-dresser (See: David Ritz's badly-written but factual book, Divided Soul, based on interviews unfinished at the time of the artist's death).
In spite of all that, or perhaps because of it, we have the artist -- one of the most gifted in the history of American music.
I wish he had made it. I wish he had lived to see abuse survivors and transgender kids grow up, find their true families, and live happy, healthy lives full of love. I wish he had lived to encourage them -- or be encouraged by them.
This is Marvin Gaye, who is no longer living, yet lives inside of so many. The song is Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler).
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