Editing Let's Get It On (section)

== Music and lyrics ==
{{Listen 
 |filename     = Come Get to This sample.ogg 
 |title        = "Come Get to This" 
 |description  = "Come Get to This", the [[doo-wop]] influenced single 
 |filename2    = You Sure Love to Ball sample.ogg 
 |title2       = "You Sure Love to Ball" 
 |description2 = "You Sure Love to Ball", the album's most sexually overt song
}}

"Let's Get It On" features soulful, passionate lead vocals and [[Multitrack recording|multi-tracked]] background singing, both by Gaye.<ref name="Landau"/> It has a 1950s-styled melody and begins with three wah-wah guitar notes and centers on simple chord changes, while its arrangements are centered on an eccentric rhythm pattern.<ref name="Landau"/> Its signature guitar line is played by session musician Don Peake.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/premiumdonpeake/index.html|title=Don Peake Motown|work=[[The Wrecking Crew (2008 film)|The Wrecking Crew]]|publisher=Denny Tedesco|access-date=January 13, 2013|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130116053437/http://www.wreckingcrewfilm.com/premiumdonpeake/index.html|archive-date=January 16, 2013}}</ref> Music journalist [[Jon Landau]] dubs the song "a classic Motown single, endlessly repeatable and always enjoyable".<ref name="Landau"/> The song is reprised on the fourth track, "[[Keep Gettin' It On]]". It expands on the title track's sensual theme with political overtones: "won't you rather make love, children / as opposed to war, like you know you should."<ref name="Landau">Landau, Jon (December 6, 1973). [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/albumreviews/lets-get-it-on-19731206 Review: ''Let's Get It On'']. ''[[Rolling Stone]]''. Retrieved on 2011-01-28.</ref>

The third track, the ballad "[[If I Should Die Tonight]]" originally appeared on the vinyl LP in a shortened version lasting only 3:03. For the 1986  'twofer' (with "What's Going On") CD reissue of the album, Motown recording engineers for the first time restored the missing verse which had been omitted from the LP. The full length track, which has been used for all subsequent releases, runs to 4 full minutes.

"[[Distant Lover]]" has Gaye crooning over serene instrumentation, leading to soulful screams near the end; from a heartbroken croon to an impassioned wail.<ref name=distant>[{{AllMusic|class=song|id=t5080821|pure_url=yes}} allmusic  Distant Lover - Song Review ]. All Media Guide. Retrieved on 2008-08-17.</ref> The song's lyrics chronicled the yearning its narrator feels for a lover who is "so many miles away", as he pleads for her return and laments the emptiness he feels without her.<ref name=distant/> Music writer Donarld A. Guarisco later wrote of the song's sound, in that "Marvin Gaye's studio recording enhances the dreamy style of the song with stately horn and strings, tumbling drum fills that gently nudge the song along, and mellow, doo wop-styled background vocals that echo "love her, you love her" under his romantic pleas.<ref name=distant/> The song later became a concert favorite for Gaye and a live concert version, featuring female fans screaming in the background, was released as a single from his ''[[Marvin Gaye Live!]]'' album in 1974.<ref name=distant/>

"[[You Sure Love to Ball]]" is one of Gaye's most sexually overt and controversial singles, with its intro and outro featuring moaning sounds made by a man and woman engaged in sex.<ref name=edm8/> The sexually-explicit and risqué nature of the album's content were, at the time, controversial, and the recording of such an album was deemed as a commercial risk by Motown [[A&R]]'s (Artists and Repertoire) and label executives.<ref name=edm8>Edmonds (2001), pp. 8–9.</ref>