Marvin Gaye "Sexual Healing" edit

I just noticed that I have two different versions of Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing," although I always thought that the LP and 45 versions were the same. On almost every disc I have the song on, it runs (3:59), but on Billboard Hot R&B Hits of 1982, the time is (4:07). I A/B'd them and sure enough there is one part of the song that is 10 seconds longer on the Billboard disc.

It's at the 3:20 mark, where the music breaks down before going into the final choruses. On the (4:07) version, it goes into Marvin whispering "get up, get up, get up...(then sung) Let's make love tonight..." That 10 seconds is not in the (3:59) version; it simply cuts to the backup vocals and Marvin singing "I can't wait for you to operate."

Anyone know where this longer version came from? Is it possible that this is the LP and the shorter one is the 45? I don't have vinyl copies to compare.

aaronk:

I have both versions too and have wondered the very same thing. Marvin Gaye's CD release of his original 1983 album Midnight Love (Columbia/Legacy 63856) contains the 3:59 version of "Sexual Healing", which means the 3:59 version is the LP version (unless there are other pressings of this album lurking out there with the 4:07 version). I don't have a copy of the 45, but my research shows that the label has a printed run time of 3:52. I'm going to hazard to guess that the 45 actually contains the 3:59 version, which of course would mean that the printed time is inaccurate (which we all know is a common occurence on 45s). If all this is true though, then what is the 4:07 version? A radio edit? Or does it simply fall under the "neither the 45 or LP version" classification?

Been comparing the shorter LP version to the longer 45 version, and I think I found a motivation for why there's an edit.

On the 45, in the 16 beats from 1:49 to 1:59, Marvin sings "Get up, get up, get up, get up". (This is new info, not noted in the above posts.) To my ears, hearing these words actually sung (not whispered) sounds a little jarring, and my guess is that someone at Columbia thought the same thing.

The 16-beat whispered portion, from 3:20 to 3:30 on the 45, was then cut out and used to replace the sung 16 beats from 1:49-1:59. The resulting edit (now 10 seconds shorter than the 45) became the album version and was subsequently used on nearly every CD version of the song.

You can tell that the events happened in this sequence because there are edits at 1:50 and 2:00 in the edited album version (at the beginning and end of the "whispered" portion), but no such edits at 1:50 and 2:00 in the original 45 version (at the beginning and end of the "sung" portion).

FYI - The edits show up as slight misalignments in the drum machine beats, which are visible in sound editing software.

Interesting. I always wondered why the instrumental version on my old Ringle of the song runs about ten seconds longer than the song itself does. (They stupidly used the album version on the Ringle instead of the 45, but fortunately used the correct B-side instrumental, a mistake Sony appears to have repeated in the Digital 45 of the song.)