"Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)" (Marvin Gaye)

There’s no arguing that the album What’s Going On (1971) is a masterpiece.  It’s Marvin Gaye’s most complete artistic statement, and it’s one of the 1970s best albums from start to finish.
By the late 60s, Gaye had grown disillusioned not only with the Vietnam War and the social/political situation in America, but also the Motown/Tamla hit-making machine.  Even though his recordings had made him a star, he felt his music wasn’t saying anything important.  For a moment, he even decided to take a break from music and tried out for the Detroit Lions.
Ultimately, he returned to music because he felt a duty to say something—something Motown/Tamla chief Berry Gordy strongly advised him not to do.  Gordy (who also was Gaye’s brother-in-law at the time) flat out told him he was crazy for wanting to shed his crooner image and came very close to blocking the album’s title single from being released at all, calling it “the worst thing (he’d) ever heard.”
Thanks to pressures from other musicians and writers at Motown and the massive chart success of the lead single, Gordy didn't shelve the project, thankfully.
Quite literally, “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” is the climax of the work; it’s the very last song of the 9-song cycle that makes up What’s Going On.  Thematically, it’s also the synthesis of everything Gaye was thinking and feeling: his dismay at the hardships and crushing poverty that plagued America’s inner cities; politicians who seemed to care more about sending a man to the moon than helping people on Earth; and endless discrimination against blacks, hippies, young people, and the poor.  All of these themes simmer throughout the song, delivered by Gaye’s falsetto over a cold groove that’s driven by Gaye’s piano, Bob Babbitt’s funky bass, and Ms. Bobbye Hall’s expressive bongos.  When the reality of it all gets too much for him to take, Gaye dips back into his regular tenor to make commentary (Make me wanna holler, how they do my life... Make me wanna holler, throw up both my hands...). You also hear two or three Marvins in the background, howling/hollering/praying.  
It’s cerebral, spiritual, funky, angry, and weary, all at once.
On the single version, the song abruptly fades out just before the 3-minute mark.  On the album, however, the groove slows, and you’re treated to a stark, intimate piano/vocal reprise of the title track, just before the song/album dissolves into a foggy mist of multiple Marvins harmonizing over Hall’s heavily reverbed bongos.  This coda is somewhat bleak, and it's rife with a feeling of uncertainty.  Although, the treatment of the sound—the reverb and echo—automatically makes one think of being in church.  It absolutely fits with Gaye’s other primary theme on the album: seeking divine guidance and spiritual strength to cope with modern problems.