Sexual Healing

Gaye began the song in Ostend, Belgium, with the musicians Gordon Banks and Odell Brown, building a reggae-inspired instrumental on a Roland TR-808 drum machine. David Ritz, then a reviewer for Rolling Stone, arrived in April 1982. Ritz said he told Gaye he needed sexual healing and wrote verses that Gaye edited. Freddy Cousaert said the only songwriters were Gaye and Brown and that Ritz supplied the title, and Brown said he never met Ritz. Gaye himself acknowledged Ritz for inspiring the title. Ritz sued for credit, and he was credited in 1988 after a settlement with Gaye's estate. The song was recorded at Studio Katy in Ohain, Belgium. Gaye plays Jupiter-8 synthesizer, Fender Rhodes and Hammond organ, Banks plays guitar, and Harvey Fuqua whispers the opening chants of get up and wake up.

It reached number one on the Black Singles chart in four weeks and stayed there ten, which Billboard called the fastest rise to number one in five years. On the Hot 100 it peaked at number three in January 1983, his 18th and last top ten hit. It reached number one in Canada and New Zealand and number four in the United Kingdom, and sold more than two million copies in the United States. At the 1983 Grammy Awards it won Best Male R&B Vocal Performance and Best R&B Instrumental Performance, and Gaye sang it at the ceremony on 23 February 1983. Rolling Stone ranked it 198th on its 2021 list of the 500 greatest songs. A video was shot at the Casino-Kursaal in Ostend.

Covers

Soul Asylum recorded it in 1993 for the charity album No Alternative, and it reached number 10 on the Modern Rock Tracks chart. Max-A-Million covered it in 1995 and Sarah Connor in 2007 with Ne-Yo. Kate Bush and Davy Spillane recorded it as a bonus track in 2005.