What's Going On - Composition

Composition

"What's Going On" features soulful, passionate vocals and multi-tracked background singing, both by Gaye. The song had strong jazz, gospel, classical music orchestration and arrangements. The song also featured major seventh and minor seventh chords, which was then unusual for pop music at the time. Reviewer Eric Henderson of Slant stated the song had an "understandably mournful tone" in response to the fallout of the late 1960s counterculture movements. Henderson also wrote that "Gaye's choice to emphasize humanity at its most charitable rather than paint bleak pictures of destruction and disillusionment is characteristic of the album that follows."

This is immediately followed in segue flow by the second track, "What's Happening Brother", in which Gaye dedicated to his brother Frankie, in which Gaye wrote to explain the disillusionment of war veterans who returned to civilian life and their disconnect from pop culture. "Flyin' High (In the Friendly Sky)", which took its title from an American Airlines tag, "fly the friendly skies", dealt with dependence on heroin. Heroin was a common drug used in black communities at the time. The lyric, "I know, I'm hooked my friend, to the boy, who makes slaves out of men", references heroin as "boy", which was another name to describe heroin. "Save the Children" was an emotional plea to help disadvantaged children, warning, "who really cares/who's willing to try/to save a world/that is destined to die?" later crying out, "save the babies" due to fears of the world collapsing due to other matters. A truncated version of "God Is Love" follows "Save the Children" as a positive message to God.

"Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" was another emotional plea, this time to the environment. Funk Brother musician Earl Van Dyke once mentioned that Berry Gordy didn't know of the word "ecology" and had to be told what it was. The song featured a memorable tenor saxophone riff from Detroit music legend Wild Bill Moore. "Right On" was a lengthy seven-minute jam influenced by funk rock and Latin soul rhythms that focused on bringing people together in a divided world in which Gaye pleaded in falsetto, "if you let me, I will take you to live where love is King". "Wholy Holy" follows "God Is Love" as an emotional gospel plea advising people to "come together" to "proclaim love salvation". The final track, "Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)", focuses on urban poverty, backed by a minimalist, dark blues-oriented funk vibe, with its bass riffs composed and performed by Bob Babbitt, who also performed on "Mercy Mercy Me" (Jamerson played on the rest of the album). The entire album's stylistic use of a song cycle gave it a cohesive feel and was one of R&B's first concept albums, described as "a groundbreaking experiment in collating a pseudo-classical suite of free-flowing songs."