"'Til Tomorrow" is a quiet storm

Quiet storm

Quiet storm is a late-night radio format, featuring soulful slow jams, pioneered in the mid-1970s by then-station-intern Melvin Lindsey at WHUR-FM, in Washington, D.C. Smokey Robinson's like-titled hit single, released in 1975 as the title track to his third solo album, lent its name to the format...

-styled song recorded by Marvin Gaye

Marvin Gaye

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....

. The song was the second song to be promoted off Midnight Love but wasn't released as a physical single, but more of a promotional song as Gaye prepped for a U.S. tour in the year of its release.

Song information

Issued on his Midnight Love

Midnight Love

Midnight Love is the final studio album recorded and issued by American soul singer Marvin Gaye and was the singer's first release from Columbia months after leaving his longtime label, Motown. It claimed the number one slot on NME Album of the Year....

album, it was the sole ballad in the album, which focused mainly on funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 rhythms and dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

 material. Gaye was the sole lyricist of the song. When asked how the lyrics of the song seemed more primitive than Gaye's previous ballads, the singer said he had run out of ideas on lyrics. The song is described as a bare-bones song with "heavenly scat riffs". Gaye provides accentuated doo-wop

Doo-wop

The name Doo-wop is given to a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music that developed in African American communities in the 1940s and achieved mainstream popularity in the 1950s and early 1960s. It emerged from New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore, Newark, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati and...

 harmonies in the background while delivering both a jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

y-inspired baritone and a gospel-inflected tenor with falsetto stuck in the middle of it. The original demo of the song (titled "Baby, Baby, Baby") showcased the frustration Gaye was going through during the recording of Midnight Love. The spoken intro by Gaye was later modified by the singer while mention of the word "shit" was also taken off of the final track as was extra lyrics added during the saxophone solo provided by Bobby Stern. The song was later covered by Chico DeBarge

Chico DeBarge

Jonathan Arthur "Chico" DeBarge is an American R&B singer and a younger brother of the members of the Motown family act DeBarge...

.

Chart performance

The song was issued as a promotional single mainly on R&B radio while Gaye was prepping for his upcoming "Sexual Healing" tour, which took place in April 1983. Due to strong initial airplay, the song peaked at number seventy-eight on the R&B singles chart but because Columbia Records, Marvin's label, had no plans of releasing the song as a physical single, it was the highest the song ever reached.

Credits

• All vocals by Marvin Gaye
  Marvin Gaye
  Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
  
  
• Instrumentation by the following:
  • Marvin Gaye: synthesizers
  • Gordon Banks: guitar, bass, drums
  • Bobby Stern: tenor saxophone solo
• Produced by Marvin Gaye