loved it because I had written Jamerson licks for Jamerson." Annie Jamerson recalls that when he returned home that night, he declared that the song they had been working on was a "masterpiece", one of the few occasions where he had discussed his work so passionately with her. Gaye also added his own instrumentation, playing piano and keyboards while also playing a box drum to help accentuate Chet Forest's drumming. To add more to the song's laid-back approach, Gaye invited the Detroit Lions players Mel Farr and Lem Barney to Motown Studio B and, along with Gaye and the Funk Brothers, added in vocal chatter, engaging in a mock conversation. Musician and songwriter Elgie Stover, who later served as a caterer for Bill Clinton and was then a Motown staffer and confidante of Gaye's, was the man who opened the song's track with the words, "hey, man, what's happening?" and "everything is everything". Later Gaye brought Lem Barney and Mel Farr as well as Bobby Rogers of the Miracles to record the song's background vocal track. The rhythm tracks and the song's overdubs were done at Hitsville, while strings, horns, lead and background vocals were recorded at Studio B. The song was mixed in stereo at Motown Center studio on Woodward Avenue. On hearing a playback of the song, Gaye asked his engineer Kenneth Sands to give him his two vocal leads to compare what he wanted to use for the song's release. Sands ended up mixing the leads together, by accident. However, when he heard it, Gaye was so impressed with the double-lead feel that he kept it, influencing his later recordings in which he mastered vocal multi-layering adding in three different vocal parts. Before presenting the song to Gordy, he produced a false fade to the song, bringing the song back for a few seconds after it was initially to have ended. The song was also notable for its use of major seventh and minor seventh chords, which was uncommon at the time. Gaye recorded the song's B-side, "God Is Love", on the same day. After Gordy heard the song when Gaye presented it to him in California, he turned down Gaye's request to release it, telling Gaye that he felt it was "the worst thing I ever heard in my life." When Harry Balk requested the song be released, Gordy told him the song featured "that Dizzy