Ego Tripping Out

"Ego Tripping Out"
Single by Marvin Gaye
from the album Love Man (cancelled)/In Our Lifetime1
B-side	Ego Tripping Out (Instrumental)
Released	September 17, 1979
Format	7" single 12" single
Recorded	1979, Marvin's Room, Los Angeles, California
Genre	Funk
Length	5:13
Label	Tamla
Writer(s)	Marvin Gaye
Producer	Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye singles chronology
"Anger" (1979) "Ego Tripping Out" (1979) "Praise" (1981)

"Ego Tripping Out" is a 1979 funk-styled dance record released by American soul singer Marvin Gaye, released as a single on the Tamla (Motown) label.

The song, written, composed, arranged and produced by Gaye himself, was a self-mockery of the singer's image and lifestyle. Providing a semi-rap at the beginning of the song where he sung "I got the baddest cool/could never be the fool/the ladies wait to get down with me", he later talks about the downside of being in the spotlight as he sung about his crippling drug abuse: "cause the toot and the smoke won't fulfill the need".

The song, while not making it to the Billboard Hot 100, still made the R&B charts, peaking at #17. It would be Marvin's last Top 40 Billboard single at least on the R&B singles chart until 1981's "Praise".

Personnel

• All vocals by Marvin Gaye
• Instrumentation by assorted musicians:
  • Guitars by Gordon Banks
  • Drums, piano, keyboard and synthesizers by Marvin Gaye
  • Saxophones by assorted musicians
  • Bass by Frank Blair

• ¹ Single was later included in a 1994 re-release of In Our Lifetime and a 2007 re-release deluxe edition featured different alternate mixes for the sessions of In Our Lifetime as well as the original Love Man single of it.