A defense attorney for a Columbia University graduate accused of bludgeoning his father in a battle over his late mom’s estate invoked Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” in an unusual opening statement Tuesday.

“In that song, he said, ‘Father, father we don’t need to escalate, you see war is not the answer, only love can conquer hate,’” said attorney Todd Spodek reciting the lyrics to Manhattan Supreme Court jurors at the attempted-murder trial of Jason Heyworth.

Spodek said that Heyworth, 37, showed up at his 71-year-old dad’s apartment to try to work out their long-simmering dispute over his mom’s $2 million fortune.

“Unfortunately Marvin Gaye had issues with his father, and when he went to see him, he was shot and killed, and when Mr. Heyworth went to see his father to work out issues, he was attacked with a wrench,” said the lawyer before Justice Ruth Pickholz.

Spodek argued that the elder Heyworth was irate that his wife of more than 30 years, Virginia Paris-Heyworth, had left each of their sons $1 million, while he got just $60,000 when she unexpectedly died in 2012.

But prosecutor Sarah Marquez argued that Heyworth, an amateur filmmaker, used a wrench to beat and torture his retired public school teacher dad for nearly four hours, leaving him with permanent brain damage.

”He was attacking me so I hit him with a wrench,” Heyworth allegedly told responding cops. “He owes me money. This is all over my mother’s will.”

Heyworth, who was being evicted from an apartment owned by Columbia University over $11,000 in back rent, showed up at his childhood home on E. 106th St. and discovered the locks had been changed.

Shortly after Heyworth gained entry to the apartment June 9, 2017, neighbor Daniel Rodriguez heard blood-curdling screams that were so high-pitched that he thought they came from a woman.

“I heard the person yell, ‘Where is the money? You’ve had enough time!’” Rodriguez testified.

That afternoon, Rodriguez called cops three times but each time they responded, the apartment would fall silent and no one would answer the door. The worried neighbor finally called the detective squad directly and within minutes police were on the scene.

The younger Heyworth opened the door, and cops discovered the elder Heyworth, his face swollen like a tomato and blood streaming from his mouth and ear, trying to scoot on his buttocks out of the bedroom. He was wearing no pants and covered in blood and vomit.

“This defendant tortured and brutalized his own father for hours nearly killing him because of greed,” Marquez said.

The elder Heyworth immediately fingered his son for the gruesome bludgeoning then began muttering incoherently.

He was rushed to Harlem Hospital, where he slipped into a coma, and remained there for two months. He was transferred to a rehabilitation facility and later to an assisted-living home.

“He will never be the same man,” Marquez said of the Harvard graduate, who worked at IS 227 in Queens before retiring in 2008.

Heyworth and his brother, Alejandro Heyworth, 46, who went to MIT and teaches lacrosse to kids, each inherited $1 million.

The defendant had frittered away the entire sum by 2017 on “fancy hotels and expensive restaurants” and demanded that his dad give him money and let him move back in, Marquez said. The elder Heyworth said no.

“He was willing to kill a man, his own father, whose only crime was refusing to bankroll his son’s lavish rent-free lifestyle,” the prosecutors told jurors.

Heyworth faces up to life in prison if convicted. He’s charged with first-degree attempted murder, assault, burglary and robbery.