4. Stevie Wonder, "Songs in the Key of Life"
I was somewhere with my friend Doug - I'm not sure when or where, but it was probably in North Beach in the early 90s - when this song was playing. I was marveling at its gorgeous melody and listening to the lyrics:
Until the trees and seas just up and fly away (Always)
Until the day that eight times eight times eight is four (Always)
Until the day that is the day that are no more (Did you know you're loved by somebody?)
Until the day the earth starts turning right to left (Always)
Until the earth just for the sun denies itself (I'll be loving you forever)
Until dear Mother Nature says her work is through (Always)
Until the day that you are me and I am you (Always)
Until the rainbow burns the stars out in the sky (Always)
Until the ocean covers every mountain high (Always)
And I jokingly remarked something about how this song must be called "Always" because, reader, I was not familiar with this album as a whole, and you can imagine my shock when Doug told me the name of the song was "As." That's right, "As," the first word in the first line of the song. Stevie gave zero fucks, and with good reason; he had just signed the biggest recording deal in history; 7 albums, $37 million, complete creative control. This album, the first under this new deal, debuted at number 1, just the third album to ever do that (none of them by the Beatles, surprisingly; both of the others were by Elton John).
We have gone through 496 albums to arrive at another All Time Classic That I Don't Particularly Love, and I don't think it's the last one. I mean, this album is immensely easy to listen to and virtually impossible to not enjoy, but I've never been a huge Wonder fan and I must confess this is the first time I've listened to this album all the way through.
Let's hit the highlights! Besides "As," which is a wondrous and beautiful song, there's the rollicking "Sir Duke," a song I was surprised to learn that I already knew but never knew the name of. I probably it was called something like "You Can Feel It All Over," the main line of the chorus. "Isn't She Lovely," a tribute to Wonder's daughter Aisha, is of course canonical now. (Wonder played it for Queen Elizabeth II at the latter's Diamond Jubilee Concert in 2012, which seems creepy somehow, although I'm not exactly sure why.)
If, like me, you'd never heard "Pastime Paradise," you've heard part of it because Coolio lifted the main synth riff and lots of the vocals for "Gangsta's Paradise," which is iconic in and of itself. The first single off the record was "I Wish," another song I knew instinctively without ever knowing the title to.
Prior to signing his mega-deal, Wonder had considered leaving the music business entirely to work in charitable endeavors in Africa, and portions of this album reflect his continuing interest in African and African-American issues, the most striking of which is "Black Man," a song that's probably illegal to play in Florida schools now:
Was first done successfully
By a Black man
Friendly man who died
But helped the Pilgrims to survive
Was a red man
Farm workers' rights
Were lifted to new heights
By a brown man
Incandescent light
Was invented to give sight
By the white man
Well, maybe they'd let you sing the last three lines.
The whole album is a masterful tribute to Wonder's gift for writing the perfect melody. "Village Ghetto Land" has a distinctly classical feel, with the synth strings again and a baroque melody, this gorgeous song with unquestionably dark lyrics:
Starvation roams the street
Babies die before they're born
Infected by the grief
Now some folks say that we should be
Glad for what we have
Tell me, would you be happy in Village Ghetto Land?
I probably haven't heard Sir Duke in, I don't know, 40 years? I just sat down and figured out, note for note, from memory, the entire horn part/bridge. A lot of notes, all permanently lodged in my brain. That's something.
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