The Songs - I Wish

This is another entry in my ongoing “songs that visited me and decided they wanted to stay” series. I hope you like these enough to become a paid subscriber, because I really need you to keep this project going.

I Wish - Stevie Wonder

Sneaking out the back door to hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine
Greeted at the back door with "Boy, I thought I told you not to go outside!"
Tryin' your best to bring the water to your eyes
Thinkin' it might stop her from whoopin' your behind

The greatest bassline ever? The greatest horn line(s) ever? The most engagingly soulful song ever? A song that makes everybody else in the business just stare at their shoes and mumble, “fuck me, why am I even here…..”?

Yes. Yes. Yes. And yes.

Written in a single afternoon, while in the midst of what Stevie called “a terrible toothache” (imagine what he can pull off when he’s healthy?), this is a piece of music that will last as long as Mozart and Beethoven and Greensleeves. Stevie Wonder in the 70s was at such a level that he could have taken over the world if he desired. In 1976 Paul Simon won the Album of the Year Grammy, and in his acceptance speech wryly thanked Stevie for not releasing an album that year. Stevie won in 1974 and 1975, and would win again in 1977. Everybody knew the race was for second place.

He was so good it seemed unfair.

He was never this good again, mostly because he didn’t have to be. I don’t think anybody was good enough to push him, so he just sort of dithered and seemed content to look back on what he created and say, “yea, that’ll do.”

And it will. He’s the best of us.

As a kid I remember him all over the radio. Signed, Sealed, Delivered. You Are the Sunshine of My Life. Sir Duke. Isn’t She Lovely. Higher Ground. And the absolutely epic Superstition, which even today sounds like it could move mountains. Each song seemed to build on what came before, and include new left turns and inventions. Each is an American classic, part of a songbook filled with ridiculous riches. He was so good that, like Prince years later, he simply obliterated race. He was so good it was easy to minimize his disability. It was easy to think the man could see just fine.

Wonder was brilliant at EVERYTHING. Singing. He played at least 9 different instruments. Production. Arranging. Writing. About the only thing he couldn’t do better than everybody else was dance, and that could be explained.

I remember a few years ago being desperate to get out of work. It was a shit day and I got to the car and hightailed it out of the parking lot at a surely illegal speed. All I wanted to do was get home and close the blinds. And then “I Wish” came on my playlist and I found myself missing my exit because I was groovin’ so hard. And then I played it again and again and wasn’t in a hurry to get anywhere anymore. I ended up further from my house than when I stared. The song had fixed me. “I Wish” is one of the few songs that can affect your serotonin levels.

And what an evocation of childhood it is….

Mama gives you money for Sunday school
You trade yours for candy after church is through
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ever have to go?

What I love about this is that Wonder’s performance is so joyous that you realize that things are pretty good right now too. With his woops and hollers, it’s an invitation to join him not only in looking back, but to see what such innocence can lead to. “Look at me NOW” he seems to be saying. “This is what growing up in the bosom of love can do…”

With his career, he wished this for us too.

All this from a man who saw the same things as us, but in different ways.

***

There’s just something awe-inspiring about Stevie Wonder. His prodigious talent. His regal presence. Even fellow musical titans fall into a sort of reverent trance when he enters the room. He seems to transcend genres. Rock. Soul. Funk. Rhythm and Blues. Gospel. Folk. Hip Hop. All seasoned with the touch of mystic poet and the soul of a cultural warrior. And of course doing all of this while encased in darkness. A country that produces a Stevie Wonder does not need to be made great again.

In a bit…

—tf

Songs That Visited Me and Decided They Wanted to Stay

Intro
In a Big Country
Found Out About You
Tutti Fruitti
Surrender
Who Knows Where the Time Goes?
Nightswimming
Fast Car
Take Five
Romeo and Juliet
Wichita Lineman
Waterfall
There She Goes
A Sort of Homecoming
Purple Rain
Nights On Broadway
Tough All Over
What Am I Doing Hangin’ ‘Round
Inside Out
Ain’t Wastin’ Time No More
America
Thirteen