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Spring of 1977. A thirteen-year-old, already a bit grown-up, enters the only bar in his town where there's a jukebox and a pool table. The middle school exam approaches menacingly, and that small bar with the pergola is the right place to enjoy a well-deserved rest after studying (oh yes, back then, people even studied for this exam).
Before showing off his early talents as a hitter, he decides to invest the classic 50 lire to choose three songs that can suitably accompany his performance. Scrolling through singers and titles, his attention is caught by the name of an American artist he's sure he's heard on the radio: Stevie Wonder, that one from "Supertiscion", recalls the lanky teenager. He had listened to the song a couple of times fleetingly, but it was enough to imprint it in his memory: the voice and rhythm are unforgettable.
Sure, let's give this old stuff a shake, he thinks, let's see how this "Isn't She Lovely" is; and in the meantime, he prepares to see the effect it will have on his companions, ready to display the expression of someone who knows their stuff, who gets it. But, surprisingly, out comes from the blown speakers of the cumbersome box the clear cry of a baby: it's a moment, but enough to spark hilarity among patrons and mates, who tease and protest, invoking, poor them, the Collage, the Homo Sapiens or, at most, the hit of the moment, "Ti amo". Stricken in pride, the boy stands aside. But a couple of minutes are enough to be captivated by that enchanting, warm, vital music, which he doesn’t yet know to call Soul; and then the unmistakable and heavenly sound of that harmonica remains in his ears, accompanying him until the moment of sleep.
After that day, Stevie "Wonder" will almost never be missing from one of his three choices; sometimes even a trio, with "Sir Duke" and "I Wish".
The "Songs in the Key of Life," as you've understood, changed the "tonality" of my musical existence, and I can say that from that day, black music became indispensable for me.
Yet, only a couple of decades after that spring of '77 did I understand the fundamental importance of this album, which rivals in depth with that of Marvin Gaye, after the passion ignited that day drove me to learn a bit of the history of that genre. I don’t think I'm wrong in saying that with this work, Wonder leads soul music into a new era, without letting the best characteristics of the "music of the soul" get lost. An intelligent "revolution," therefore, that slots into the groove Gaye had so brilliantly charted and that nobody, or almost nobody, had been up to following.
Let's be clear, there have been excellent soul performances between "What's Going On" and "Songs in Key...", indeed. I mention two for all: those of Bobby Womack and Bill Withers.
But that sound tuned to the wavelength in the new metropolitan context, that grafting of social themes onto the sweetnesses of the black, that awareness of being able to be a point of reference for blacks in America and not just an idol, unite more than evidently and make special the albums of the two great artists with such acute sensitivity as similar. An operation of the same magnitude, if I may make the comparison, had been completed by Miles Davis in the jazz field.
Tracks like the already mentioned "Isn't She Lovely", "I Wish", and "Sir Duke", like "As", "Contusion", "Pastime Paradise", "Ordinary Pain", besides the "phosphorescent" and never conventional ballads like "Village Ghetto Land" (chamber music + soul), "Summer Soft", "Joy Inside My Tears", completely redraw the boundaries and aspirations of pop-black music, reaching levels that only a few subsequently will be able to approach.
At the time, Wonder had already churned out masterpieces like "Music On My Mind" and "Innervision", but the grandeur of the project (two LPs + 1 EP), the astonishing creative streak, as well as the ability to hold together so many "threads" in a marvelous and, perhaps, unrepeatable, balance make "Songs In The Key..." a tapestry as imposing as it is enjoyable.
Tracklist Lyrics and Samples
03 Village Ghetto Land (03:25)
Would you like to go with me
Down my dead end street
Would you like to come with me
To Village Ghetto Land
See the people lock their doors
While robbers laugh and steal
Beggars watch and eat their meals, from garbage cans
Broken glass is everywhere
It's a bloody scene
Killing plagues the citizens
Unless they own police
Children play with rusted cars
Sores cover their hands
Politicians laugh and drink, drunk to all demands
Families buying dog food now
Starvation roams the streets
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
Village Ghetto Land
05 Sir Duke (03:54)
Music is a world within itself
With a language we all understand
With an equal opportunity
For all to sing, dance and clap their hands
But just because a record has a groove
Don't make it in the groove
But you can tell right away at letter A
When the people start to move
They can feel it all over
They can feel it all over people
They can feel it all over
They can feel it all over people
Music knows it is and always will
Be one of the things that life just won't quit
But here are some of music's pioneers
That time will not allow us to forget
For there's Basie, Miller, Satchmo
And the king of all, Sir Duke
And with a voice like Ella's ringing out
There's no way the band can lose
You can feel it all over
You can feel it all over people
You can feel it all over
You can feel it all over people [Repeat]
Can't you feel it all over
Come on let's feel it all over people
You can feel it all over
Everybody, all over people
06 I Wish (04:12)
Looking back on when I
Was a little nappy headed boy
Then my only worry
Was for Christmas what would be my toy
Even though we sometimes
Would not get a thing
We were happy with the
Joy the day would bring
Sneaking out the back door
To hang out with those hoodlum friends of mine
Greeted at the back door
With "Boy thought I told you not to go outside"
Tryin' your best to bring the
Water to your eyes
Thinkin' it might stop her
From woopin' your behind
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ev-er have to go?
I wish those days could, come back once more
Why did those days ev-er have to go?
Cause I love them so
Doo Do Doo...
Brother says he's tellin'
'Bout you playin' doctor with that girl
Just don't tell, I'll give you
Anything you want in this whole wide world
Mama gives you money for Sunday school
You trade yours for candy after church is through
Smokin' cigarettes and writing something nasty on the wall (you nasty boy)
Teacher sends you to the principal's office down the hall
You grow up and learn that kinda thing ain't right
But while you were doin' it it sure felt outta sight
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ev-er have to go?
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ev-er have to go?
07 Knocks Me Off My Feet (03:36)
I see us in the park
Strolling the summer days of imaginings in my head
And words from our hearts
Told only to the wind felt even without being said
I don't wanna bore you with my trouble
But there's somethin' bout your love
That makes me weak and
Knocks me off my feet
There's somethin' bout your love
That makes me weak and
Knocks me off ... my feet
Knocks me off my feet
I don't wanna bore you with it
Oh but I love you, I love you, I love you
I don't wanna bore you with it
Oh but I love you, I love you, I love you
More and more
We lay beneath the stars
Under a lovers tree that's seen through the eyes of my mind
I reach out for the part
Of me that lives in you that only our two hearts can find
But I don't wanna bore you with my trouble
But there's somethin' bout your love
That makes me weak and
Knocks me off my feet
There's somethin' bout your love
That makes me weak and
Knocks me off ... my feet
Knocks me off my feet
I don't wanna bore you with it
Oh but I love you, I love you, I love you
I don't wanna bore you with it
Oh but I love you, I love you, I love you [Repeat]
08 Pastime Paradise (03:27)
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been wasting most their time
Glorifying days long gone behind
They've been wasting most their days
In remembrance of ignorance oldest praise
Tell me, who of them will come to be?
How many of them are you and me?
Dissipation
Race Relations
Consolation
Segregation
Dispensation
Isolation
Exploitation
Mutilation
Mutations
Miscreation
Confirmation
To the evils of the world
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
They've been looking in their minds
For the day that sorrows gone from time
They keep telling of the day
When the savior of love will come to stay
Tell me who of them will come to be?
How many of them are you and me?
Proclamation
Of race relations
Consolation
Integretion
Verification
Of Revelations
Acclamation
World Salvation
Vibrations
Stimulation
Confirmation
To the peace of the world
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a pastime paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
They've been spending most their lives
Living in a future paradise
We've been spending too much of our lives
Living in a pastime paradise
Let's start living our lives
Living for the future paradise
Praise to our lives
Living for the future paradise
Shame to anyones life
For living in the pastime paradise
10 Ordinary Pain (06:23)
When by the phone
In vain you sit
You very soon in your mind realize that it's not just
An ordinary pain in your heart
When you by chance
Go knock on her door
Walkin' away you're convinced that it's much more
Than just an ordinary pain in your heart
It's more than just
An ordinary pain in your heart
Don't fool yourself
Tell no one else
That it's more than just
An ordinary pain
In your heart
When you catch up
But she says goodbye
Hold back your tears and before you start to cry
Say you feel unnecessary pain in your heart
Tell her you're glad
It's over in fact
Can she take with her the pain she brought you back
Takin' that ordinary pain from your heart
It's more than just
An ordinary pain from your heart
Don't fool yourself
Tell no one else
That it's more than just
An ordinary pain
In your heart, in your heart, in your heart
[Coda]
You're just a masochistic fool
Because you knew my love was cruel
You never listened when they said
Don't let that girl go to your head
But like a play boy you said no
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
This little girl mind you will blow
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
But then I blew you out the box
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
When I put my stuff on key and lock
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
It makes me feel kind of sick
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
To know love put you in a trick
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
I knew our love would have to end
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
The day I made it with your friend
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Giving your love to one unreal
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Like a big fool I know you feel
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
But in this lovie-dovie game
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
With all it's joy there must be pain
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
But now the time has surely come
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
This game don't seem like so much fun
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
You're crying big crocodile tears
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Don't match the ones I've cried for years
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
When I was home waiting for you
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
You were out somewhere doing the do
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
You know I'd really like to stay
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
But like you did I've go to play
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
You're dumb to think I'd let you be
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Scott free without some pain from me
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
I heard your song and took a chance
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
But to your music I can't dance
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Go tell your story 'sob-sad'
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
About you blowin what you had
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Since one ain't good enough for you
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Then do yourself see how you do
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain
Ordinary pain, ordinary pain [Repeat]
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By Paolos
This album, as you may have understood, is a very rich work, from which more generations of musicians will draw freely.
After the perfect 'Songs In The Key Of Life,' Wonder will never again tread the paths of 'soul music.'
