“I Wish” (Stevie Wonder)

Today’s classic mid-70s song of the day is “I Wish” by Stevie Wonder. It was the lead single from his triumphant Songs in the Key of Life album, released in November of 1976, my first semester at Indiana University. This track hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100, Cash Box Top 100, and Billboard Soul Singles charts. It also won Mr. Wonder a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male.

Songs in the Key of Life was the culmination of a string of career-defining albums for Stevie Wonder. It followed Music of My Mind (1972), Talking Book (also 1972), Innervisions (1973), Fulfillingness’ First Finale (1974), classics all. The album won Grammy Awards for Album of the Year and Best Pop Vocal Performance, Male, and garnered Best Producer of the Year for Mr. Wonder. It deserved every one of those accolades and more.

Notice the two-year gap between Stevie’s previous album and Songs in the Key of Life. That’s because Stevie took some time off to to work with handicapped children in Ghana while he contemplated quitting the music industry. Fortunately for all of us he reconsidered that potential decision but that time off resulted in a backlog of unrecorded and unreleased songs, so many that Songs in the Key of Life was released as a double LP with a bonus 4-song EP. (And that EP wasn’t superfluous; the tunes on that little vinyl record included “Saturn,” “Ebony Eyes,” “All Day Sucker,” and “Easy Goin’ Evening (My Mama’s Call).”)

The main two discs were chock-filled with some of Stevie’s best songs, including many that were or could have been singles: “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” “Have a Talk with God,” “Village Ghetto Land,” “Sir Duke,” “Knocks Me Off My Feet,” “Pastime Paradise,” “Isn’t She Lovely,” “As,” and “Another Star,” especially. It’s definitely Stevie’s best album and one of the top albums of the entire decade. Not surprisingly, Songs in the Key of Life was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry.

I remember buying Songs in the Key of Life at Karma Records in Bloomington after being down at IU for about a month. I played it over and over in my cinderblock dorm room at the old Graduate Residence Center for pretty much my entire freshman year. I had a pretty good audio system back then, Technics direct-drive turntable, Sansui quadraphonic receiver, and four fairly large floor-standing speakers from Lafayette Radio (my friend Gene Arnold worked there, so I got a deal). It sounded killer, especially in my little overstuffed dorm room. (And to this day I wonder how I fit all of that and a set of vibes in that small room?)

On “I Wish,” Stevie reminisces with fondness about his childhood, back when he was “a little nappy-headed boy.” The chorus goes like this:

I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ever have to go?
I wish those days could come back once more
Why did those days ever have to go?

The music is upbeat and joyous and apparently came quickly, as Stevie later recalled:

“The day I wrote it was a Saturday, the day of a Motown picnic in the summer of ’76. God, I remember that because I was having this really bad toothache. It was ridiculous…I had such a good time at the picnic that I went to Crystal Recording Studio right afterward and the vibe came right to my mind – running at the picnic, the contests, we all participated. It was a lot of fun … and from that came the ‘I Wish’ vibe.”

That makes “I Wish” one of the last songs recorded for the album. It was programmed as the first track on side two of album one.

While Stevie played all the synths and keyboards, he did employ an actual band for the rest of the backing tracks. The musicians playing on “I Wish” included Nathan Watts (bass), Raymond Pounds (drums), and Hank Redd (alto sax). (Watts’ opening bass line is one of the most recognizable bass lines ever.) The voice reprimanding the youngster in the song (“You nasty boy”) was Stevie’s real-life sister, Renee Hardaway.

I can’t say enough good things about “I Wish” or Songs in the Key of Life. It was a defining album for that moment of time, one that everyone in my dorm and beyond was listening to, and justifiably so. The song and the album are both true classics.