Today’s socially conscious track by a legendary soul singer is “Living for the City” by Stevie Wonder. Released as a single in November of 1973, it went all the way to #8 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles chart.
“Living for the City” was the third track on side one of Stevie’s 1973 album, Innervisions. That album was the third of a string of five landmark albums that started with 1972’s Music of My Mind and ended with 1976’s legendary Songs in the Key of Life. The Innervisions album included such classics as “Too High,” “Visions,” “Golden Lady,” “Higher Ground,” “All in Love is Fair,” and “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout a Thing”—okay, pretty much every song on the album was a classic. This was Stevie Wonder in his prime as a songwriter and performer. It’s an album I still listen to today in its entirety.
The song, “Living for the City,” is a story song, of sorts. It tells the story of a young black man from a poor Mississippi family who moves to New York City and experiences the worst of what a person of his station can experience in the big city. He’s tricked into doing something illegal, arrested, and sentenced to ten years in prison, all in seven minutes and 22 seconds. It’s a stark vision of what poor black Americans faced in the early ’70s, and it wasn’t pretty,
Stevie played all the instruments on this one, by the way, as he tended to do back then. The main part of the verse is simple enough, a four-chord vamp over a static bass note (F# – G#m/F# – A/F# – G#m/F#), although the instrumental bridge goes off into 3/4 time with a descending bass line and a bevy of really interesting chords. It’s typical Stevie, playing all sorts of tricks with key signatures and harmonies.
“Living for the City” won a Grammy for Best Rhythm & Blues Song and influenced untold numbers of musicians in the ensuing decades. It’s also been sampled in more than a few rap songs. There is no question that this is a powerful piece of music and that it shows off Stevie Wonder’s musical, lyrical, and production genius. I can’t imagine any other artist creating anything close to this, either then or since.
