“My
cherie amour, lovely as a summer day
My
cherie amour, distant as the Milky Way.”—“My Cherie Amour,” written by Stevie
Wonder, Henry Cosby, and Sylvia Moy, performed by Stevie Wonder on his My Cherie Amour LP (1969)
For the first day of summer, I could have drawn upon
a whole range of cultural references from poetry, music, drama, film, painting—you name
it. (And don’t think, before this blog is through—maybe even before this season is through!—that I won’t be
using a whole bunch of them.) But, as school closed for the warmest months of
the year in 1969, this hit by Stevie Wonder was climbing the charts. We didn’t have boom boxes then, disturbing
all who came within the vicinity of it, nor iPads, with earplugs and
self-selected tunes putting you in a self-absorbed aural cocoon. No, as often
as not, in those 90-some days before I turned 10, the music would likely come
from a transistor radio—an open invitation to all within earshot—and, if the
melody was right, as warm as a caress.
When you’re young, as the imagination grows, the
music sinks its roots into you. And so, even though Stevie Wonder did not yet
possess the stunningly multi-faceted mastery he would display in the early-to-mid-Seventies, I would fall in love with this simple, artless, innocent,
impassioned, achingly beautiful song, just as the Motown artist fell hard for
the girl who inspired it.
On a page or computer screen, the lyrics above don’t
sound like much—cliché-ridden, even. We don’t have a clue as to this girl’s
eyes, hair, or any other aspect of her appearance, other than that she’s
“little.” But “lovely as a summer day” is instinctively understood. (Even the likes
of Henry James, about as far removed from Wonder as you can get, once wrote
that “summer afternoon” were “the two most beautiful words in the English
language.”) And, while you can’t exactly wring Dylanesque interpretations from
“La la la la la la, La la la la la la,” all the wordless, inarticulate feelings of
the heart are expressed here.
Oh, and that title—who embodies love so much as the
French? Wonder made his object of desire
an everywoman with that “Cherie.” It might have been a different story if he
had stuck to his original title, “Oh My Marcia,” a reference to a young lady he
met in the Michigan School for the Blind
in Lansing, Michigan. Luckily, co-writer Sylvia Moy (the Motown producer who
had persuaded Berry Gordy not to drop the youngster from "Hitsville USA" when his voice began to
change) strongly urged on him a more generic choice. Wonder agreed, and so we
don’t, thankfully, have “Oh My Marcia” playing at every “Brady Bunch” reunion
special.
Not that the Motown Master hated a little ribbing at
his expense. In May 1983, Saturday Night
Live ran a skit with Eddie Murphy listening to Stevie Wonder as “Alan, The
Stevie Wonder Experience.” Murphy, distinctly unimpressed by this “dork,”
suffers through a couple of painful Wonder impersonations before whipping out a
pair of sunglasses and showing him how it’s done. (Murphy: “You’ve got to roll
your neck around, like you’re choking.” Wonder as the Impersonator: “I will
choke you if I don’t get this job!”) Finally, Wonder sounds just like himself
as he ends with the beautifully plaintive “How I wish that you were mine.”
Murphy: “It still sucks, man!” (See
this video link for this classic
skit.)
Over the years, “My Cherie Amour” has become one of
the most performed songs from the Motown hit factory, covered by, to name a
few, the Jackson 5, Tony Bennett, James Galway, Frankie Valli, Smokey Robinson
and the Miracles, and George Benson. My own favorite interpretation is by opera
singer Renee Fleming. But to me, it remains a summer song, due in no small part
to Wonder himself—who, in a couple of years, with “I Never Dreamed You’d Leave
in Summer,” proved all over again that he knew all about the sweet agony of the
season.
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