Song Lyric of the Day (Stevie Wonder, on ‘Precautionary Measures’ We Still Need)

“We all must take precautionary measures
If love and peace you treasure.”—American Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Stevie Wonder, “Love's In Need Of Love Today,” from his Songs in the Key of Life LP (1976)
 
A half century ago, Stevie Wonder was such a force to be reckoned with in pop music that, when Paul Simon won the Best Album Grammy for 1975, he thanked the Motown artist for clearing a path for him to win the award by not releasing a record that year.
 
Wonder made up for that absence from the record stores with his much-anticipated, much-delayed double album (plus a single, four-song 33-rpm disc), Songs in the Key of Life, released 50 years ago this week.
 
The LP went to #1 on the charts that first week, and continued the momentum thereafter with five singles: "I Wish," "Sir Duke," "Another Star," "As," and “Isn’t She Lovely?” The following February, Wonder collected four Grammys: Album of the Year, Best Male Pop Performer, Best Male Rhythm and Blues Performer, and Best Producer.
 
Why did this become my favorite collection of Wonder songs? Was it because there was so much in this collection? Because it was his first album that I could buy from my own work earnings? Or because, as a perfectionist, he had produced 21 songs (including several where he handled all the instruments himself!) in a dazzling variety of styles (including the Latin-infused soul and salsa track “Another Star”)?
 
So many of these tunes address love in various forms: with a current mate, a past love, or a newborn daughter (“Isn’t She Lovely?”). But the one with which he started the album, “Love's In Need Of Love Today,” addressed a different kind: what the ancients called agape or caritas—selfless, universal love that makes life possible at all for human beings.
 
Sociopolitical commentary had informed a couple of Wonder songs before: "Living for the City," about a black youth’s struggle for survival in the inner city and the justice system, and, more pointedly, “You Haven't Done Nothin,'" a scathing critique of President Richard Nixon at the height of the Watergate scandal.
 
But “Love's In Need Of Love Today” took a broader view, beyond politicians, of the ills besetting America in the year of its bicentennial. His warning was stark, aimed at the heart of each of his listeners: “The force of evil plans to make you its possession/And it will if we let it destroy everybody.”
 
The passage of 50 years. The divisions in America continue to distress Wonder, as seen two years ago when, on the brink of the 2024 Presidential election, he appealed for civic understanding with “Can We Fix Our Nation's Broken Heart."
 
That race and the resulting daily chaos at home and abroad has only underscored the moral urgency of Wonder’s message from 50 years ago. Too bad more citizens haven’t heeded the plea for “precautionary measures” urged by Wonder and others who covered this song over the years (notably Joan Osborne, on her 2002 CD How Sweet It Is).

Quote of the Day (Carina Del Valle Schorske, on the Painful Origin of a Pointer Sisters’ Country Hit)

“Anita Pointer wrote the first draft of the country song ‘Fairytale’ at a motel in Woodstock while she and her sisters were on tour singing backup for Dave Mason. She was still reeling from the revelation that her new boyfriend, a San Francisco radio DJ, had been married all along—a story so common she’d call it cliché if she didn’t have to plot the next chapter herself. That night she stayed up late running her favorite James Taylor tape on repeat, and the lyrics she wrote channeled his plainspoken style: There’s no need to explain anymore—I tried my best to love you, now I’m walking out that door. Once the tour was over, Anita’s baby sister Bonnie provided the bright and buoyant melody, as if to sustain the momentum of departure.”—Writer and translator Carina Del Valle Schorske, “Fairytale: The Pointer Sisters, the Great Migration, and the Soul of Country,” Oxford American, Issue 119, Winter 2022

I had just bought the latest issue of Oxford American this weekend when I heard about the death of Anita Pointer. The sad news brought back to me—as, I’m sure, it did countless other music fans—40 years and more ago, when she and her sisters embodied all the sass and ebullience of our collective youth.

The vocal harmonies of the Pointer Sisters began in youth gospel choirs in their parents’ church, before they would be heard, to joyous effect, across other genres: soul, pop, rock ‘n’ roll, and most surprisingly, as Ms. Schorske indicated, country.

(Not only did “Fairytale” win a Grammy for Best Country and Western Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group, but Anita would join sisters Ruth, June and Bonnie in appearing at the Grand Ole Opry—one of the first African-American acts to headline at that legendary venue.)

Alex Traub’s obituary for Anita in The New York Times stressed the versatility of her lead vocals: how, from her low register, she could “coo,” deliver “an earnest, imploring tone,” segue to a “huskier, sexier side,” but above all singing “with the speed and flavor of molasses.”

Although Traub’s piece sums up Anita’s protean vocal gifts, you really should read Ms. Schorske to appreciate what a cultural touchstone she created in “Fairytale”—a song that symbolized not only their musical restlessness, but also the larger movement that The Pointer Sisters represented as part of the Great Migration from the Deep South of the Jim Crow era. (Their parents left Arkansas for Oakland, Calif.)

Anita’s urge to remember the heritage of slavery and racism found an outlet in a collection of objects related to African-American history, a constant reminder to her that “everybody don’t love you and you have to prove them wrong.”

Remembrance was her private means of defiance, though the adoring public for her and her sisters will surely remember their public exultation in the face of everything, in hits like “Yes We Can Can,” “Jump (For My Love),” “Automatic,” “Fire,” and my favorite, “I’m So Excited.”

(For more on Anita Pointer and her sisters, you might want to listen to her interview three years ago with "Nasty" Neal Jones on the “Inside Your Head” podcast, promoting Fairytale, her memoir written with brother Fritz. In it, she discussed her sisters’ struggle starting out at Haight-Ashbury in the 1960s, as well as the group’s appearances on Sesame Street, The Carol Burnett Show, and entertaining the troops with Bob Hope during the Gulf War.)

Quote of the Day (Motown Legend Lamont Dozier, on Writer’s Block)

“There’s no such thing as writer’s block. Stop feeding those lies about writer’s block. Writer’s block only exists in your mind, and if you tell yourself you have it, it will cripple your ability to function as a creative person. The answer to so-called writer’s block is doing the work. If you press on, the answers you need will come through. You have to show the muses that you’re capable and committed, then you’ll get the answers you need.”—Motown composer Lamont Dozier (1941-2022), How Sweet It Is: A Songwriter’s Reflections on Music, Motown and the Mystery of the Muse (2019)

(The photo of Lamont Dozier accompanying this post was taken July 10, 2009, by Phil Konstantin.)