One Song - Stevie Wonder “Superstition”

Episode Date: September 7, 2023

This time on One Song, Diallo and LUXXURY are taking a long hard look at Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” and asking the questions that really matter: Is washing your face and hands a superstition or just good hygiene? What’s a clavinet? And, crucially, what does LUXXURY mean by “Stevie slop”?  Album: Talking Book Released: 1972 Artist: Stevie Wonder Genre: Classic Soul Awards: Grammy Award for Best R&B Song, MORE Featured songs: Cybernaut by Tonto's Expanding Head Band, Machine Gun by Commodores, Black Cow by Steely Dan, You Make Loving Fun by Fleetwood Mac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to one song Very best podcast We want you to listen To all these fun facts If you want to know Oh, you don't know that part It's too complicated It's an E flat

I'm not that good of a keyboard You know what This is going to be one of the best episodes of one song ever because we are doing it on the fly, much like the way that Stevie Wonder recorded the seminal album Talking Book. This is the one song Slop episode.

I am actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddell. And I'm producer, DJ, and songwriter luxury, aka the guy who whispers interpolation on TikTok. I will always laugh when you whisper interpolation. And this is one song. The show where we deconstruct and celebrate some of your favorite songs,

maybe even all of your favorite songs from the past 60 years in music history, tell you why they deserve one more listen. And we promise you will never hear these songs the same way again. Never again. Never again. So this is an interesting episode because we're going to be talking about Stevie Wonder. But before we get into the song, there's something about this song and Stevie in general that we've been talking,

we've been playing around with like how it relates to the show in general, how the selection of the song, there's something. We just kind of maybe want to kind of explain a little bit about the show and how the song selection plays into it. When we first started talking about this show, we talked about all the big, big artists and their huge catalog songs that we wanted to talk about.

And one of them, you can't do a show about music without doing Stevie Wonder. iconic. And at that point, we looked at, you know, some of the Stevie Wonder songs you had the Stim's for, and we were like, oh, you got to do superstition. Yeah. Like, that's a song that's, like, everywhere, you know,

from weddings to, like, cool movies. You know, like, it's a song that everybody knows. And it sort of led to this larger discussion of can a perfect, you know, amazing song actually become a little bit played out. A little bit played out. To the point where you don't hear it as music anymore. And you're just like, oh, that's, that's TV Wonder's superstition. That's Aretha Franklin's respect. That's notorious B.I.G's, you know, hypnotized.

Like at some point, that song really moves you. Yeah. And then at some point later in your life, have you heard it? After the thousandth play, right, exactly. It's just background noise. It's kind of wallpaper and it doesn't give you that same feeling anymore, at least when you think about it in theory. And one of the things that we want to do on this show is, first of all, that is the starting point for how we're selecting songs. They are iconic songs, iconic artists.

You have heard them a thousand times. But the whole point of the show is we're going to scrape off that layer of rust on top that may have accumulated over the listens in the years. And you're going to hear the song completely differently after you listen to the episode because we're going to play parts isolated the stems. We're going to talk about how it came together and our emotional connection to the song. And kind of remind you of how special the song actually is. And hopefully after you hear the episode, the song will feel fresh again to your ears. Exactly. You won't associate it with your drunk uncle at that barbecue, you know, embarrassing himself. Poor drunk uncle. Is there a specific drunk uncle that you have in mind when you bring that drunk uncle?

Because drunk uncle makes a lot of cameos on one time. I actually only had one uncle, so we were going to really think. He knows who it. They know who it is. But Uncle Paul, I love you. Rest in peace. You were, you were, sometimes you drank. But you were never that guy. You were never that uncle. You're never that guy. Yeah, we love you, Uncle Paul.

All right. Let's get into the TV song that we're going to break down in this episode. It's a tune that most people can identify within the first few seconds, mainly because of its instantly recognizable drum loop. And that's before we get to the clavinets. It is, of course, superstition. Dialo, what is the best way to listen to? to superstition. Is this a car song? Is it headphones when you're running?

When you're strutting down the street with a boombox hoisted on your shoulder. You know how I strut. First off, I didn't know you were watching me that close. You got some strutting technique. And I do. I'm old school. I like to walk with a boom box. You want to my shoulder. Because I, you know, I like to keep people on their toes. You know, I think it's a car song. I remember that that was a big thing for Barry Gordy. It was like, you know, we make music for people to drive around in their cars. Right. And that was like a crazy thought at the time. Yeah, that was the test.

They would take the demo or the nearly finished version of the song, go in the car, like from the studio with the big fancy speakers and then go sit in there like, isn't that crazy? I mean, like, crappy Plymouth or whatever. And the fact that it comes out of Detroit and Motown is, of course, a portmanteau of motor and town is just like it all kind of works out. But yeah, I think this is actually a little bit more of like a cool sort of proto disco song, if I can, you know, with that

cool sort of, you know, the line between funk and disco, you know, at least in the classic sense, is very small. It's very thin and 72 is kind of when you start having that crossover take place, right? Absolutely. I think somebody said that a, is it Superfly is the first sort of like soul song, you know,

you can sort of see the beginning of disco coming. We won't over that thing. The proto disco songs is its own episode for sure. Yeah, but certainly in this moment, you're starting to get the MFSBs. You're starting Is that true? Are they around that early? Because that's I always associate that with Gamble and Huff. The Gamble and Huff, the Philly sound, that's all, it's happening, the sound of Philadelphia.

I think that song, if that's not 72 or it's 74, that zone of 72 to 74 is just a famously important crossover moment where all these genres come together and intersect. How about you, man? What do you think is the best way to listen to classic Stevie Wonder superstition? I got to be honest, as much as I'd like to be like a man of the streets and a man of the people, the fact that I have the isolated stems, which today we will be sharing, The answer is the isolated stems. You're a man of the people with some stems. I've got some special things, but I'm a shareer. And today we will be sharing with you the answer to your question,

which to me the best way to listen to a song, especially like superstition, which we have heard a million times in the regular way, which is wonderful and awesome and wedding-esque at this point. It's like such a classic song you'll hear at a wedding. Hearing it isolated and broken down, just one component at a time, you're in the room with Stevie playing the drums, playing the clav, playing everything else. That to me is my favorite way to listen to Superstition. Why don't you go ahead and put us in the room? Let's do it. Let's get in the room with Stevie

in 1972. Let's go there. It's just fun to listen to. I don't want to stop listening to. Do we have to? Do you have to move on? So Dialla, what we just heard is that's actually Stevie Wonder playing drums. One of the most underrated drummers of all time. Yeah, I agree. So there's a backstory to this song that I want to get into it. It involves British guitar legend Jeff Beck, who passed away recently and probably was the inspiration for spinal taps, Nigel Teffanel. If you ever see pictures of them side by side,

it's the same guy. It starts with him coming into the Electric Lady Studios in New York. Electric Lady for the record, I know that Hendricks recorded there. Is it just a place he recorded or did he own it? I believe he had it built for him and the album

Electric Ladyland, I think. I don't know which came first actually, Chicken or the Egg, the album title or the studio name first. But it was Hendricks' studio. And actually, part of the backstory is that Hendricks was either on tour or just away from the studio. And that's part of how there was time for Stevie to come in and record this record. So getting back to the superstition, the Jeff Beck story, Beck being the guitar legend

that he was. He was a huge Stevie Wonder fan, by the way. He goes on to record four Stevie Wonder covers. Yeah, I heard that it was like somebody who reached out to Steve. was like, hey, Jeff Beck really likes your stuff and wants to record with you. Big fan, and they were obviously mutual fans, too. So they came together to write a song together for what would be Jeff Beck's next record. And Jeff sits down at the drums and starts playing that beat.

Now, that wasn't him in the recording. The demo is unfortunately lost a time. I'd love to hear it. But he's playing that beat. And Stevie races in the room and he's like, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Sits down at the keyboard, which is the clavonet keyboard. We're going to get into what that means in a moment. Okay, because I was going to ask.

The importance of the clavinet and the sound and starts playing the riff. So keep in mind that this song was meant for Jeff Beck for his own record. And Stevie and Motown were like, sorry guy. They liked it too good. By the way, that sort of like collaboration that has unexpected results, it happens all the time in comedy. I feel like there have been times when I've written a joke for somebody else. And I'm like, ooh, this is too good. Yeah, I got to keep this one.

I got to keep this one in daddy's, you know, you know, armory. Yeah, I've done the same thing with music Where I've like come up with a beat That I'm intending to send to somebody else To write to and I'm like I'm gonna keep this in my back pocket Because I or it happens you know what it happens a lot With it better not happen when we collaborate on music

Not yet you've got this is a little good You've got all my best forget that show We get all my best we get all my best I remember a quote from James Murphy actually That changed my mind about this Because I used to be protective I was doing a remix I'm like oh this is too good I'm gonna give from myself

But he his mentality or the way I read it was just like You know, listen, remember, you're always going to make more. So just in that moment, it's for them. Just give it to them. Just let it go. You'll make more good stuff later. He's like, I'll have my own house of jealous lovers. Exactly, exactly.

Before we get into the next section of the music, something really delicious throughout the drum section is how there's a bunch of fills and a bunch of parts that are really sloppy and most like wonderful, exciting way. So I want to play that for you. It's like, it's funny. Literally, it's funny. Like, I think he was laughing as he played. that. He's like, this is crazy.

And it's like a wonderful mess, but it's like, it's also, it's also funky. I think it's because, like, as he's playing his drums, he's thinking about like, oh, and then the harmonica could go like this. Well, that's so true because what's interesting about Stevie is he starts recording usually not on the drums. Now, this is a rare example where he is recording the drums first, but he is in his head thinking about the rest of the song. So he's building what's going to come next.

I'm so glad you brought that up. I think funk is always at its best when it's percussive and when it's rhythm driven. And I think that might be why this song was probably crafted in no ways like signed steel delivered. You know what I mean? Like it's one of those things that's like, you know. And also, let's just say something about in the business, it's called the Stevie Slop. You know, like, no, technically, this kind of goes towards what we were saying about Ringo Star almost in another episode of this show. sometimes the drums don't have to be technically perfect to be fantastic.

Right. And I think that there's something about the fact that it is imperfect that loans, it makes the whole song more viety. I mean, like it really, I think it was Robert Glasper who said he had to play like, you know, part of this song while Stevie was there. Oh, yeah, yeah. And Steve, insisted on making him play the cloud part. Yeah, he was like, Stevie, I really think you should play this part.

And he was like, no, man, go ahead and do it. And of course, he's like, I don't know how to do it because it's actually harder. to nail imperfection sometimes. And it's so specific to Stevie's body. Like it's just him and how he's emoting in that moment. You can't replicate that performance exactly. It's not possible. Drums are the structure in a lot of ways of most songs.

And I think that when you can do them in sort of a sloppy way, like I think about like how Dilla's beat is always a little bit behind where you think it should technically be. If you told AI or the computer to put the drum beat here, like, you know, that's, That's what makes it human. That's such an interesting tension in funk as a genre, too, because it's simultaneously about, like, tautness of a beat that is an infectious groove,

and there's repetition, and there's sort of, like, a drony quality to it. But there's also these, like, you have to pepper that with the Stevie Slop, basically. I kind of want to use that now in general to mean the kind of magic sauce you sprinkle on top to make it interesting and kind of beyond the grid. So there you go. Stevie, we want to associate your name with Slop. So we have the drums down, and what happened next? Remember, this is Stevie Wonder with Jeff back in the studio.

Jeff has just played the drums, although what we heard was Stevie recording them later. But what happened next was Stevie sat down at an instrument called the clavinet, which is pretty critical for the Stevie Wonder story. Now, remember, this is 1972. He's just recently been released from his previous Motown contract. He's still with Motown, but it's a completely different deal. He's completely on his own total freedom. Like, you know, regular white record labels were all coming to Stevie.

He was like, no, I'm going back to Motown, but I'm going to have it be on my turn. But I got a new deal. I own my own publishing. I'm not using any of Barry's songwriters and producers. I'm doing my own thing. Total creative freedom. And this instrument, the clavinet, just to explain what it is, it is the sound of Stevie Wonder, 70s Stevie Wonder. It is so specifically as an instrument tied to him.

And possibly because of this song in particular, eight of the seven. of the 16 tracks, it's a 16 track recording just to get a little nerdy for one moment, but eight of them, fully eight of them, are clav parts. So everything else, the bass, the drums, the vocals, the horns even are the other eight tracks, but half of this song consists of crazy town clav parts. I did not know that. Yeah. And I'm going to play for you the isolated clavats. So that's the iconic riff that we all recognize. On the clavinet. On the clavonet. Now, let me ask you because I feel like not everyone listening will know what a clavinet is. I mean, some of our people were like, oh, I didn't know Steve you played the clarinet.

Like, it's like, no, it's a clavonet. Yeah, the clavonet is a keyboard made by, manufactured by the Hohner company. Shout out to Hohner. Shout out to Hohner. What's important about it is that it's different from, say, the Roads or the Wurley. These are other very popular keyboards of the time because those are instruments where when you hit a key, it plucks, it hits the string and then it kind of vibrates.

So what you have is like dynamics. You can be loud, you can be soft. The clavinet is always the same dynamic because it's actually plucking a string like you would pluck a harp. And in fact, it's related, it's not dissimilar to the harpsichord. I was going to say, I associate that with like the British monarchy.

Right, like. But if you'll hear the similarity. Lord Stevie Wonder, where have you where have you found the strange? instruments. Those notes are all kind of of even duration, and that's the same with... And what's interesting about that is that when you're a little messy on it, it evens it out a little bit because at least all the sounds coming are the same.

So your timing can be a little crazy. Is it auto tune for keyboard? It's a little bit like auto tune for keyboard. Because check this out. There's also a second line of clavinets, which I'll play for you now. This is crazy on its own, but just you wait until you hear it together with the first one. And by the way, I should point out that in spite of what I just explained, something magical about Stevie's fingers is that he does find a way to get a little bit of dynamics in there.

There is a little bit of a soft, loud range that he's finding. I do not know how to do that. I am not the clav god that Stevie Wonder is. But now check this out in the mix with that first clav got main riff. Here are all eight clavnets going at once, which they do throughout the song. I mean, that is insane. That is finding so many different syncopated pockets to film. It's like you're being hit by like funky gunfire from every direction.

And you know, this kind of goes towards the heart of the episode is because like this song. Yeah. Stevie Wonder is an artist, the word funky used to mean something good. Like in my lifetime, these have all been like the corniest things. Like if somebody says, oh, I like those shoes, those are really funky. Like you're just like, oh, man, oh man. You are the oldest old man on the planet. But there was a time when funk was where all the innovation was.

I mean, it's just like if, you know, you go into the future and it's like, oh, you have a tech company. Good for you, old man. You know, like, it's just like it's weird to see how these things change over time. Right. But that is amazing. I mean, I can't believe that there's that much complexity in what he's doing. Right. And all the interlocking parts.

And there are eight different clavs sounds happen. at once that you hear. And as we play them isolated, you can kind of find your way to what's happening one at a time. Once you mix them, it becomes crazy town. But then when you go back to those drums, which remember, we're also themselves Stevie Slop. Somehow it starts to connect in a way that's like magic. I can't think of a better word. Is that just, it does everything you wanted to do. Nothing more, nothing less. to say that like this is one of my favorite things that I think we explore on this show is when an artist has such a clear idea of where they want to go that they have to invent an instrument

to get there. There are a couple of episodes where I feel like, you know, so-and-so had to create it. Like I heard that when he came, this, this instrument was put together by like one of his producers, one of his session players, and like it weighed a ton. So what you're referring to actually is a completely new invented creation. It was a one-off called Tonto. which is a room filled with synthesizers that were connected that was created by these two guys, Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margilev,

who were Stevie's producer on this record and the three that followed, part of his classic period. Oh, wow, those include music of my mind, talking book, right? Intervisions. Love that record, yeah. We got to tackle interventions at some point. It's one of my favorites.

And the fulfillingness is first finale. Which has one great song on it. But then they stop right before songs in the Key of Life. Which is another great one, but yeah, okay. These two guys had this brilliant idea because don't forget at the time, synthesizers are brand new. They're very expensive. They're very difficult to operate. They're huge.

They're enormous. And Stevie's not just looking for a new way of making music. He wants new sounds. He wants new ideas. That's great. He hears about these guys because they put out a record actually as Tonto. If you go back and listen to 1971, it's kind of an experimental synthi record. He hears this record.

He loves this record. Tracks them down. And they put him in Electric Lady in a room in a circle. all of the synthesizers are connected. And the reason why that's really significant is it's kind of the beginning of something we now take for granted, which is one person sitting down

with all the sounds instantly available to them to make music. Don't forget before you had to plug stuff in, you had to tune it, all these things that are complicated, not to mention the studio itself. This is really revolutionary.

So is superstition an example of Tonto? You know, on this record, it's kind of the least Tonto-y because it's really just the clav and the drums and there's horns obviously too, and there's MoG bass, which I'm about to talk about.

But it is technically, those are components, rather the two keyboards are components of this giant six foot tall, 20 foot long series of machines, which is what Tonto is. And Stevie is the first to take advantage of it and become sort of template of the modern producer.

He's one of these guys who can play so many different instruments. So, yeah, it's everything set up for one person. That combination of he can play the instruments and all the instruments are there. You know, when you think of Lenny Kravitz later and obviously Prince, it's Stevie was.

arguably the first to really have that situation in place. And not unimportantly, these sounds are new and weird. That's something we forget with our modern ears. Totally. But these synthesizers, the Moog bass, which we'll play in a second, that was a completely mind-blowingly new. There's deeper bass, you know, frequencies that you couldn't get before. This is all completely new.

That's really interesting because when I hear music from the 70s, like it doesn't sound anything like to my ears. It sounds nothing like the music of the 80s. Very true. and I think one thing about this album, even more than most albums from the 70s, it actually still sounds kind of modern. Yes. You know, like the way I always assumed it was the way that was mastered, but you're right,

the sounds that he was creating sound more like a more recent, like you could have made this, this could be, some of these songs could be DeAngelo songs from like the late 90s in the sense that like they sound more modern than most songs that, most albums that came out. That's a great connection too because just thinking about like voodoo, like, Like that record is consciously, it's very dry. And this record and these producers consciously tried to make things very dry. And on a previous episode, we talked about Amy Winehouse and that big reverby.

That's a very 60s sound, the wall of sound, the Phil Specter, reverb and all this. They did the opposite. This is a very dry record. And I think to our modern ears, that sounds very modern, that you don't have all those effects on. Yeah, that's one of the reasons why I said such a long life at weddings and movie trailers because... It doesn't feel data. It doesn't sound as dated. Yeah.

So let's get into the mug. Now, Moog, by the way, is spelled M-O-O-O-G. And now that you've heard this, a lot of people think it's pronounced Moog. Oh, I thought it was up until you just said Moog. Now we're all insiders in the Robert Moog story. The Moog was the bass in this song, not a bass guitar.

And I'm going to play that for you. And that's what I was just referring to a moment ago. There are some frequencies that are like you can't get on a bass guitar with the production of the era. But you could get it. You can feel it in your stomach because it's this Moog synth playing the bass line. Oh, I didn't think it could get any funkier than that. By the way, funky, not a big fan of the word, but a fan of things that are funky.

I couldn't agree more. It's a great word, but there's something about it that feels like saying groovy or something. Oh, it's so musty. It feels like you brought it out of the closet with a polyester suit. It's just the worst. It's dank. It's dusty. It's free.

But at one time, it was fresh. Subversive. Subversive and fresh. It was like, oh, man, that's funky. In 1972, when this came out, you could not get more here than that rubbery baseline. It's like simultaneously like everything else in the song. It's all over the place. It's a huge mess.

And yet somehow the tightest thing you've ever heard. Absolutely. How does that? I don't understand that. You have to be able to hold two conflicting ideas in your head at once. So you put all these elements together and it creates one of the greatest, most memorable all-time riffs. Right. Of all time.

Real quick. Because I, you know, I've been a singer. I've been a drummer like you. Let's get on the same page. How would you define riff? Riff is such like a magic word because what it means literally is just a repeated series of notes

that has kind of as a repetition, a hypnotic quality, that it kind of starts to compete with maybe what the vocal melody would be for what the song is in your mind. So like a perfect example of that would be like, Led Zeppelin, you know, a whole lot of love.

People sing that as much as a whole lot of love. love, if not more so, when you think of the song. By the way, the overlap between like what makes something a riff and what makes it just a funky baseline is really thin. Like in a way, the superstition riff is, you know, the bass is kind of also playing it sometimes, but like it's not a baseline, it's a riff. A riff is kind of like next tier. It's like this special type of melody, type of repetition that just it irons you, it digs its way into your. That's so interesting. Now, listen, we're both music nerds, okay?

We both are. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna call an audible and put you on the spot. Okay. Give me your favorite top three riffs of all time. I'm hesitating to say it because it's so obvious. I think one of the greatest trips of all time is I can't get no satisfaction. Yeah. It's just impossible.

And it's the simplicity of it. And by the way, for listeners, for our listeners, real fun fact about that song is that, the Beatles label heard that song and they were like, can you guys give us a song like that Stone song and then the Beatles did Day Tripper? Oh, no way. I have no idea. Which is another...

Which is a great riff. Maybe that's my number two riff of all time. Don, da, do, do. So that was there to be a song to do. Thank you for helping me answer the question. And that also another fun fact about that is that that was intended to be in Keith's mind. That was a horn riff.

That was meant to be like a Motown thing. Yeah. Wow, that's awesome. But on the guitar was plenty and obviously adding that fuzz, that super fuzz on the guitar. Since I'm such a huge Kings fan, I'm going to answer my third. And I'm going to rearrange the order over time. No, no, no, no, no. You just can't beat what technically might even be the first guitar riff per se,

because it's ostensibly the invention of distortion is when Dave Davies from the Kings takes a knife and rips the speaker to get that sound that we hear and you really got me. So that's got to be up there. Those are my top three. Those are great. What about you? Oh, no, you can't ask. me. Well, you helped me with number two.

So that was a collaborative list. You know what's crazy? I'm going to go avant-garde here. I'm going to try and do because it would be very easy for me being, you know, a big fan of disco. I feel like disco gives you so many great riffs. Yeah. So many great riffs. But I'm going to go with, I'm going to try and do all hip-hop.

I'm going to do the choice is yours by Blacksheep. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- Oh, yeah. I love that baseline. Is that a baseline or a riff, see, that's what I was saying before. Well, but see, that's why I think to talk about riffs. Do you go away singing that as the song in your head? A little bit.

Okay, okay. In my head. But let's see, by your use of the definition, then a millie by Lil Wayne is a riff. A millie, a millie, a millie, a millie. That's like a sample. Look, I am very open-minded with definitions. I'm never going to be a fascist about it.

It's serving the same purpose. Are you saying a riff has to be a guitar? So here's what I would say. I'm not a fascist about anything, but especially about definitions. I thought we interviewed you, before you took this position. And it clearly says, are you a best.

My authoritarian tendencies are a little bit suss. I understand. As a Virgo, I do tend to have some control. Okay, but besides that, my organization, organization and control are connected, right? Where's the line? I'm sorry, you feel like a riff has to be a guitar? Here's what I'm going to say.

Here's where I go. There's some, there's a word cloud. There's riff. There's baseline. There's ostinato, which is like the classical version of it where you've got a repeated melodic element. and then the chords change underneath it, that's kind of what a riff can be sometimes.

So these things can have connected elements. And last but not least to your question about a millie, I would say that a sample serves as incredibly similar function where it's repeated, but it's underneath the main thing. That's what to me a riff really is. It's a repeated element, but it's underneath the main thing. I think, I think, well, half the time I use the word riff, I'm in comedy, that's just like, hey, we've got to stall for time.

They just get out there and riff just means you have no script. We don't know about on this show because there's always a very tight script on this show. Very tight. But I think that the Millie sample, the baseline of the choice is yours. I think these serve the same purposes of a I can't get no satisfaction. But just to placate resident fascist luxury, I'm going to say. Is that my new intro? I'm going to say.

Producer. I'm resident fascist And tyrant And local tyrant I'm going to say Just to pick a guitar That You know

I kind of think it's a riff In a boogie oogie Ugi By Taste of Honey Dantepo D do do Yeah I think it's a baseline

But here's what I'll give you In the spirit of collaboration And yes anding I think it's all The umbrella Is a riff You really think it has to be A riff has to be

The guitar I mean that's what I'm saying about I'm not a fascist. It's like, okay, yeah, technically the relationship is there. But to me, the thing that's different is there is something about a repeated element that is in the base register. It serves a different function. And the repetition of it can...

All right. The register matters because it's more body and a riff is more head. It's closer to the vocal register. So it acts more like a melody, I think, to your brain. That's science right there. I'm going to go with... That is science. I'm going to go, bam, bam, bam, bam, bam.

Wait, what's that? Let's go crazy. That's a riff. Don't, don't. That's a riff. I hope you're happy. We agree. Oh, that's your answer.

You brought it for a circle. That's a great answer, and I kind of wish I had it. So if we can collaborate on the whole thing, those are our top four. Are we shared on the top four? We don't have to share it. No, we're not even talking. I'm trying to be so collaborative. Hey, when we come back, we're going to talk about the lyrics on superstitious.

Wash your face and hands. Is that superstitious or is that just good hygiene after the short break? Okay, so where I want to go next is the vocals. Okay. This is Stevie Wonder in the raw. Superstition. Very superstitious. Writing's on the wall.

Wow. The vibrato. Very superstitious. Let us about to fall. beautiful. Thirteen month on baby the way

stretches those notes broke the looking glass melisma seven years of bad your good things and you pass when you believe

in things that you don't understand and you suffer superstition in the way yeah Yeah, you know, first off, so much, I love the Stevie growl.

The growl is so satisfying you know, man, you know, like I like it when he growls. I like the Steve growls. Also, what a voice. I mean, like, this is the reason why I feel like nobody has ever, there's certain artists that I feel like artists should almost never cover. Because you can't sing as good as them. You can't sing as well. Sorry, grammarians. You can't sing as well as Stevie Wonder. It's hard to cover Michael Jackson or Aretha Franklin. There's just some people. Now, I will say there are, you know, like a handful of Stevie Wonder covers that I think are as good and maybe, maybe surpass the original. Okay, okay. We can talk about. Shots fired. But, no, no shots fired.

I mean, like, literally, you don't want to go after Stevie Wonder. It's just not done. Those vocals amazing. It's amazing that it is done that people try it and so often doesn't succeed. But every now and then, we get some covers out there. I'm just going to go on and put it out there. I do prefer the Jodacy version. of lately.

Really? You know, they performed it live on MTV, unplugged. And when I think of lately, I think of Jojo and Casey going insane on that song. But it's just because they clearly love the Stevie Wonder version so much that they were like, if you went to 100, we got to find a way to 101. But that's like one of the very few cases where I feel like, because you just don't want to go after Stevie. You know, I actually have a favorite Stevie cover.

There's one cover that I listen to and it almost tops the really. original. And for me, it's because it's so different, because that's kind of what you have to do with a cover. If you're covering something and it's the same, you know, it's a boy singer and you're a boy, it's a, whatever. Like, if it's the genre is the same, then you're in danger of being compared. But there is a red hot chili peppers cover of, which is really, really sick. Because it's different because they make it faster. They made it even more of a like a just a straight up groove. I think about a crunchy guitars in it. It's faster. One of my true guilty. pleasures. I don't know if we have a snippet of it, but Genuine did a cover of Inner Visions. Oh, really? And it's pretty, pretty solid. Different album, obviously, but pretty fun in the sort of late 90s R&B. Well, you got to take risks, and we appreciate genuine. We appreciate Chili DeFer's Joe to see. We're going to have a genuine appreciation episode. If you're doing a Stevie Wondercover, power to you. We appreciate the effort. And by the way, if you like the growl, you might love the scream at two minutes and 30 seconds.

I think I know what part of you're playing. He's having fun in this studio. He is letting loose. He is a free man. He's got control. He's got a bank. He's got a circle, a room with a circle of new sounds and instruments.

He can play all these instruments. And he can growl and scream and run. Stevie's runs are so buttery. Oh, they're so buttery. Yeah. Stretching out those notes. Superstition in my own lifetime, it's like one of those songs.

Sometimes it becomes like wallpaper. It becomes background noise. But then when you hear his vocals, you realize this is masterful. The magic is in the vocals. It deserves all the success of God. Absolutely. A couple more just little fun moments

just because, again, when you hear the isolated vocals, you really are transparent. It's like a time machine. You go back, you're in the room in 1972 when this was recorded and you feel the fun in the room. So here's another fun moment. This is buried in the mix towards the end of the song. Oh, that sounds like somebody else we used.

know. We were just talking about funkiness and runs. There are about five songs and just that humming. I mean, so many songs inside this guy's brain. I would just like to take that humming and build a whole song over that. That's all you need. I want to take that humming and just Jeff Beckett. And that's cutting room floor stuff there. I mean, that's like, I don't even know if that made it to the final because that's in the fade out.

So like, you know, when you record a song, obviously you can't fade all the instruments out, but in the recording it goes like this. But you play until you stop. One of my favorite things to do, by the way, when we have fade-out songs is to actually hear what the end of the song sounds like. Let's do that real quick. This is the actual ending of superstition, unheard until this moment. That big mess, because it's Stevie doing each layer.

And he's like, oh, shoot, my drums just stopped. I guess I got to stop playing the mode now. And then the horns are like, oh, I guess the song just ended abruptly. I thought it actually sounded really cool how, like, so much dropped out. But then, like, there was still, like, a little bit of melodies. Yeah. That was great. Little remnant sound.

Yeah. That was a James Brown tune to be like, you're all fired. All you Steveys are all fired. No tightness there in the conclusion. Let's talk about the lyrics to superstition. Now, when I was young, this, I don't know that I really understood it at all. You know, I was like with 13-month-old baby? Like, what's, we were all 13 months at some point.

I'm going to assume. Yeah. And isn't that a toddler anyway or an infant? I mean, like, is that really a baby at that point? I mean, like, that child should be maybe maybe one. word in. We'll let it go. By that point. But we'll let that go. I mean, like, literally it was a matter of, I don't know that I even understood what the song was about. You know, I knew what a superstition was, obviously, but, you know, so much of it, right before the break, I mentioned, like, wash your

face and hands. Like, I just didn't get it. And then later, I was like, oh, well, you know, Stevie is religious. And so he was saying superstition is bad because it's, you know, it kind of goes against Christian beliefs. You know, most superstitions, I think, probably have a pretty pagan origin. Now I think about it, and I keep coming back to that line that you mentioned at the top of the show, which is when you believe in things you don't understand. You suffer. You suffer. And I feel like that can be more universal than anything. I mean, like in some ways, you can make the case that that goes against a lot of organized religion. That goes against, you know, political organizations. Like, you know, it could mean a lot of things. And I think in that, in that meaning a lot of things, it can be a more

universal message. I totally agree. And I have to say that I assumed I so suppose I have some awareness of Stevie's religious affiliation. But to me this song to your point feels like anti any sort of authoritative structurally driven like belief system. Right. So that could be you know, I suppose superstitious is the opposite of being structural. But it's any belief system that doesn't in which you don't understand what the rules are. If you don't fully understand what's going on, but you just take it in on faith. Listen to the song, I didn't fully understand what was going on. Right. Right.

You know, I always thought the chorus was superstition leads the way, you know, until we started prepping this episode. Yeah. You know, it just kind of goes to show that sometimes the best art is open to interpretations. Open interpretation. Let me know, no interpretations, but I know you could pay for the usage. I kept paid by the interpolation committee. Do you have any superstitions?

I used to. I think one part of my recent self-refertilations. esteem journey, honestly. Like, I'm connecting those two. I really am. Like therapy, self-esteem, all this stuff has been to not have fears that are unfounded in, like, you know, that you don't understand by this

presumption of there being this something that you're like in danger of upsetting in the world. Like there's something in Buddhism called wisdom fear, which is when you're at the corner and there's like a red light and there are cars coming, wisdom fear is if you go, you'll get hit. That's

that kind of fear is good. Yeah. You What wisdom fear is, there's a situation that I'm going to be careful of. Yeah. But the lack, like, not wisdom fear would be like the type of thing where it's like, well, I can't get out of the shower until, like, you know, some sort of system you have in your head. Or like, I can't walk under this ladder. Or can't walk under this ladder. Right.

Or exactly right. These like typical superstitions or sort of things that you create in your mind as rules out of fear. Okay. Well, I'll tell you, I recently became aware of the fact that I full on have a superstition. What is it? It is splitting the pole. Have you ever heard of splitting the pole? No, what does that mean?

Okay, so this is another thing. I think this might be a black or southern thing because I was asking people about it and a lot of people have not heard about it. But when you're walking somewhere and there's like, let's say there's like a sign, you know, like on a pole. Is it when you're with somebody else?

Yeah, when you're walking with somebody and you walk on opposite size of that signpost or that opposite size of that lamppost. Growing up, that was always where I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, predominantly black southwest Atlanta. That was called splitting the pole. And like recently, I was walking somewhere with my kids. And he walked on the other side of the pool.

I was like, you get back around that pool. That's so interesting. You go back around that pool. Otherwise, our souls will be separated for all eternity. Okay, that's blowing my mind a little bit. Because I didn't have the expression, but where I grew up in San Francisco, the Bay Area of California, we didn't call it that. But the idea, what you had to do if you were with somebody and there was something

coming, you'd have to say bread and butter. What? I swear to God, we call that bread and butter. And that's how you get over the problems potentially caused by not saying bread and butter. Oh, so it's like a knock on wood or something like that. It's just, you guys can actually walk on the other sides of the pole. Just as long as you say the phrase that pays, which is bread and butter. And similar to that, similar to that, you were supposed to say, the last thing you say when you go to bed at the end of the month, unlike January 31st, before February 1st, the last thing you say, you're supposed to say hair, hair. And then the first thing you say when you wake up is rabbit, rabbit.

So you're bringing this all back. Lord, that is so complicated. So complicated. You have to do 12 times a year. It's actually 24 events. The things you learn. You have to do 24 things all year. Like, so that was part of-

You don't do any of this anymore. I don't do any of it. It's been a long time since I did these things. But I just remember that I did have them in my life. And you're not suffering anymore. And I'm not suffering. And you're not suffering. Meanwhile, my kids better not split the poll.

No. If they're listening. If my wife splits the poll, I'm like, you go back. You redo. And by the way, sometimes you were like multiple people. So like once you realize you split a pole, you had which side of the pole, you go, like it becomes very complicated. Sometimes I'll redo it exactly the same way.

I'll just walk back. You have to reset. It's easier that way. Okay. What are the consequences of splitting the pole? Your souls are separated for return. That's what blew my mind because like I think implicit in the bread and butter story with some kind of equally horrible fate, but it wasn't ever explicitly mentioned to

that thing. No, your souls are separated. And I'd like to see my kids. Superstitions are clearly undiagnosed mental illness. I think it might be related. I think I hadn't thought about it. I probably just broke a lot of superstitions even saying that. Yeah.

Superstitions, I'm sorry, I didn't mean anything. I think left. I think, y'all are all legit. I think if you grow up and into your 40s, 50s, 60, 70s, you're still hair, hare, rabbit, rabbiting, or, you know, or bread and buttering, that's when it becomes, that's the spectrum of mental illness. You have crossed into it. Fun fact, hairs are not the same as rabbits.

I don't, Jenny Beaumont. Jenny Beaumont, if you're out there in sixth grade, you made me do this. And so like, did you just make it up to mess with me? It's possible that Jenny Beaumont only ever said this to me and the hair-haer rabbit-rabbit thing is completely not in the world aside from in my mind, incepted by a sixth grader. Childhood trauma.

Childhood trauma. We all have our version of it. All right, so we're coming to the end of the episode about superstition, Stevie Wonder. You know, one thing that we always wanted to do when we set out to do this show was talk about songs that we loved, but also songs that are just out there in the universe.

and this is one of those songs I think when we first started talking about this specific song we were like oh is that song like you know is it played out is it something that we've heard to be like it's always the line we're trying to absolutely love this song like and I think that one thing that we landed on is that

it's so important to understand why some of these songs have managed to stay out there and can you can you talk a little bit about that and also Stevie's legacy like I think the other thing that we were agreed was that there are artists that I think you and I kind of like love more than Stevie.

But I think when you take a step back and look at Stevie's catalog, it is amazing. Let's talk about his legacy. Well, when you say that, I think of two things. One, just personally, because my experience of hearing this song was like, like, I think a lot of people, like, at some point, the Sesame Street episode where they're playing superstition and it's just mind-blowingly, like, it just taps into all of the good feelings, all of the like, you know, tingly tingleys. Part of that, though, is because I think there are different. time periods or when you hear stuff, it impacts you in different ways. And when you are a preteen and it's not, you're not fully aware of what the song is, for example. And maybe years later you hear it.

And because you heard it in that moment, it becomes like this rosebud or like the Proustian Madeline. Like it just evokes nostalgia and you can't put your finger on it, which is a little different than when you're a teenager and you kind of get your music and it's a tribal thing. And it's part of your identity. It's part of your identity. It's part of the experiences. We went to Taylor Swift together, and there's these sort of social reasons behind it. So for me, this song taps into that first area of like it's lodged in the brain pleasure center somewhere and will never be removed. I think it's so important, you know, like we try to take sort of a positive spin on most of these songs.

And I think that it's so important to remember that even if Stevie Wonder is not like the artist that it's not, if you talk to people our age and younger, he's not always the first artist that pop. of my who's your favorite artist? Yeah. You know what I mean? But I think it's important to hear these songs the way that they were heard when they were first release before they got in every movie. When they were still fresh and wedding. Yeah. I mean, like growing up, I'll even say like my favorite Stevie Wonder song was not superstition or Sir Duke or I Wish.

You know, there's those songs in the Stevie Canon. Yeah. Science still delivered. Those weren't my favorite. My favorite was probably ribbon in the sky, which is like a super R&B, you know. deeper cut, frankly. But if that's the thing, it wasn't a deep cut for you. If you're growing up in an all-black school in Atlanta, you know what I'm saying?

Which one is that? That was the one that people would get up and sing poorly in assemblies. Everybody would be like, you know, she's saying that so good. You know, like, but at the end of the day, like, you wanted to hear Stevie sing ribbon in the sky. But that's actually kind of part of what we're talking about. There's something about the artists for whom there was a shorter period of time that they made music. Like The Beatles only made music, only recorded for. seven years and therefore they benefit a little bit in our consciousness. Yeah, you can actually know every

Beatles from the scarcity. Because it's so limited. And then like sometimes when I think about Stevie one, I'm like, what about skeletons? That song from like the late 80s. You know what I mean? Yes. We talk about Stevie's like that run of albums that he's at the beginning of with superstition. And that's his classic period. But then 50 more, 45 more years went by after songs in the key of life. Right. And I haven't heard all that music. And I, another, like, Prince is another example of that. I don't know all the Prince music. A lot of us were not buying Prince albums in 2003.

Yeah, yeah. Musicology was almost like a comeback for him. And even that was like, it didn't carry him all the way to 2014. I would be at the shows, but like, you know, yeah. It feels a little unfair to say that, like, to be a living legend in an icon who makes it to 70, who makes it to 80, almost does something momentarily detrimental. not detrimental. I know what the word is, but it puts the catalog into a different category. Whereas if you're Joy Division or Nirvana, you benefit or notorious B-I-G. There's something about that it's scarce and limited. There's always been something sexy about leaving the sexy corpse.

Sadly, in music. And, you know, I always say like, imagine if Michael Jackson, you know, Biggie dies on the eve of the release of life after day. Imagine if Michael Jackson died on the eve of the release of bad, or even, or even dangerous. It's just something before all the issues that he had in the 90s and the 2000s. Like people would talk about him as a deity. You know what I mean? Like, you know, it would just be seen as. Like, we're not saying that this is a good thing.

It's just like it's an interesting kind of. It doesn't feel fair. When David Bowie died, I was like listening to all the David Bowie stuff from like the 70s and the 80s, maybe a little bit of the 60s. But like, you know, very few people were picking up his albums from like, I'm sure he had an album in 2010 or 2011. You know, but...

It's an interesting phenomenon. Yeah, I was just going to say, for the record, Stevie Wonder, we're happy you're alive. Oh, absolutely. We want to celebrate that. And we want to give you your flowers right now while you're still with us. This is more of a cultural thing, I think. We just, we, there's youth and currency is obviously a big part of what drives the culture. And to the detriment of the icons who live to continue to make their art, their music,

they're write their books, whatever it is. We're just, they're kind of locked in this maybe zone where they had their initial burst of creativity on the scene or some innovation of whatever it is. And I think, I'm not sure if that's a product of just how the culture works or how the world works, but Stevie Wonder deserves to be, I'm glad we pulled back. He needs to be in that pantheon. I'm glad we pulled back the layers on this song and were reminded both you and I personally of how amazing it is.

Of the genius of Stevie Wonder. All right. So the last thing I want to talk about is how Stevie songs, you know, they're ubiquitous at weddings. But I feel like this is a man to talk. about catalog. This is a man with so many songs. Yeah. And so many underappreciated gems. Yeah. Pure gyms. What is your favorite deep cut Stevie song that you'd never hear at a wedding? Oh, that's a tricky one. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's a tricky one. I'd say that only because I just

DJed a wedding. So for the, for seven hours, like there are opportunities. Were they cool people, there were great people. I love that. And there's opportunities out of the wedding. You know, there's the dance floor moments. But then there's the more chill moments. You could actually technically probably fit any Stevie song during the cake cutting or something like that. But my answer to, I don't know how much of a deep cut it is, but my favorite Stevie Wonder song is probably Love Having You Around.

Wow. Every day I want to ride my bike, boom, boom. I'll get on my camel and ride, ride. That's my favorite one. I don't know that song. I love that track. That's on Music of My Mind. Okay. I'm going to go listen to it.

What's the other one? My second favorite, and this is a little, bit of a cheat because it's a it's a stevie written song but not performed by and that would absolutely be and it's neck and neck with the other one i said for number one but tell me something good by oh yeah rufus featuring shocka con he wrote that he wrote that and it's got the clav on it by the way and that is maybe that's in like the top seven of all time songs for me period i throw in one more earlier in the episode i said that you should never cover stevie yeah but really be scared if stevie covers you because he might

absolutely steal your fire. He might steal your fire. Speaking of fire, my favorite cover of Stevie covering someone else is the doors Light My Fire. He has an amazing cover of Light My Fire, which is so epic. I think it, as much as I love Light My Fire by the doors, his version, it just sounds very different. It sounds very different. And if you don't know it, go out and check it out, Stevie Wonder Light My Fire. I can, amazing company. I can very much imagine preferring that over the original. No shade intended, but a little shade intended. Not the biggest doors fan. There's only one door left, I think, so you might be safe. Oh, okay. I think I might be safe from the repercussions of that statement. Okay. But do you have an answer ready yourself? Do I have an answer? Well, you kind of just did, right?

I really love you got a bad girl. Like, to me, that is Stevie sort of inventing the sort of like jazz fusion that's going to be so prominent in R&B music. in the mid to, you know, late 70s. Like, if you just think about how the chords start off on that song, the, mm-mm, mm-mm, you notice I hummed it, and I'm not going to sing it because, again, nobody wants to try and sing like Stevie Wonder, unless you can really blow. But, like, that core construction, like,

it hits me every time. And then it goes to, you got it bad girl. Like, it, you talk of chills, like that song, You Got It Bad Girl is so dope to me. Yeah. Like, it just sounds so good. that's not a song that I feel like, you know, I would love it. And so it's like, hey, man, can you play some Stevie Wonder?

And then I put on, you got a bad girl to like bring the dance floor to a complete stop. Like that would make, but I think that like nobody can do those, those complex jazz structured chords like TV. It's funk. It's pop all at once. Yeah, it's R&B. Exactly. He took jazz and kind of made it pop friendly, which by the 70s is already becoming a little

unheard of. You are the sunshine of my. life, like right out the gate you get these crazy chord changes. It's like, and this is pop radio, and this is melodic and it's instantly accessible, you know, the lyric and everything. But it is, there's jazz happening under the surface. There absolutely is. Which is stealth jazz. I feel like that one is, uh, harmonically speaking. That one feels like Bert Baccarat to me in the best way. No, no, that's a great. I pronounce his name right. You did. Okay, cool. Great comparison. Yeah, like you're in the sunshine of my life. Like, there's a lightness and there's an air flowing through

it that, you know, I think that's the best way for me to describe. it. But there's something like smoky jazz club mysterious fun. Smoky, that's good. About you got it back. It's like that blood orange. It's like a little bit like harshness that makes it more special. It is direct to table music.

All right, luxury. Help me in this episode. This is the end of the episode. It's hard. You know what? CV Wonder's a freaking genius. So many reasons. Not the least of which. That's my big takeaway too. least of which is like playing that part and doing anything with your mouth.

Like to even talk while playing, that is freaking difficult. That is really difficult. I cannot do that. It's easier to be the resident fascist or the resident clavinet expert. Literally all I can do with a clavit in my mouth is say a sentence with the same notes and the same risk. And that's not useful because that's not what we need here. That may not be the international hit that Tamla needs. Tamla Reckis needs a hit.

Tamlin needs a hit and it's not that, but what we need to do is end this show. We do need to end this show. One of my favorites to tape. I'm going to be honest with you. It's got the stevie slop all over it, and I love it. But you know who I am? Because I'll tell you. Who are you?

I am producer, DJ and songwriter luxury. Who are you? I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Della Riddell O'Roodle. And this is one song. We will see you next time. We will see you next time on one song on Sirius XM. Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart, Kevin Hart. heart. I'm not gonna stop. We'll fade out just like superstition.