Happy Birthday, Stevie Wonder

Happy birthday, Stevie Wonder.  Sixty-six today.  I've just been having a listen to 'Living For The City', which I daresay is my favourite Stevie Wonder choon.  I love the melody, and I love Stevie's delivery.  So funky, for want of a better word.

In the event you're wondering what my LEAST favourite Stevie Wonder number is, and to be honest I doubt you're wondering because if you've been following me you can work it out, but if you don't know, I will appraise you accordingly.  It is that tedious, nausea-inducing, syrupy slop known as 'Ebony & Ivory'.  Okay, Stevie didn't do this on his own.  His partner in crimes-against-music was Paul McCartney.  You know, I think Macca just might be the death knell for any collaboration of the musical variety. He did some utter shockers with Jacko ('The Girl Is Mine' and the only marginally less awful 'Say, Say, Say').  Just like there used to be a joke that a television show would jump the shark the minute Ted McGinley was cast in a recurring role (Marion's nephew in 'Happy Days' - shark fodder! and Marcy's second husband in 'Married With Children'), I really believe that when Macca is brought along on board for a musical collaboration, it's going to suck like an imploding black hole.

I think 'Ebony & Ivory' had good intentions, but it's just so much mawkish bloat. It's just a total cheese platter, with delivery so earnest it makes me want to puke; not to mention the plethora of platitudes - 'we all know, people are the same wherever you go' and 'there is good and bad in everyone' - that always make me want to shout, 'Yeah, and what's your POINT?!!!' It was released when I was in Year 11, and every time the strains wafted like the bad smell they were from my Sanyo cassette player/radio, I used to want to pick up a heavy object and repeatedly bash said Sanyo cassette player/radio. 

It probably sounded the death knell for 'Diff'rent Strokes' when the characters playing Willis, Kimberley and whoever was Willis' girlfriend (played by a teenaged Janet Jackson) performed it.  I do remember that, and thinking 'how awful' when I saw it.  I just checked You Tube to see if any sadistic type had uploaded it, and yes, it was there.  If you need an emetic of some type, check it out.

I always say this, but I do believe when this song was played back in the studio, post-recording, Stevie Wonder wished he could have been afflicted with deafness as well.

Notwithstanding all this, happy birthday, Stevie; you truly are a wonder.