Songoftheday 10/21/13 - No new years day to celebrate no chocolate covered candy hearts to give away...

Stevie Wonder - "I Just Called To Say I Love You"
from the album The Woman In Red (Original Soundtrack) (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (three weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 15

Today's Song of the Day is by one of the most successful and artistically heralded music artists of the rock era, Stevie Wonder, who celebrated his career in 1982 with his double-disc Original Musiquarium set, with two big hits from it in the funky "That Girl" and its ebullient follow-up "Do I Do". It took a full two years for another Wonder album release, and the result was only an eight-song soundtrack with one being a non-Wonder-penned instrumental, and three tracks featuring Dionne Warwick on vocals (one of her alone). The movie, The Woman In Red, was a rom-com adaptation of a French film that was a pet project of comedic actor Gene Wilder, who wrote, directed, and starred in the film, along with his future wife Gilda Radner (who actually plays the girl he 'stands up' for another for). The theme from the movie was a wild departure from his vast and soulful work, with a blippy electronic backdrop and diabetically saccharine lyrics. It was like a flashback to the "lite" rock of the beginning of the decade, but the world ate it up, returning Stevie to the top of the charts in a big way...

"I Just Called To Say..." became one of Wonder's biggest ever hits, spending three weeks atop the pop chart in the US, and double that amount in Britain. He also topped the R&B and adult-contemporary radio format charts in Billboard, as well as topping the singles lists in just about every country in the world. It was stunningly Wonder's only #1 solo hit in the UK.

I had such a disdain for this toss-off of a track, and unlike others of the time that have grown on me, this certainly hasn't (and I actually like most of the rest of the soundtrack, including his next single "Lovelight In Flight"). But that didn't stop Stevie from raking in the awards, with an Oscar and a Golden Globe for the piece, but though he was nominated for three Grammys, cooler heads prevailed.

(Click below to see the rest of the post)


...Here's Stevie on tour in Japan in 1985...

...and again for a TV appearance in 1995..

Up tomorrow: the First Lady of Disco goes back. Waaaay back.