The miracle song that gave Stevie Wonder a “second chance for life”
When you think of all the disadvantages he’s been dealt in life, it’s hard to think of the career of Stevie Wonder as being anything other than miraculous.
After going blind shortly after his birth as a result of a condition that caused his retinas to detach, and growing up as one of five children in a poor, predominantly Black neighbourhood in Detroit, not much would have been expected of Stevland Hardaway Judkins in terms of his career prospects. With it being impossible for him to find employment through conventional means as a result of his condition, and as someone who would have felt the impact of race and class-based discrimination, it was a godsend that he had a gift that he could lean into from an early age.
The fact that he displayed a natural affinity for music was a blessing, and his ability to showcase this unparalleled talent before he’d even entered his teenage years was ultimately what earned him the Wonder moniker from Motown boss Berry Gordy. It could have been tough for him to hold onto this stardom into his early adulthood, but given the levels of brilliance that he was operating on, there was almost no doubt that his career would end up being long and fruitful.
Wonder had defied the odds from a young age, and this was a remarkable thing in and of itself, but tragedy struck in 1973 when he was reaching the peak of his powers, almost bringing an already remarkable career to an unfortunate end.
Only three days after he’d released his 16th studio album, Innervisions, he was involved in a car accident that was near-fatal and left him in a coma for four days. While the world was celebrating another spellbinding release from this singular artist, he was fighting for his life.
Wonder pulled through eventually, defying the odds once more, and while this was a blessing for him, it was also a blessing for the rest of the music world, who were not ready to lose such a prodigious talent so young, even though by the age of 23, he’d already become a hugely prolific and successful artist.
He was, of course, grateful to the medical staff who helped him recover from this life-altering incident, but the spiritual side of Wonder also led him to believe that one song from the album had a sense of magic about it and had gifted him with the ability to pull through as a result. ‘Higher Ground’, the centrepiece of Innervisions, explores themes of enlightenment and concepts tied to the idea of reincarnation through being devoted to one’s faith, and following his accident, he thought that the song had helped open his mind to a new way of thinking.
“I would like to believe in reincarnation,” Wonder claimed. “I would like to believe that there is another life. I think that sometimes your consciousness can happen on the earth a second time around. For me, I wrote ‘Higher Ground’ even before the accident, but something must have been telling me that something was going to happen to make me aware of a lot of things and to get myself together. This is like my second chance for life, to do something or to do more, and to value the fact that I am alive.”
While a less spiritual person might dismiss this notion as being a mere example of fortunate coincidence, it’s clear that the deeper meaning of the song clearly spoke to Wonder while writing it, and took on an entire life of its own in the immediate aftermath of its release. There’s having a connection to the music you make, and then there’s having it dictate your entire philosophical outlook on life.
