Stevie Wonder names his most political song: “The deepest I really got”
Stevie Wonder’s “classic period” of the 1970s heard the musician shift into a renewed, socially conscious direction.
For over a decade, under the strict tutelage of Motown Records, Wonder bore the weight of the label’s expectations from childhood, honing his potential while compliant with Motown’s standards.
He auditioned for the legendary record label when he was just 11 years old, after performing an original song, ‘Lonely Boy’ for Ronnie White of the Miracles. “Little Stevie Wonder,” as he came to be known, possessed boundless talents to the envy and admiration of his labelmates, a true prodigy that, despite his age, was a revelation in the music world. His first tour with the Motortown Revue earned him the title of “The 12 Year Old Genius” and with a prolific songbook by the age of 20, Wonder’s boundless gifts gave Motown some of its biggest hits and solidified his legacy.
But, as he matured, his desire to write and perform increasingly profound music prompted a necessary shift. His marriage to his first wife, singer-songwriter Syreeta Wright, fostered a collaborative partnership, where the two worked together on writing music and lyrics for Wonder’s forthcoming projects.
They pondered on how Wonder’s music could reflect the state of the world’s social and political conflicts, and how it could act as a voice for the disenfranchised. His thirteenth album, Where I’m Coming From, was released in 1971, when Wonder was just 21 years old, marking the beginning of his lyrical shift. While Wonder has later spoken of the faults of the collection, calling it “premature,” the songs reflect Wonder’s initial growth as a musician, an important display of his talents coming into their own with a renewed spirit.
In 1973, Wonder would release Innervisions, his sixteenth album which has come to define his “classic period,” regarded as his final step into maturity. On the album, he continued to move beyond his piano with synthesisers, experimenting with his preferred TONTO (The Original New Timbral Orchestra) system. Its developers, Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, also encouraged Wonder to expand his lyricism and embrace political themes, outside of the romantic stories his voice had become accustomed to. One of the results was ‘Living for the City,” the standout single from Wonder’s intimate collection on Innervisions.
‘Living for the City’ is a commentary on systemic racism, told through the story of a young boy born and raised in Mississippi. He comes from a loving family, though they are afflicted with poverty and discrimination. The boy’s parents work arduous hours for little pay, struggling to make ends meet for their two children. “You still have that same mother that scrubs the floors for many, she’s still doing it,” Wonder later remarked. “Now what is that about? And that father who works some days for 14 hours. That’s still happening.”
The story shifts to the boy travelling by bus to New York City, where he is confronted by a drug dealer, who offers him $5 to run across the street with a package. Naively, the boy agrees and is caught by the police pursuing the dealer. Arrested without knowing he had committed a crime, he is found guilty by the jury and sentenced to ten years in prison. Later, once he is released, he is abandoned to the streets of the city, barely able to survive as a homeless ex-convict.
“I hope you hear inside my voice of sorrow,” Wonder pleads at the end of the song. “And that it motivates you to make a better tomorrow / This place is cruel, nowhere could be much colder / If we don’t change, the world will soon be over.” In ‘Living for the City’, Wonder paints a portrait of the grim reality of systemic inequity, an impassioned cry for the many who have fallen victim to an unjust social order. His sampling of the sounds of the city—the bustling streets, honking of horns, sirens wailing—amplifies the submersion into the chaotic atmosphere.
Wonder regards the song as “the deepest” he has ever dived into his feelings of pain and anger, channeling his sentiments into a poignant critique of social consciousness, or lack thereof. Such is an approach that he would continually return to in his songwriting, fearless in his confrontation of injustice.
