The romance that inspired Stevie Wonder’s ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing’
There are few songs that are almost guaranteed to elicit a smile out of any listener, but ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing’ by Stevie Wonder is one of them. Fusing optimistic Latin piano, with equally rose-tinted lyrics, it’s a sunny, calming, and endlessly danceable song.
Amidst Wonder’s reassurances of “Don’t you worry ‘bout a thing”, the song contains a love story that was inspired by one of the singer’s real-life romances. At the song’s intro, Wonder pretends that he can speak Spanish in order to try and impress a girl, asking, “Comprende, mama, you understand that?”
He continues to brag about all the countries he’s been to, which is quite an impressive list. However, none of them are Spanish-speaking – Paris, Beirut, Iraq, Iran, Eurasia – before cautiously reaffirming, “I speak very, very, um, fluent Spanish”. The only intelligible Spanish in the section comes in the line, “Todo ‘stá bien chévere”, which a female voice repeats back to him.
The phrase mirrors the title in its meaning by roughly translating to “Everything’s really great”, and Wonder borrowed it from a Puerto Rican woman he fell in love with at a record store. He explained the story via Genius: “I remember the night I was going to do this song. And I just so happened to meet this girl named Rain. And she was beautiful.”
Rain worked at a record store and sang, which Wonder thought was amazing, so he said to her, “‘OK, well, you know, I’m doing a little thing and like a little something called ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing’. What can I – I mean, give me something, something. I’ll let you come to the studio if you have anything to say. I’ll say some things, and it will be a wonderful day.’ In response, he recalls, ‘she said, ‘todo esta bien chevere.’ And that’s how I got that in a song. And, you know, we fell in love, and it was a beautiful thing.”
The tentative Spanish was also inspired by Wonder’s upbringing in the Midwest, as he explained in NPR: “I’ve always been a lover of music. And the thing with ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing,’ when I did the demo, I was just saying some things. You know, I didn’t speak Spanish. But that’s, I think, part of the whole excitement of me being raised in the Midwest. You had radio stations that you have maybe a couple hours of Spanish music. You have some Italian music. You have some gospel music. You have some jazz. You hear all of the various accents.”
Writing ‘Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing’ while in the throes of love at first sight, Wonder was able to produce one of his best songs, and one of the most optimistic and soothing summer hits of all time.
