Knocks Me Off My Feet
Stevie Wonder
"Songs In The Key of Life" is without a doubt not only my favourite album of all time, but also one of the greatest albums of all time in general. You know you're onto a winner when every track has been covered, sampled, interpolated and/or just rehashed into someone else's back catalogue.
Let's have a look-see;
I Wish - (rehashed as "Wild Wild West" by Will Smith)
Sir Duke - (covered by Har Mar Superstar, and just about most arseholes on American Idol)
As - (covered by George Michael & Mary J Blige)
Past-time Paradise (sampled in Coolio's "Gangster's Paradise")
Ordinary Pain (interpolated into an Alicia Keys' song)
Another Star (S Club 7 live favourite, yeah I know...)
Etc etc.... the list goes on, just go onto Youtube and see the vast array of rip-off merchants who have feasted upon this album like vultures in the desert heat. There is however, ONE song that I don't like, and it's "Isn't She Lovely", as it's one of his 'white people' songs.
By this, I mean Stevie Wonder has two types of songs; his "African-American songs" and his "White People songs". I don't mean to bring race into the equation but this is how I've always separated the two. His early Motown, R&B, funk and soul back-catalogue is simply prodigious, and then you have the other end of the scale with the commercial pop dross he's mostly famous for. It's all bureaucratic record label nonsense trying to tap into the early 80's marketing idea that "white people can listen to black music if it's not too black". But the hip-hop movement would eventually and thankfully destroy these barriers.
Hence why you have these whimsical and opprobriously sugary-sweet cack-tracks that end up on "Stevie Wonder: The Love Collection" purely hurled at white guys to buy for their middle-aged housewives so they have something to tap their toes to, whilst bleaching the stove saying "oooh I know this one".
Which is why when I first heard an actual Stevie Wonder album it blew my mind. I'd grown up hearing on the radio "I Just Called To Say I Love You" and "Happy Birthday" and being generally dismissive towards Stevie and then suddenly I'm thrusted into an entirely different world of insane funk phenomenons of the likes of "Sir Duke", "Black Man" and "I Wish".
You then you have the more deeper, soulful jams like "Love's In Need Of Love Today" and "Summer Soft" all of which are masterful works of genius illuminated by his impeccable vocal stylings and backing band. I fell in love instantly.
The song I've chosen is deliberately one of the less recognisable of the collection. "Knocks Me Off My Feet" is the track I used to listen to and picture myself in 10 years time, playing the piano in the corner of some abominable wine bar, serenading a drunken divorcee to this song.
It's essentially a jazzy ballad; a ballsy pumped-up declaration of one's undying love with the epic line "I don't wanna bore you, but girl I love you...".
Magical stuff.
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