Stevie Wonder has finally let loose four songs he recorded for Songs in the Key of Life in 1976 but never put on the record. The new EP, titled Songs in the Key of Life 50: The EP, dropped Monday on streaming services at 4:54 a.m. PDT — the exact hour the original sessions wrapped, according to bassist Nathan Watts, who remarked at the time, “Fo’FiftyFo’.” That phrase became an in-joke among Wonder and his musicians, used to mark the end of sessions ever since.
The Four Songs
The EP holds four tracks. “It’s Easier” opens the record as an upbeat breakup song whose message is simple: “It’s easier to say, ‘Love, bye-bye’/Than to go around with a heart that wants to cry.” “My Life Story of Love,” also known as “It’s My Life Story of Love,” follows, with Wonder singing, “It’s my life story of love that never comes true.” He sounds more hopeful than sad, and he co-wrote the song with Susaye Greene, a member of the Supremes.
“I Can See the Sun in Late December” is a slow-shuffling ballad about longing for warmer times. “I’m Into Livin'” closes the EP as an easy, jazzy funk track, with Wonder singing, “I’m into livin’ for your sweet, sweet love, L-O-V-E, love,” his voice rising and falling with the music.
Wonder played most of the instruments on these songs himself, just as he did on the original double album. That includes drums, GX-1-Dream Machine, Bass-GX-1-Dream Machine, Fender Rhodes, and electric bass. Gregory Phillinganes played the Rhodes on “My Life Story of Love,” and Watts played bass on “It’s Easier” and “I Can See the Sun in Late December.”
“I’m Into Livin'” features backup vocals from Shirley Brewer, who sang on the album’s “Ordinary Love,” plus Thelma Houston — who later recorded the hit “Don’t Leave Me This Way” — and longtime Wonder backup singer Deneice Williams.
Why He Waited
Wonder recorded these songs during the sessions for Songs in the Key of Life, the 1976 album that Rolling Stone ranked at Number Four among the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. The magazine described the record as encompassing “an incredible range of life experiences — from the giddy joy of a baby in the bathtub (‘Isn’t She Lovely,’ featuring the cries and giggles of Wonder’s infant daughter Aisha Morris) through tributes to his musical heroes (‘Sir Duke’) to dismay about the indifference of the wealthy (‘Village Ghetto Land’).”
Wonder said he kept these four songs private for five decades because they were never meant for the public. “We’ve lived with Songs in the Key of Life for 50 years, but there’s still more to hear,” he said. “We didn’t add these songs to the album, but they were part of what I was feeling and discovering as we made it. They bring me back to that time in my life, and now they get to become part of yours.”
The Anniversary Tour
The EP arrives timed to the 50th anniversary of the album’s release, which came out on Sept. 28, 1976. It is diamond-certified. The original Songs in the Key of Life also included a four-song EP, A Something’s Extra.
John Fischbach and Gary O. Adante, credited as Gary Olazabal, mixed the new EP. They were the engineers who worked on the original album.
The World Tour Dates
Wonder will play every song from the original double album on a world tour this fall. The tour starts in Birmingham, England on Oct. 13 and ends in L.A. on Dec. 19.
What the Songs Add
The four new tracks extend the themes of the original record, which explored love and life across its double-album length.
| Track | Theme |
|---|---|
| “It’s Easier” | Upbeat breakup |
| “My Life Story of Love” | Hopeful heartbreak |
| “I Can See the Sun in Late December” | Nostalgia for warmth |
| “I’m Into Livin'” | Easy, jazzy funk |
The EP is a small addition to a massive body of work. It does not remake the album. It simply adds to it, quietly, after half a century of waiting.
Source material: “Stevie Wonder Surprise-Releases Four Previously Unheard ‘Songs in the Key of Life’,” Rolling Stone.
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