The story behind Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”
One of Wonder’s best selling singles topped the Hot 100 to Nº 1 on this day in 1973
The story behind Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition”
Released on October 24, 1972 as the lead single from his fifteenth studio album, “Talking Book” by Tamla, “Superstition” lyrics are chiefly concerned with superstitions, mentioning several popular superstitious fables throughout the song, and deal with the negative effects superstitious beliefs can bring. The song was Wonder’s first number-one single since “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” and topped the Billboard Hot 100 on January 27th, 1973 Originally, “Superstition” was written for Jeff Beck, as part of an agreement between the guitarist and Stevie Wonder. The deal was for Jeff Beck to play on the recording sessions of his upcoming album “Talking Book” in return for Wonder writing him a song. Beck came up with the opening drum beat which inspired Wonder to improvise along with it, resulting on “Superstition”. After the recording of the album, Wonder went ahead and allowed Beck to record his own version of the song and release it, however, Berry Gordy predicted the song was going to be a hit and released Stevie Wonder’s version of the song months ahead of Jeff Beck’s one and resulted in one of his best selling singles. He did a famous live-in-the-studio version of “Superstition” on Sesame Street in 1973 and the song remains one of Stevie Wonder’s most popular and famous songs and has been covered several times by other artists.
Watch Stevie Wonder performing “Superstition” in 1974
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