Maybe this has happened to you, too. Every once in a while, a piece of music takes up lodging in my head. It’s not like an ear worm you have for a day or so. The thing becomes a fixation over months.
The compulsively curious parts of me want to understand the magic in the music. To find out what makes it tick and what it has to offer me.
And even though art can’t be explained, here’s my attempt at understanding my latest obsession.
It’s Stevie Wonder’s “Overjoyed”
from 1983, when he performed for and hosted SNL.
I replay again and again the bootlegged audio file and do my best to sing along with him, marveling at his phrasing, his breath control and range, and how he keeps the long line alive over breaths, rests, and syncopations. And especially, especially how he plays with the rhythm. The performance itself is a master class in artistry.
The recorded version that Stevie released two years later on his album In Square Circle is also excellent. But this faster, stripped down version of the song is what captures me and it’s where you can grasp more of what he’s up to.
The song itself a miracle. It’s not just the unexpected revelations of the far-flung key changes that somehow feel inevitable. It’s that Stevie actually encodes in the song itself the physics of the emotion he’s describing. The long tail of the song rides on an undercurrent of animating particles: the punctuated words and timings, the spark and decay of vowels all pointing to joy. He uses all this to create an impetuous celebration of the willingness to love.
His undulating accompaniment, with its cyclical samba rhythm, underscores a melody that toggles around a handful of pitches, but then the chorus climbs and modulates, and each time this feels like you’re entering new territory: that rarefied atmosphere, the realm of faith in dreams coming true.
Listen here:
“Overjoyed” by Stevie Wonder
Over time, I’ve been building my castle of love
Just for two, though you never knew you were my reason
I’ve gone much too far for you now to say
That I’ve got to throw my castle away
Over dreams, I have picked out a perfect come true
Though you never knew it was of you I’ve been dreaming
The sandman has come from too far away
For you to say, “Come back some other day”
And though you don’t believe that they do
They do come true
For did my dream
Come true when I looked at you
And maybe too, if you would believe
You too might be
Overjoyed, over loved, over me
Over hearts, I have painfully turned every single stone
Just to find, I had found what I’ve searched to discover
I’ve gone much too far for me now to find
The love that I’ve sought can never be mine
And though you don’t believe that they do
They do come true
For did my dreams
Come true when I looked at you
And maybe too, if you would believe
You too might be
Overjoyed, over loved, over me
And though the odds seem improbable
What do they know
For in romance
All true love needs is a chance
And maybe with a chance you will find
You too like I
Overjoyed, over loved, over you
Over you
And I only found this performance because Mark Dover, the fabulous clarinetist of Imani Winds, talked about it at a concert the group gave in Boston at the Gardner museum a couple months ago.
In his intro to the arrangement he’d made of the song, Mark spoke of Stevie Wonder’s songwriting genius and of his deserving to be considered part of the Great American Songbook canon. Mark considers this song and this particular performance to be all-time greats. I do too, and I love that Mark turned me and an entire audience onto this in a concert of otherwise “classical” works. Thank you, Mark, for your stunning arrangement and for your proselytizing.
Here’s my theory about why certain works of art haunt us:
Whatever the obsession might be, there’s something intrinsic to its internal workings that resonates in your own unconscious. It’s like a half-remembered dream that we try to make sense of because we have a hunch that there’s more it’s trying to tell us.
We do our best to solve the mystery of the magic because we want to know why the piece has such a hold on us.
Bits of the magic can of course, be explained. We look for what’s unusual. For what feels both so surprising and so inevitable that it creates a frisson of delight. It’s wonderful to find these clues to how the magic is made. It can feel like you’ve cracked the code on at least a part of the wonderment and you’re now inside the castle, in the know about a corner of the artistry that built it.
But of course, you can’t explain it all, because then it wouldn’t be magic, would it?
The reason it’s worth “getting under the hood” with whatever you love and are obsessed with is because in the process you’ll inevitably learn more about yourself and how the world works.
So what has this deep dive into “Overjoyed” offered me? It’s shown me a version of freedom played out in the flight of a few lines—over key changes that escape the limitations of what’s possible. For me, that’s an invitation to say the unsayable, to find my own freedom in sharing an unbridled ecstatic enthusiasm.
I’ve written before about other musical obsessions, a Puccini aria, and a folk-rock band’s song. But I want to leave you with another musician’s version of “Overjoyed.” Because this is what great songs do: they keep on inspiring. This is Esperanza Spalding performing at the White House in 2009 with the Obamas and Stevie in the audience. This was part of a concert honoring Mr. Wonder with the Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.
If you have further insights on “Overjoyed,” I’d love to hear them.
And if something in this newsletter stirred something in you about your own obsessions and where they might lead, that’s exactly the kind of conversation I have with musicians. Schedule a time here.
Looking forward to connecting,
Dream Big, Plan Smart, Live Well
