Line #8 Music/SongsInTheKeyOfLife


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/42ba9b268f9f1ff863e1daef58adddc4.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350: An album mankind will love ''"until the dolphin flies and parrots live at sea!"'']]
3
4	''Songs in the Key of Life'' is a double album released in 1976 by Music/StevieWonder. It was his 18th solo release and one of the best selling albums of his career. It debuted at #1 in the Billboard Pop Albums Chart where it spent another 12 weeks, and was awarded ''Album of the Year'' at the 1977 UsefulNotes/{{Grammy Award}}s. It spawned hits such as: "Sir Duke," "I Wish," "As," "Isn't She Lovely", and "Pastime Paradise."
5
6	In 2005 it was inducted in the UsefulNotes/NationalRecordingRegistry for being culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant. It was also subject of an episode of the TV music documentary series ''Series/ClassicAlbums.''
7
8	The album title is so well known that Website/TVTropes has none less than two PunBasedTitle articles based on it: SongsInTheKeyOfPanic and SongsInTheKeyOfLock.
9	----
10
11	!! Tracklist:
12	!!!Disc One
13	[[AC:Side One]]
14	# "Love's in Need of Love Today" (7:06)
15	# "Have a Talk with God" (2:42)
16	# "Village Ghetto Land" (3:25)
17	# "Contusion" (3:46)
18	# "Sir Duke" (3:54)
19
20	[[AC:Side Two]]
21	# "I Wish" (4:12)
22	# "Knocks Me Off My Feet" (3:36)
23	# "Pastime Paradise" (3:28)
24	# "Summer Soft" (4:14)
25	# "Ordinary Pain" (6:23)
26
27	!!!Disc Two
28	[[AC:Side Three]]
29	# "Isn't She Lovely" (6:34)
30	# "Joy Inside My Tears" (6:30)
31	# "Black Man" (8:30)
32
33	[[AC:Side Four]]
34	# "Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing" (3:49)
35	# "If It's Magic" (3:12)
36	# "As" (7:08)
37	# "Another Star" (8:28)
38
39	!!!''A Something's Extra'' EP:
40	[[AC:Side One]]
41	# "Saturn" (4:54)
42	# "Ebony Eyes" (4:09)
43
44	[[AC:Side Two]]
45	# "All Day Sucker" (5:06)
46	# "Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)" (3:57)
47	----
48
49	!! Tropes in the Key of Life include:
50
51	* AlliterativeTitle: "'''S'''ummer '''S'''oft," "'''E'''bony '''E'''yes," "'''P'''astime '''P'''aradise."
52	* ArtisticLicenseSpace "Saturn," apart from Stevie's rather casual plan of planning to live there he has a rather unrealistic idea of life on this planet:
53	-->''Going back to Saturn where the rings all glow''
54	-->''Rainbow, moonbeams and orange snow''
55	-->''On Saturn''
56	-->''People live to be two hundred and five''
57	-->''Going back to Saturn where the people smile''
58	-->''Don't need cars cause we've learn to fly''
59	-->''On Saturn''
60	-->''Just to live to us is our natural high''
61	* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: "Isn't She Lovely" about Wonder's baby daughter.
62	* BilingualBonus: "Ngiculela – Es Una Historia – I Am Singing" which repeats [[SingleStanzaSong its verse]] in Zulu, Spanish, and English (with an additional bridge in English)
63	* CasualInterstellarTravel: "Saturn," where Wonder decides to leave Earth and all its misery behind and go to Saturn.
64	* ConceptAlbum: The album tries to capture what life is all about. The title supposedly came to Wonder in a dream and he and his band worked to live up to it.
65	* CrapsackWorld: The tracks "Village Ghetto Land" and "Pastime Paradise," an attack on all the stuff Wonder considered awful:
66	-->''How many of them are you and me?''
67	-->''Dissipation of race relations,''
68	-->''consolation, segregation,''
69	--> ''dispensation, isolation, exploitation, mutilation,''
70	-->''mutations, miscreation, confirmation to the evils of the world.''
71	** The rest of the album is a celebration of life, but these songs underpin that life has its bad moments. The album's working title was ''Let's See Life the Way It Is,'' after all.
72	* EpicRocking: "Isn't She Lovely", "As", "Another Star", "Black Man", "Joy Inside My Tears", and "Ordinary Pain".
73	* FaceOnTheCover: His face is seen on the album cover, but as a drawing, surrounded by circles.
74	* FictionalCountry: "Village Ghetto Land," which depicts all the horrors of street life amplified in one place.
75	* GodIsLoveSong: "Have a Talk with God".
76	-->''He's the only free psychiatrist that's known throughout the world''
77	-->''For solving the problems of all men, women, little boys, and girls''
78	* {{Instrumentals}}: Track four is "Contusion", a JazzFusion piece inspired by Chick Corea and Music/JohnMcLaughlin.
79	* ListSong: "Black Man" lists the achievements of several people of different races who did great deeds in history.
80	* LoveMakesYouDumb: "All Day Sucker."
81	-->''I'm an all day sucker''
82	-->''Coming to give something to get nothin' ''
83	-->''I'm an all day sucker''
84	-->''Coming to give something but to get none of your love''
85	* ManlyTears: "Joy Inside My Tears:"
86	-->''Oh baby, you've brought some joy inside my tears''
87	* NonAppearingTitle: The album title doesn't appear in any of the lyrics.
88	* NostalgiaFilter: "I Wish," about Wonder's youth.
89	-->''I wish those days could come back once more''
90	-->''Why did those days ev-er have to go?''
91	-->''I wish those days could come back once more''
92	-->''Why did those days ev-er have to go?''
93	-->''Cause I love them so''
94	* OneManBand: Most of the instruments were all done by Stevie himself, recorded on separate tracks brought back together on one tape.
95	* OneWordTitle: "Saturn," "Contusion," and "As."
96	* PepTalkSong: "Ngicuela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing" (see also ThePowerOfLove), but especially the final verse of "As."
97	-->''We all know sometimes life's hates and troubles''
98	-->''Can make you wish you were born in another time and space''
99	-->''But you can bet you life times that and twice its double''
100	-->''That God knew exactly where he wanted you to be placed''
101	-->''So make sure when you say you're in it but not of it''
102	-->''You're not helping to make this earth a place sometimes called Hell''
103	-->''Change your words into truths and then change that truth into love''
104	-->''And maybe our children's grandchildren''
105	-->''And their great great grandchildren will tell''
106	-->''I'll be loving you...''
107	* ThePowerOfLove: "Love's in Need of Love Today", "Knocks Me Off My Feet", "Another Star", "As", "Isn't She Lovely", and "Ngiculela - Es Una Historia - I Am Singing", which has the following lines:
108	-->''I am singing of tomorrow''
109	-->''I am singing of love''
110	-->''I am singing someday love will reign''
111	-->''Througout this world of ours''
112	-->''I am singing of love from my heart''
113	-->''Let's all sing someday sweet love will reign''
114	-->''Throughout this world of ours''
115	-->''Let's start singing''
116	-->''Of love from our hearts''
117	-->''Let's start singing''
118	-->''Of love from our hearts''
119	* ThePowerOfRock: "Sir Duke" is a homage to jazz and soul musicians Stevie admires:
120	-->''Music is a world within itself with a language we all understand''
121	-->''With an equal opportunity''
122	-->''For all to sing, dance and clap their hands''
123	-->''But just because a record has a groove''
124	-->''Don't make it in the groove''
125	-->''But you can tell right away at letter "A"'' [[note]] On sheet music, melodies are indexed in alphabetical order and can be referred to in parlance as ABA, just like verse chorus verse. So "A" in this case refers to the start of the song. [[/note]]
126	-->''When the people start to move''
127	* ProtestSong: "Pastime Paradise," and to a lesser extent "Black Man" and "Village Ghetto Land:"
128	-->''Now some folks say that we should be''
129	-->''Glad for what we have''
130	-->''Tell me would you be happy?''
131	-->''Village Ghetto Land''
132	* ReCut: Initial CD releases of the album append each side of ''A Something's Extra'' to the end of each disc, with "Saturn" and "Ebony Eyes" closing out disc one and "All Day Sucker" and "Easy Goin' Evening (My Mama's Call)" closing out disc two. The 2000 remaster instead places the full EP at the end of disc two to better mimic the original vinyl release.
133	* {{Sampling}}: In keeping with the theme of the title, the album has several sound clips strewn throughout. In addition to those mentioned in SpokenWord below, there's the sounds of evening crickets as a transition between "Pastime Paradise" and "Summer Soft," and of girls jumping rope between "Saturn" and "Ebony Eyes."
134	** Also, in 1995 Coolio used "Pastime Paradise" as the basis for his "Gangsta's Paradise."
135	** A lot of "I Wish" ended up as the main theme from the Creator/WillSmith movie ''Film/WildWildWest''.
136	* ShoutOut:
137	** "Sir Duke" provides a shout-out to...
138	--->''For there's Basie,[[note]]Music/CountBasie[[/note]] [[Music/GlennMiller Miller]], [[Music/LouisArmstrong Satchmo]], and the king of all [[Music/DukeEllington Sir Duke]].''\
139	''And with a voice like Music/{{Ella\|Fitzgerald}}'s ringing out, there's no way the band could lose.''
140	** "Black Man" references several historical characters of different race and lists their achievements, among them: UsefulNotes/AbrahamLincoln, UsefulNotes/ThomasEdison, Creator/BruceLee, Harriet Tubman, Sacagawea, and Hiawatha.
141	** Wonder thanks none other than Music/FrankZappa and Music/DavidBowie in the liner notes.
142	* SpecialGuest: Among the people present during the sessions were Music/HerbieHancock, George Benson, [[Film/{{Flashdance}} Michael Sembello]], and Minnie Riperton.
143	* SpokenWord: The baby noises of Wonder playing with his daughter in "Isn't She Lovely" and the call and response outro to "Black Man".
144	* UncommonTime: "Contusion" frequently changes metre signature; many of the examples fall into this trope.

Context Music / SongsInTheKeyOfLife