Useless Information

I go through musical phases. Lots of them. Some phases last longer and are more intense than others, which is the case right now. I nearly drive my kids to drink with my favorite music, only they're not old enough, and they'd be in huge trouble. This latest phase has been all about Stevie Wonder. I've known his music since childhood, and have several of his albums, but recently I've been delving deeper. I've always thought it was weird that on 'You Are The Sunshine Of My Life', the female singer only sings two lines at the beginning, and that's it. Does that even qualify as a duet? She sings her two lines right after Stevie opens the song with

You are the sunshine of my life

That's why I'll always be around

and then she sings

You are the apple of my eye,

Forever you'll stay in my heart

And then Stevie sings the rest of the song.

Only, it occurred to me recently that the very first two lines don't actually sound like Stevie Wonder. I mean, it does sound like him, but something about the first part was just weird to me, so I decided to investigate. When I investigate something as important as who is singing the first two lines of 'You Are The Sunshine Of My Life', I go to Wikipedia first, as I always do when I want the most accurate and reliable information ;-)

Tangent alert

You know, I just can't get enough of Wikipedia. I love it all - the good info, the bad info, the vandalism, and all the surprising random tidbits I never expect to stumble upon. One of the most fun things I've ever seen happen on Wikipedia was when Ella looked up Michael Phelps during the Olympics, and his profile had been vandalized. It had been taken over by the 'Zodiac Killer', with a menacing message to the world, complete with the Zodiac Killer's symbol. Michael Phelps' profile was frozen and none of the links worked. The Zodiac's message was somehow placed over the page, but you could still see some of the Wikipedia content in the background. Then, when we refreshed the page, wah lah - just like magic, it had been fixed. I also like finding info I know to be wrong, because it makes me feel super smart. I also like to see how many clicks it will take me to get from one subject to another completely unrelated subject, and I try to do it in the fewest clicks possible. For instance, on their homepage, they have a randomly chosen featured article everyday. I choose any subject in the world that pops into my head, like 'You Are The Sunshine Of My Life', and I see how many clicks it will take me to get from the randomly chosen feature article, to my subject of choice. You have to choose your links wisely to be successful.

I just made it from Anekantavada to You Are The Sunshine Of My Life in ten clicks. I think I could have done it better, but I thought for sure the Jehovah's Witness page would have a list of famous members that would include Michael Jackson, but it didn't. Getting to Stevie Wonder would have been easy that way. Oh dear, I'm really living up to my profile description, ain't I?

But back to the matter at hand, which you may or may not remember at this point, is who sang the first two lines of YATSOML. Wikipedia reveals, that indeed, Stevie Wonder did not sing these lines. It was his back up singer, James Gilstrap. Do you have any idea what a genius I feel like? It doesn't take much, I know. This is exactly the kind of useless information I love knowing. Now I'll be waiting the rest of my life for this to be a trivia question. It can't be when I'm alone watching Jeopardy though. It has to be when other people are around, maybe with some friends playing games. I need witnesses when the question "who sang the opening lyric on the classic Stevie Wonder cut 'You Are The Sunshine Of My Life'?" is read aloud, and I answer, without hesitating, "James Gilstrap of course. I can't believe no one here knows that." Aaaah, the glory that will be mine! I can taste it already!!!

There are two versions of YATSOML, btw. The singles version for radio play has horns, but the album version doesn't (thank you Wikipedia).