Stevie Wonder: Songs stay with you forever

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? the History Bureau Putin and the Apartment Bombs listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your podcasts with the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport and the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service.

1:05Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

1:16Hello, I am BBC presenter Annie McManus and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. The best conversations coming out of the BBC. People shaping our world from all over the world. There have been so many disagreements between me and my family. Putting on a show, that is what it means to be Lady Gaga. Only the things that you can't solve with government and private sector is where you bring philanthropy in. There's no place in the world where women are equal. Every generation, every generation has to fight to maintain democracy. For this interview, I met global music icon Stevie Wonder at a central London hotel the night before a show that he did at Hyde Park in July of this summer.

2:04Stevie was born in 1950 in the industrial city of Saginaw in Michigan, USA. Having arrived six weeks early, a pre-existing eye condition was exacerbated by Stevie receiving too much oxygen in his incubator, which resulted in him permanently losing his eyesight. Even from a young age, Stevie displayed a great love of music, first with a church choir and then teaching himself how to play a range of instruments, including the harmonica, piano and drums, all before the age of 10. He was just 11 years old when he was discovered and signed by the legendary Motown record label, and the rest is history.

2:41Across a career that spanned seven decades, he sold over 100 million records worldwide, won numerous awards including multiple Grammys, a Golden Globe and even an Oscar and even received the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Over the years Stevie has also used his platform to campaign on social issues close to his heart. He's long advocated for greater rights for disabled people around the world and he successfully spearheaded a movement to create a national holiday in the US to recognise the birthday of the civil rights activist Dr Martin Luther King Jr. He was also a vocal critic of apartheid in South Africa and called for the release of Nelson Mandela.

3:21You know, when you're in a place where you know something's wrong, you've got to speak on it.

3:31Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Stevie Wonder. You've brought something with you to the interview today. Can you tell me what this is, please? This is a harpeggi and I've been playing it for about eight years I've played it. It's a string instrument, but it's sort of laid out where like a guitar would go this way like that. It's this, I'll go like that and you play it. It's what we call where you have like your, this is whole tones up. So you're just pressing it and the note is coming from the press as opposed to a pluck Right

4:21Beautiful

4:25Annie Annie Annie Don't let me go Oh my gosh Stevie I can't tell you how nervous I've been about this interview You are soothing me right now. Well, relax yourself. I know, I need to relax. Chill, chill, chill. I know. We need to have a conversation. Yeah. Conversation, peace. Well, let me ask you about playing these songs on this tour. I'm just interested in how it feels to be playing songs that are maybe kind of 50-odd years old now and how your relationship with those songs changes over time in terms of performing them. Songs are like children. but they're with you forever. Songs are like, you know, it's a statement from the spirit of you, the spirit in you.

5:16And so my thing with singing those songs is songs like me taking another breath within a day. When you write a song, what comes first? Is it the words, the melody? Usually for me, I write the melody first. It's my mind. So the melody's in your mind? And then, you know, I mean, along with the melody, you know, along with that, you do hear the chords in your mind. But, so in the case of Love's in Need, I had the chorus, you know, kind of together. Oh, a new day Doing it on it only Hey, it's gone. So, and then I had, you know, the...

6:19And that's how the whole song started. Is it true that your mom co-wrote some songs with you when you were younger? Yeah, she did write some stuff with me. Yeah. What was it that your mother taught you? My mother sang a little bit. I think it was just kind of a lot of fun since I was going to work on something. I'd be down in the basement and she'd come down and say, try this, do that. Come on, Steve, do that. Come on, Steve. You know? Get it, Steve. So you'd be down in the basement? Yes. Was that your place to play? It was, yeah. Right. Yeah. so so she made you a place she gave you a place she was like go down there well I wasn't there she didn't say go down there I just since when I did you took it you commandeered it for yourself it was fine yeah yeah what kind of a kid were you such a very quiet kid you know I didn't do anything I'm so quiet really believe that life I don't believe that yeah no I mean I was you know I was definitely curious you know as they talk about the things that I did.

7:29They said I was blind, but what did that mean to me? I'd never seen so, you know, whether it be kids out climbing trees, you know, getting apples off the tree, whatever, going, I'm just jumping off the tree. All that was like, okay, so I want to do that. So I, come on, you're going to fall. I'm not going to fall. Get out of there, Steve. Steve. and so I mean I would do all the things that you know all the kids did you know growing up there's a thing where you're in your home in your house backyard you have like a woodshed kind of thing like a barn kind of thing and there was this thing where kids the boys would go and jump down yeah you know off the roof yet onto the ground yes right and when we could jump the for this was like, you, you, you, you.

8:21Okay. So, you know, me, particularly a lot of girls, oh, Stevie's got two. And I go, Steve, woo, go Steve. And I would go and I would jump. So talk with me, what age would you have been at this point? Maybe like nine. Okay, okay. You know, nine, eight, whatever. One particular day I did this and, you know, my mother had said to me, you shouldn't do it. Yeah. I'm like, yeah. and so I was doing it and you know the girls were like yeah you can do it you know that boy can't do that he's blind he can't yeah I can do it so I said y 'all want to see me do it here we go get on your mark get ready ready jump oh god but this one particular time I jumped and there was no it was like because my mother was standing there and jumped into her arms she caught you?

9:22wow beat that a** you got in a lot of trouble after that I bet you can't say it on the babysitter you can say whatever you want here we can be swearing, it's fine I remember falling asleep going

9:38you know like you're crying in your sleep yeah, yeah, yeah and do you think that you ended up teaching your mum stuff? inadvertently, I mean Like, did you surprise her? I think all I could do was to share with her my discoveries. I prefer just to say I share what I discovered with my mother. It's important to have a mother like that. It's very important. They're the only people who can ground you like that constantly, right? They can just put you in your place. Was there a moment in your childhood when you realized that you had a gift that was unique to say your brothers and sisters? I'm not saying better, but just unique to you.

10:16I never thought of it being unique or better or whatever. I just thought it was a blessing that I was given. Right. And I thank God for that blessing. Obviously, I knew I could sing. I love singing. And so my goal was always to do better and better at it. Yeah. But it wasn't so much that I thought, hey, you know, what's up? Yeah. I can sing. What about you? Nah. that once when I first came to Motown, I met Smokey Robinson. And I remember I said, you know, I know your music. I love it, Smokey. Are you good? You can sing bad. You can sing good, but I can sing better. You did. What? I did. What, a little 11-year-old Stevie.

11:00How did Smokey take that? He probably laughed. So that was then. And fast forward six, seven decades. There you go. That is the passing of time. You are one of the most beloved artists in the world. I'm interested in how you define yourself as a musician. When you're making music in the moment, in real time, what is the feeling that you get? Is there a unique feeling to that? I mean, there's always a feeling of creativity. When you're creating, you're in that mode. And so it feels good to me. I'm more so in the groove of what that is. And if from that then comes a melody or an idea for a song or whatever, we do that.

11:46And so it happens the same thing if I'm playing piano. Like, for instance, when I wrote Boogie On, Reggae Woman. Oh, that's one of my favorites. I started on with... You ain't saying it. It's one of my favorites. Come on now. I swear it's one of my favorites. Don't believe you. I swear. I don't. Listen. Leave it. I promise you. It better be. It is. No. No, but when I was working, I started with the Moog synthesizer. I think I had Bob and Malcolm. It's Bob Marlowe and Malcolm Cecil. Yeah. Come up with a bass sound that I wanted. From then I had the, you know.

12:31Oh, yeah. Yeah, I get it. Boom, boom, boom. Yeah. Yeah!

12:55Wow.

13:05Wow. I sort of had the thing. I remember that the groove was a kind of groove, sort of a blues groove. And I think I drank a beer. Right. Because I'm going to have a slurring kind of sound of a voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not like this beer, but I'm like, I like this thing. Yeah, yeah. Right on the phone. It's super laid back. Yeah, I was very laid back. Laid out.

13:35For this episode of The Interview, I'm speaking to global music icon Stevie Wonder. If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. With the European Athletics Championships, the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place, 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport.

14:29And the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action, bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists. More Than The Score from the BBC World Service. Listen now. Search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.

14:54This interview happened quite last minute in the middle of the summer on a very, very hot Friday in July. It was the night before a big show that Stevie was doing at Hyde Park, the last show of a five-date summer tour that he'd done around the UK. He was in absolutely fantastic form. He was so personable, so genial, but most striking about him was his sense of humour. He couldn't stop finding the humour in every little thing that I spoke to him about. And at the end, I had to capitulate from trying to be a serious interviewer and just go with his flow, which was very much of wanting to have an interactive conversation.

15:33All right, let's return to my conversation with Stevie Wonder. OK, here's a big question. Why Stevie Wonder, where we created with the ability to sing? I think that there was a calling for that to be given to us. Right. And it was all about how much we're going to use it for, for the goodness of what we've been given. It's a gift. Yeah. It's an honor. I say thank you God every day for just me being able to sing, to come up with a lyric, you know, come up with a melody. Yeah. A chorus, all of it. And, you know, I'm one who I believe in the greatness, the goodness of the Creator. And I've never been with the dilemma of seeing God as a man or a woman.

16:22I don't even relate to that. I think God is a spirit. And so I never get hung up in all the stuff that people do. That concept, I suppose, of music coming through you from a divine sense. you in an interview with Oprah 20 years ago I don't know if you remember but I read it today and it's you talked about music having always been a lesson to you that it comes from God through you and I wondered that sense of making music and then coming back and hearing it and it teaching you even though you made it it does are you still having that does that still of course yeah yeah so you're learning lessons through your music I mean if you believe you know that that spirit gives it to you, then obviously there's more for you to get.

17:14Right. If you find yourself worthy by how and what you do. Yeah. You know, I always tell people I'm three times 25. Okay. So I'm still young. Love that. I'm still a baby to this thing called life. And I always feel like there's so much more that I want to do and I know that God wants me to do. So in this time and space that we do have, I want to do everything I can. There's a messenger element to what you do. I mean, I think there's a lot of artists who won't feel like that. They all just want to entertain. But there's something deeper there with you where you want to send messages. You want to speak to people through your music.

17:54I wanted to ask you actually about music because music gives me hope. And I do feel like music can help enact change, social change, political change. Mm-hmm. What do you think? You know, there have been so many songs that, you know, as I talked about, Love's a New Love today. Yeah, yeah. I think about, you know, Marvin's What's Going On. I think about John Lennon's Imagine. Yeah. And I think about songs that people have sang. All of us have sang. And we had something we wanted to say and make a difference. When I received the Oscar for I Just Gotta Say I Love You, there's an interesting thing.

18:44The morning before I went to the Oscars, because I wasn't this for sure I was going to go, but I was watching the news, and there came a thing on talking about how long Nelson Mandela had been in prison. Yeah. And I said, damn, you know. like what 25 years or whatever it was horrible so I go there I'm there and I sit in the back in the audience because it's a lot of stuff and the first thing I hear Prince had won for the score of Purple Rain I said whoa and then so they They played all the various songs. And all of those songs I liked, you know. Yeah. I felt good about them. And then Diana Ross sang, I Just Gotta Say I Love You.

19:44Wow. And I said, wow, that's deep. And they said, and the winner is, and they said, Stevie Wonder. I couldn't believe it. It was like, oh. And I was excited, but I was like walking up like whatever. and then you know I was thinking about the people I wanted to thank uh and then I get there and I say you know something like I accept this award in honor of Nelson Mandela yeah and started turning off and people what the hell I mean it shouldn't be controversial really should it but it was we were i think but it was from my heart it's like that made me think about something someone in prison as long as he had been and me getting this oscar it's like i took it to that place where wow and they banned my music and they cut me out yes sir my money so your music my driver's license.

20:52What? They did that? No. I know that your music was banned in South Africa for real, wasn't it? Yeah. Oh, yeah. And did stuff happen in America? Was there repercussions? No, no, no. So that was all in South Africa. I'm just messing with you. Right, okay. Focus you are. See where you're at. No, they banned the music in South Africa. Yeah. And I said, ban, I don't care. Whatever. Do what you do. And so they banned it. And I said, you know, And I know that I was doing a song called Apartheid's Wrong. And I had some other things, a song called Dark and Lovely and the stuff we did. And I just continued on with what I felt.

21:32I felt Apartheid was wrong. And the things that I felt, I felt. And it was wrong. And so I joined with all the people in the states and throughout the world that, you know, this is ****. And they just stop. Yeah. So I say all that to say, you know, when you're in a place where you know something's wrong, you've got to speak on it. You've got to speak on it. I agree. I have a song you will hear on my next project called Fear Can't Put Dreams to Sleep. You can't let fear put your dreams to sleep. You can't. You have lived through so much change and you've been kind of in the spotlight through so much change, right?

22:18Like you lived through apartheid being, like Nelson Mandela being a terrorist and now being, you know, not being a terrorist, being in jail now, not being in jail. Do you think enough change has happened? Definitely not. Yeah. I think in the fact we're trying to, there's some people trying to go backwards, go back. It feels like that, doesn't it, sometimes? To the good old days. Yeah. You know, and that's not, it's not going to go down like that. And I think that for those who think is going to go down like that, remember God is watching you and that you too will have a number. How do you hold on to hope?

22:54My faith in God and in people. If you look back in history, there's always been a point when people wake up. The dangerous thing about now is that you have things that can destroy the world just like that. Right. In minutes, it can all be gone. Yeah. So I think that people have to really, you know, this person that's talking, saying all this, you know, doing things that you know are those people, not just person, that are doing things and saying things that are just damn stupid, ridiculous. You want them to rule your life? You want them to be the ones that could possibly do that with ego, with ignorance.

23:42you want that then you vote them in and you get what you vote for if you don't want that make the difference make the change move the world forward as it is meant to be

24:01Betty Wright clean that woman do you think you could have been anything else except for a musician except Stevie Wonder Except Stevie Wonder. I mean, I think that if I was meant to be someone else or do something else, it would have happened. This is what I know. This is what God has blessed me to do and be. So I'm satisfied with that. So now, you know, my children all are talented. My son was born the same day as me, 13th of May. You know, he's got a great voice. Yeah. And someone was working with him with his voice. And my daughter's singing. I work with them, all of them. You know, all of them have, you know, the thing of music, I guess.

24:51They would have been influenced by something. Like their dad. I wonder what. Your dad. I wonder who. Your dad likes music.

25:04Thank you for listening to the interview from the BBC World Service. You'll find more in-depth conversations on The Interview wherever you get your BBC podcasts. And you can hear more conversations with pop culture and music icons on Sidetracked with myself, Annie McManus and Nick Grimshaw. Until the next time, bye for now.

25:29If journalism is the first draft of history, what happens if that draft is flawed? In 1999, four Russian apartment buildings were bombed, hundreds killed. But even now, we still don't know for sure who did it. It's a mystery that sparked chilling theories. I'm Helena Merriman, and in a new BBC series, I'm talking to the reporters who first covered this story. What did they miss the first time? The History Bureau, Putin and the apartment bombs. Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. with the European Athletics Championships the Men's FIFA World Cup and the Commonwealth Games all taking place 2026 is shaping up to be a terrific year for global sport and the More Than The Score podcast will be following all the action bringing you interviews with sports stars and exploring the stories beyond the score sheets with the BBC's expert sports journalists More Than The Score from the BBC World Service Listen now, search for More Than The Score wherever you get your BBC podcasts.