WCSX Classic Cuts : Superstition
WCSX Classic Cuts
Stevie Wonder: “Superstition”
The Hook: A famous guitarist claims he supplied the drum pattern and helped Stevie come up with some of the superstitions.
Album: Talking Book
Year: 1972
Writer: Stevie Wonder (although Jeff Beck says he helped, it went uncredited)
Stats: Topped the Billboard Hot 100. Jeff Beck released a version with Beck, Bogert and Appice later the same year, but it wasn’t a single, though it received substantial airplay on album rock stations.
The Background: Jeff Beck and Stevie Wonder were making music together in 1972. Stevie asked Jeff to play on the song “Looking for Another Pure Love” on his Talking Book album and was looking to return the favor. Beck tells us that “Superstition, which was ultimately deemed too good to give away by Motown president Berry Gordy, was initially headed his way.
Jeff Beck on his role in the writing of Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition.” OC:…was born. :28
“That was originally written for me. Stevie wrote that for me in return for playing on the Talking Book album. The drum pattern came from me and some of the lyrics I wrote. He knew that I’d recorded ‘Ain’t Superstitious’ and he liked that – I don’t think he even knew the origin of it – but he said, ‘What if I write something about superstition,’ so I wrote down half a dozen ones he’d never heard of, like the broken mirrors. The bad luck 13-month old I think I wrote. And he waltzed off and within half an hour that song was born.”
