| "I Just Called to Say I Love" | ||||
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| Single by Stevie Wonder | ||||
| from the album The Woman in Red soundtrack | ||||
| Released | 1984 | |||
| Genre | soul, synthpop, pop | |||
| Length | 6:16 (album version) 4:16 (single version) |
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| Label | Motown | |||
| Writer(s) | Stevie Wonder | |||
| Producer | Lionel Richie | |||
| Stevie Wonder singles chronology | ||||
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"I Just Called to Say I Love You" is a song written, produced, and performed by Stevie Wonder. The midtempo song expresses how simply telephoning someone to tell them you love them can make even a very unremarkable day rewarding. It is one of Wonder's most simplistic and sentimental songs, and, with its quintessentially mid-1980s synthesizers and drum machines, is very different from his more organic and experimental 1970s music. For those reasons it was deprecated by critics. However, it was one of Wonder's most commercially successful singles to date. On June 27, 2009, two days after the death of Wonder's friend Michael Jackson, he was at a public event, and changed the words to the song so that it said: 'Michael knows, I'm here, and I love you'. While singing, his voice cracked several times, and at the end of the song he pointed to the sky, and quietly said 'We love you Michael'.
The song was first featured in the 1984 comedy The Woman in Red along with two other songs by Wonder and scored number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks from October 13, 1984 and also became Wonder's first solo UK number-one success, staying at the top for six weeks. It also became his tenth number-one on the R&B chart and his fourth number-one on the adult contemporary chart. In addition, the song won both a Golden Globe and an Academy Award for Best Original Song.
There is a dispute between Wonder and his former writing partner Lee Garrett over authorship rights. Garrett claims to have written the song years prior to its 1984 release. [1]
Contents |
The song has two verses and a chorus, with each of the verses divided further into two half-verses. Each half-verse and the chorus have sixteen measures. The protagonist of the song reinforces the message of the song's title (and chorus) by negating all major special times of the year. The song concludes with a triple-chord, or cha-cha-cha, ending.
| Chart | Peak position |
|---|---|
| Australian ARIA Singles Chart | 1 |
| Austrian Singles Chart[1] | 1 |
| Danish Singles Chart | 6 |
| Dutch Singles Chart[2] | 1 |
| French Singles Chart[3] | 1 |
| German Singles Chart[4] | 1 |
| Irish Singles Chart[5] | 1 |
| Italian Singles Chart[6] | 1 |
| Norwegian Singles Chart[7] | 1 |
| New Zealand Singles Chart | 1 |
| Swedish Singles Chart[8] | 1 |
| Swiss Singles Chart[9] | 1 |
| UK Singles Chart[10] | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot 100[11] | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks[11] | 1 |
| U.S. Billboard Hot Black Singles[11] | 1 |
  | De Nederlandse Top 40, week 41, 1984 - Radio 538 = 102 FM - Hitlijst |
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