Shuffle Synchronicities: Volume 1 - #232

"We Can Work It Out" by Stevie Wonder - 09/06/21

Happy Labor Day! ⛏👩‍🌾👨‍💼💻

And Happy Jewish New Year! ✡️🕍

& Happy Virgo New Moon! ♍️🌑

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"We Can Work It Out" by Stevie Wonder

Dan Kois of Slate has written of this song, “The Greatest Beatles Cover Is Stevie Wonder’s ‘We Can Work It Out’. He may be the only musician to play a Beatles song better than the Beatles.”

He continues, “Like many Motown artists, Stevie Wonder was a Beatles fan—of sorts. ‘Stevie loved the Beatles, mostly Lennon and McCartney for their writing,’ Wonder’s childhood best friend John Glover says in Mark Ribowsky’s Stevie biography Signed, Sealed, and Delivered. ‘That was where he saw their genius, not their performing—in fact, he didn’t think they performed some of their songs as well as he could do it.’

That’s a sentiment that requires a lot of chutzpah, but Wonder backed it up on 1970’s ‘We Can Work It Out,’ a track that so thoroughly reimagines the Lennon–McCartney classic that it feels like an entirely new piece of music. ‘Stevie communicates joy unlike any other artist I can think of,’ said music writer Oliver Wang in the Slate Academy ‘Pop, Race, and the ‘60s.’ And it’s joy that Wonder’s cover of ‘We Can Work It Out’ conveys most clearly, unlike the Beatles’ beautiful but pensive original.”

“We Can Work It Out” by The Beatles

“The Beatles’ straightforward acoustic guitars and wheezing harmonium are replaced by Wonder with an infectious clavinet, a jubilant harmonica solo, and stabs of electric guitar. And where the Beatles’ version feels very much like a kind of suite showcasing the contrasting styles of their two chief songwriters—McCartney’s sunny optimism on the verses and chorus, John Lennon’s world-weariness on the bridge—Wonder’s cover is propulsive, cohesive, its energy never flagging even for a second.”

From the memoir point of view, I’ve often thought of the Stevie Wonder song as a sort of theme song for my relationship with my (ex?)-wife.

(Hey) Try to see things my way (Hey)
Do I have to keep on talking 'till I can't go on?
(Hey) While you see it your way (Hey)
Run the risk of knowing that our love may soon be gone

We can work it out
We can work it out

Even before the separation.

I remember in the first month of our relationship walking around the Echo Park lake/reservoir in the middle of a ~hypomanic~ high from falling in love and after a very minor first disagreement listening to “We Can Work It Out” and the rest of the album, Signed Sealed and Delivered, but also, in particular, the song:

"Anything You Want Me To Do” by Stevie Wonder

Which is a less well-known and celebrated track but perhaps a twin exemplar in sound and lyrical style.

It’s one of the seven songs Stevie wrote or co-wrote for the album, and one of only five songs he produced or co-produced.

And it’s worth a listen if you’ve never heard it!

Here’s the first verse:

I love you
But I've been away from you so long
God take me back to where I belong, baby
I'll do what you want me to do
I'll do anything that you want me to do
I'll do anything

Which feels pretty apropos LOL.

The shuffle today initially and immediately reminded me that I used “We Can Work It Out” in a ‘tone reel’ I did for the We Bought a Gun project when I was initially trying to sell it as a screenplay with a director attached.

Synchronistically, I turned in the latest ‘final’ re-edits to the graphic novel script to my illustrator last night.

But I dug up the ‘tone reel’ video in my Google Drive and found it amusing enough to share.

Check it out!

We Bought a Gun - Tone Reel

One of the ‘funny’ things about the tone reel, if you watch it, is at the time, the script actually used our first names as the character names.

I can clearly see now why that’s not a great idea LOL.

Fortunately, the names are now Maggie & Adam ;)

There’s a lot of great music cues on there though!

“This Gun Don’t Care” by Wanda Jackson

“I’ll Be Your Mirror” by The Velvet Underground, Nico

“Live by the Gun” by Waka Flocka Flame

“The National Anthem” by Radiohead

“Happiness Is A Warm Gun” by The Beatles

Speaking of music cues!

I had a flash of insight late last night!!!

While reminiscing about a huge dance party I threw with/for my (ex?)-wife in September of 2019, I realized what better way to celebrate the year-long anniversary of Shuffle Synchronicities than to do something similar!

So here’s the initial idea/plan:

I started Shuffle Synchronicities on Sunday, January 3rd, 2021.

So…

Sunday, January 2nd, 2022.

Mark your calendars!

I’m going to rent an outdoor space (SUPER covid-safe) and also some good speakers here in LA.

To throw:

The Shuffle Synchronicities Substack's One Year Anniversary Dance Party!!!

It’ll be a day party and it’ll be both SUPER fun and as mentioned above SUPER covid-safe (vaccinations [possibly boosters] or antibodies required + mask decision to come).

Also, it will be SUPER kid-friendly.

Because I know a lot of my readers here in LA and everywhere have kids and, personally, I love not many more things these days than playing with my friends’ kids.

We’ll play songs from the Shuffle Synchronicities playlist of 500+ songs mentioned and counting:

(Which if you do click and check out the playlist please ‘follow’ or press the heart ‘like’ button!)

Just for attending you’ll be able to pick songs from the playlist to play at the party.

BUT!!!

If you are a paid Subscriber, or you become a paid Subscriber at the party

HINT HINT

You will be able to request any song you want and it’ll be played and danced to

+ added to the playlist forever!!!

There’s actually an amazing list of danceable songs already on the playlist.

Here’s 11 of them [ because it’s my Numerology number ;) ] just to name a very small few of the more crowd-pleasing bangers:

And I think the spirit guides/& dad are into this idea because today’s song by Stevie Wonder is a classic wedding dance song!

Not to mention the ones by Toots & the Maytals yesterday.

To which I want to add this remix of a song I mentioned that they did with Shaggy :)

And the Kanye song that samples the Sister Nancy cover of it :) :) :)

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I’m not saying if you are planning a trip to SoCal you should plan it for this upcoming New Year’s 2022 weekend, but I’m also not NOT saying that either ;)

Okay, that’s the two hundred and thirty-second Shuffle Synchronicities.