I liked this song when I was little because of the way Wonder ticked off a list of the holidays of the year. As the song begins, he hits the big days on the calendar: New Year’s Day, Valentine’s Day, the first of spring. As things progress, he loses his way. He makes it through April and May and then completely ignores the Fourth of July. Perhaps this was so the song would translate well in other countries. Perhaps this is why he did not mention St. Patrick’s Day, Memorial Day or Labor Day.
Then Wonder spends way too much time noting the days between August and late October. Let’s take a look at what he lists:
· harvest moon to light one tender August night
· autumn breeze
· falling leaves
· birds flying to southern skies
· Libra sun
Five lines is a whole lot to devote to August, September and October. I think it’s excessive for Wonder to mention both the sun and moon. Who even cares about the Libra sun? Harvest moon, I can see, since it’s a larger than usual moon and recognizable in the sky. But who ever looks at the sun between Sept. 23 and Oct. 22 and says, “Ah, the Libra sun. How lovely”? Furthermore, he doesn’t need to note the autumn breeze and falling leaves in two lines, considering one causes the other. It would be much more economical to sing both as one line.
Then for Halloween, the one holiday people do celebrate (more so than harvest moon or Libra sun), Wonder glosses right over with two words: “No Halloween.” Every other occasion gets some poetic description but Halloween is just “No Halloween.” Couldn’t he have come up with some catchy lyrics about bobbing for apples, pumpkins or trick or treating?
Even worse is Wonder’s treatment of Thanksgiving and Christmas. He crams both holidays into one line: “No giving thanks for all the Christmas joy you bring.” These are the two biggest holidays on the calendar, at least in America, and they get a rote mention. Two holidays together get the same face time as birds flying south. Unbelievable.
The music of “I Just Called to Say I Love You” sounds hopelessly rooted to the early-mid-‘80s, with painfully dated and unspeakably cheap synthesizers. One would think that by 1984, Wonder had made enough money not to have to score his songs with a Casio keyboard that one’s parents would buy as a Christmas gift at the music store at the MacDade Mall.
To sum up, Wonder could have done a much better job with budgeting his time in “I Just Called to Say I Love You.” It’s almost as if by the end, he realized he was running out of time and should quit dicking around and give a perfunctory mention to Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. It’s like he just ran out of steam and the record executives were waiting, with the car running, to pick up his master tapes. Perhaps if Stevie Wonder didn’t drag his feet in the third verse, he’d have a more complete work of art and music history would be different.