Today’s song of the day is a charming and impassioned chart-topper, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life,” by Stevie Wonder.

Fun Facts

• Stevie Wonder has been blind for his entire life due to a complication with his six-week premature birth, in which he developed retinopathy of prematurity in a hospital incubator.
• Wonder is attributed to reshaping the genre of R&B due to his fusion of several electronic musical instruments within his songs.
• At the young age of 11, Wonder signed with his first-ever label Tamla Records.
• “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” features three vocalists besides Stevie Wonder. Jim Gilstrap sung the first two lines of the song, Lani Groves sung the second two lines of the song and Gloria Barley was in charge of the backup vocals.
• Wonder topped the Billboard Hot 100 for the third time with this song, and it ranked 19 on the end of the year 1973 United States Billboard Hot 100 chart.
• Wonder released two versions of this song, as the album version lacks the horns in the background that the single version includes.
• This was the second single from Wonder’s album Talking Book.
• According to Rolling Stone, “You Are the Sunshine of My Life” is the 287th greatest song of all time.

Lyrics

(Musixmatch)

You are the sunshine of my life

That’s why I’ll always be around

You are the apple of my eye

Forever you’ll stay in my heart

I feel like this is the beginning

Though I’ve loved you for a million years

And if I thought our love was ending

I’d find myself drowning in my own tears

You are the sunshine of my life

That’s why I’ll always stay around

You are the apple of my eye (love has joined us)

Forever you’ll stay in my heart (love, sweet love)

You must have known that I was lonely

Because you came to my rescue

And I know that this must be heaven

How could so much love be inside of you?

You are the sunshine of my life, yeah

That’s why I’ll always stay around

You are the apple of my eye (love has joined us)

Forever you’ll stay in my heart (love, sweet love)

You are the sunshine of my life, baby

(Love has joined us) That’s why I’ll always stay around

(Love, sweet love)