In August of 1973, the Stevie Wonder legend tour almost got derailed before it even started. Heading for a concert at a college in the Raleigh-Durham, NC area, the car carrying Stevie was caught up in an accident with a log truck and one of the logs went right through to car and hit Stevie square in the face, knocking him into a coma. The biggest single in his career to that point, the funk spiritual "Higher Ground," was number one across the charts, and it looked like it would be his last hit. Somehow, Stevie miraculously recovered and Innervisions became Stevie's second straight Grammy album of the year award.
Coming out of the coma, Stevie took a little longer than usual to craft the follow-up to Innervisions, and when he did, it was a decidedly darker - for him, anyway - album than Innervisions or 1972's Talking Book. Fulfillingness' First Finale, released in July of 1974, was a 10-song meditation on politics, love lost and a heightened sense of mortality along with awakened spirtuality.
The album's highlights on the surface are obviously the top-five R&B singles "Boogie On Reggae Woman" and with sweet background assistance from the Jackson Five, a political diss track to the disgraced Richard Nixon called "You Haven't Done Nothin'." In "Boogie On," Stevie is enchanted by the way a woman gyrates over his synthesized groove, aided by a gentle showtune piano riff and steady drum play. The lyrics are a bit racy as far as Stevie standards go, but relatively harmless and stands as one of the greatest funk-dance songs ever.
However, there was nothing harmless about "You Haven't Done Nothin'," crafted as Nixon faced intense pressure to resign as President of the United States in wake of the now-infamous Watergate burglary scandal. With crashing drums, a sinister Moog riff and blaring horns, Wonder tells Nixon that his presidency was an epic failure and that America would be better off without him. And who's to say Nixon didn't listen? He resigned on August 9, 1974, not quite three weeks after Fulfillingness was released.
The rest of the album fills out quite nicely, as Stevie encourages all who have a wavering faith in the Almighty to stand strong with the song "Heaven Is 10 Zillion Light Years Away," and reflects on his near-death experience in the haunting "They Won't Go When I Go." With sparse instrumentation and strong harmony serving as the backdrop, Stevie preaches a sermon of how death would almost seem like freedom in a chaotic mid-70s world.
The subject of a bashful lover hits close to home with many of us, and "Too Shy To Say," a tribute to Wonder's unequaled mastery of the black and white keys, is a beautiful "Do you like me? Yes or No - check one" letter set to music. "Creepin," covered some 11 years later to perfection by the late Luther Vandross, started off on this album as a relaxing, soothing ode to a the start of a great relationship.
However, the one real breakup song on the album, "It Ain't No Use," is a realistic summary of a relationship gone bad and how both parties are still young enough "To find our Winter love in Spring."
The remaining three tracks, the upbeat opener "Smile Please," a plea to live a little and travel ("Bird of Beauty") and the closer, a slight throwback to the Motown Sound called "Please Don't Go" are perfect compliments to the album's overall theme of "Live your life," to steal a phrase from the T.I. and Rihanna smash hit.
While darker in tone, theme and content compared to the albums sandwiched around it, Fulfillingness' First Finale earned another Album of the year nod and is easily the most underrated of Stevie Wonder's album since he took creative control of his career in 1971. He would return to his upbeat classic form with the seminal Songs In The Key Of Life in 1976, but Fulfillingness remains Stevie Wonder's most human and realistic work.
