Songfacts®:

• Maurice White of Earth, Wind & Fire wrote this with David Foster and Allee Willis. Foster is a very successful writer and producer whose hits include "You'll See" and "Un-Break My Heart"; Willis co-wrote Earth, Wind & Fire's hit "September" and much of the I Am album, including "Boogie Wonderland."
  
  In her Songfacts interview, Willis said of the song, "There was an original melody to it, and then when I heard the record itself, the background melody became the chorus, and the real melody is the background in parts, and I remember being very upset about it, because it went from being this unbelievable song to me to kind of being a feel. But the thing I love about 'In The Stone' is that I absolutely love marching bands, my two favorite types of music are marching band music and disco. Probably because they're very happy. But 'In The Stone' just turned into this marching band classic."
• Many of Earth, Wind & Fire's songs are about looking beyond the surface for a deeper meaning. In this one, Maurice White sings about an abiding love that is written in stone.
• This was just a modest hit for Earth, Wind & Fire, but it was very big among their black fans. The song's co-writer Allee Willis, who wrote lyrics for the 2005 Broadway production of The Color Purple, told us: "The first day I ever met the cast of The Color Purple, when we had our very first read-through, I had these little Greatest Hits CDs that I was giving everyone, and it was 'In The Stone,' not 'Boogie Wonderland,' not 'September,' not any of the rest of them, that the black cast went, Oh my God, no you didn't. You didn't write that song. 'September' and 'Boogie Wonderland' are the favorites in the white community, black community, all the props are for 'In The Stone.'"