Lookin' For Another Pure Love

Album: Talking Book (1972)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • On his Talking Book album, Stevie Wonder runs an obstacle course of love, with jubilant "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" and "You and I (We Can Conquer the World)" contrasted with the fractured "Tuesday Heartbreak" and "Maybe Your Baby."

    "Lookin' For Another Pure Love" fits the latter category, as Stevie has lost his girl and seeks a replacement. He was going through some ups and downs in his personal life, dealing with a divorce from fellow songwriter Syreeta Wright around the time he was making the album. Wright, though, kept working with Stevie and even co-wrote a song on the album: "Blame It On The Sun."
  • The main instrument on this one is the Fender Rhodes piano, which Stevie played himself. In the studio, his engineers set up an array of instruments he could easily access, and even created a system for him to control multiple synthesizers at once. Wonder spent a lot of time in the studio working on his own, often at very odd hours. On this track, he also played Moog bass and drums.
  • Jeff Beck played guitar on this track - Wonder shouts him out by saying "Do it Jeff" as he starts his solo.

    At one point, Beck was slated to record Wonder's song "Superstition" as reciprocation, but Stevie ended up keeping it for himself and including it on the album.

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

Alice Cooper

Alice CooperFact or Fiction

How well do you know this shock-rock harbinger who's been publicly executed hundreds of times?

Five Rockers Who Rolled With The Devil

Five Rockers Who Rolled With The DevilSong Writing

Just how much did these monsters of rock dabble in the occult?

Christopher Cross

Christopher CrossSongwriter Interviews

The man who created Yacht Rock with "Sailing" wrote one of his biggest hits while on acid.

16 Songs With a Heartbeat

16 Songs With a HeartbeatSong Writing

We've heard of artists putting their hearts into their music, but some take it literally.

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"

Ian Anderson: "The delight in making music is that you don't have a formula"Songwriter Interviews

Ian talks about his 3 or 4 blatant attempts to write a pop song, and also the ones he most connected with, including "Locomotive Breath."

David Gray

David GraySongwriter Interviews

David Gray explains the significance of the word "Babylon," and talks about how songs are a form of active imagination, with lyrics that reveal what's inside us.