95 Songs of Summer, #74 - "My Cherie Amour" (1969)

Stevie Wonder is a living legend - an artist whose accomplishments are so staggering that it's hard to comprehend them in one sitting.  Along with Marvin Gaye, he is the man who truly broke the mold at Motown.  He insisted on having artistic control over his work, and if that meant he was going to play every instrument on the album instead of sticking to the Motown house band and formula, that's what he was going to do.

Much of Wonder's best work is aggressively political - you can't listen to songs like "Living for the City," "Higher Ground," "You Haven't Done Nothin'" without developing a healthy desire to go out and question some authority.  But Wonder is also a master of the sappy love song, with the ability to string words together with music that might make other songwriters blush, but which in his hands become instant, enduring classics.

"My Cherie Amour" is such a song - and it may be my all-time favorite Stevie Wonder song.  There really isn't much in life that can't be made just a little better by listening to "My Cherie Amour."  In fact, I think I will.

Stevie Wonder, "My Cherie Amour," from the summer of 1969.