The 1976 song Stevie Wonder cried while performing: “I broke down”

Stevie Wonder has spoken about how deeply his 1976 song "Love's In Need of Love Today", from the album Songs in the Key of Life, still moves him decades on. Recalling a New York performance, he said he "broke down" while singing it, explaining that the accumulated experiences of life – people coming and going, living and dying – all came rushing back to him in the moment. The song is regarded as capturing the essence of an album widely seen as one of the most profound and mature bodies of work by an artist still in his mid-20s.

Wonder began work on Songs in the Key of Life at just 24, drawing on the insight into human nature and the music industry he had gained as a teenage Motown hit-maker under Berry Gordy. He first conceived "Love's In Need of Love Today" in 1974 while staying in a New York hotel with his partner Yolanda Simmons, who was then pregnant with their daughter Aisha, sketching out the chords and lyrics on a rough tape recording. Speaking in 2016, fifty years after its writing began, Wonder reflected that the song's message about life's endlessness remains as relevant as ever.