Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)

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"Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)"
Single by Stevie Wonder
from the album Music of My Mind
B-side	"I Love Every Little Thing About You"
Released	March 1972
Recorded	1972
Genre	Progressive soul
Length	8:08 (album version) 3:29 (single version)
Label	Tamla
Songwriter(s)	Stevie Wonder
Producer(s)	Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder singles chronology
"If You Really Love Me" (1971) "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" (1972) "Keep on Running" (1972)

"Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" is a 1972 soul track by Stevie Wonder. It was the second track on Wonder's Music of My Mind album, and was also released as the first single. In essence a two-part song, there is a coherence in that it tells a story of the singer's relationship with "Mary". The first part covers her desire to be a star, and to leave behind her old life to become a movie star. The second part covers the narrator's wondering why she had not come back as soon as he had hoped. The second part of the song is also a reworking of the song "Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" from the 1971 album Where I'm Coming From.

The song, both in its sound and length, was a change of pace for Wonder, who was trying to establish his own identity outside of the Motown sound. Besides its floaty ambience, it featured the singer as a virtual one-man band.^[1]

The song reached a peak of number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

Personnel[]

• Stevie Wonder – lead vocal, background vocal, Rhodes piano, drums, Moog bass, T.O.N.T.O. synthesizer
• Buzz Feiten – electric guitar

Covers[]

• On May 6, 1972, Donny Hathaway performed a live version of Superwoman at the University of California, Los Angeles that later ended up being released in 2004 as a part of a live album entitled These Songs For You, Live!.
• In 1990, jazz saxophonist Najee covered the song on his album Tokyo Blue.
• In 1997, soul vocalist Eric Benet covered the song in an arrangement by keyboardist George Duke which was featured on the soundtrack of US sitcom Living Single. Duke again covered the song from his 2005 album Duke.
• In 2004, Rhino released a concert version by Donny Hathaway on These Songs for You, Live!.

References[]

External links[]

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics

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