Stevie Wonder in the Middle East

In 1985, while travelling in the Middle East, I decided to visit Jericho, reputed to be the oldest continuously populated city in the world. We drove for hours along winding dirt roads checkered with pot holes, and for long stretches ours was the only car climbing the steep, rocky hills. Along the way we were surrounded by Beduoin caravans making the journey as they must have for thousands of years. The road led us to a village square on the outskirts of Jericho, a town with no electricity. There was an outdoor market in the center of the square where local villagers sold and bartered produce and leather sandles. A teenage girl, covered in a white cotton shawl, rode by us on a two-humped camel, and from her transistor radio I could hear the unmistakable refrain of "Superstition."

Around the world, I have found the same thing: in a sushi bar in Tokyo, a curator's office in the Georges Pompidou Museum in Paris, from a textile mill in Belgium, to the rehearsal rooms in the music department at the University where I teach; wherever there are people, there is Stevie Wonder's music.

It has been 35 years since Stevie Wonder made his first record. In that time, innumerable popular musicians have come and gone, but Stevie has remained in the public consciousness, and at the forefront of popular music. His professional career has outlived the careers of nearly all those with whom he shared the charts in 1963. One reason for his longevity is that he writes songs from the heart, and listeners all over the world experience the emotions that inspired his songs. "Whenever I write," Stevie told me when we were working on his Song Review album, "I try to capture the way I am feeling inside at that particular moment. I sometimes go back years later and listen to my songs to make sure that they still evoke the same feelings in me I had when I wrote them. When they do, I know I have been successful as a songwriter."

The song itself is what I call in my book The World in Six Songs a knowledge song – conveying a message or information. "When you believe in things you don't understand, you're superstitious." There is superstition in the way of our understanding many things. It is, at the core of things, the cause of racism and many wars.