It’s a rite of passage of sorts. If you’re a great songwriter and you have children, you tend to try and sum those vast feelings of love and pride in a song. Stevie Wonder did it on “Isn’t She Lovely,” his touching ode to his newborn daughter which turned into one of his beloved songs.
What do the lyrics of “Isn’t She Lovely” mean? And what was Wonder feeling when he wrote the song? Let’s look back at one of the finest songs about fatherhood in the pop music canon.
Finding the Key
You’ll often hear debate about which artist delivered the greatest stretch of music over an extended period of time. If we’re talking about a five-year period, it would be hard to top what Stevie Wonder did from 1972 to 1976, a period that culminated in his masterful 1976 double album Songs in the Key of Life.
Oddly enough, that stretch almost ended prematurely. Circa 1975, Wonder gave serious thought to ending his career and focusing on humanitarian work. He reconsidered, and poured everything he had into Songs in the Key of Life. With so much creativity oozing from him, it couldn’t be contained to just a single LP.
Having so much music on this release meant Wonder could do a little bit of everything and touch on everything that was going on in his life. Recent fatherhood was one of those life events, and Wonder’s reflections on it manifested themselves in “Isn’t She Lovely.”
“Lovely” Intentions
In February 1975, Wonder, then 24, became a father for the first time. His daughter Aisha came into the world and changed Wonder’s perspective on life in a major way as such a life event will do. When speaking in an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Wonder explained how a simple moment with his daughter put the song into his head.
“I remember writing “Isn’t She Lovely”—I can almost cry right now thinking about it. The sound of my daughter Aisha splashing in the bathtub created a picture. That was emotion stuck in a moment, and that can never, ever be taken away.”
On the album version of “Isn’t She Lovely,” Wonder included his young daughter’s voice at the beginning of the song and in the extended instrumental runout. The song wasn’t officially released as a single because Wonder initially didn’t want the parts with his daughter edited out of the song. But that didn’t stop it from becoming a standard of sorts.
What is the Meaning of “Isn’t She Lovely”?
“Isn’t She Lovely” perfectly captures that moment of overwhelming joy that accompanies the birth of a child. As the song progresses, it seems to touch on all those magnificent moments that take place as that child grows. There isn’t much to be done at those times other than marvel at the magic of it all, which you can hear every time Wonder sings the title refrain.
Isn’t she precious / Less than one minute old, Wonder sings in the first verse. The song also touches on the time before the girl was born, hinting that Wonder doubted he could reach that bliss: I can’t believe what God has done / Through us he’s given life to one. He names both Aisha and her mother (Yonda, short for Yolanda Simmons) in the final verse, during which some permutation of the word love appears four times, bringing the depth of the emotion Wonder was feeling home.
Aisha Morris made her first appearance on record with her dad as a baby on “Isn’t She Lovely.” She became a singer as an adult and accompanied her father on tour and in recordings. And she’ll always be able to tell people she was able to inspire Stevie Wonder in a way that perhaps no one else was ever able to do.
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Photo by Barbara Davidson/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images
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