| "Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Single by Stevie Wonder | ||||
| from the album Music of My Mind | ||||
| B-side | "I Love Every Little Thing About You" | |||
| Released | April 25, 1972 | |||
| Recorded | 1972 | |||
| Genre | Progressive soul | |||
| Length |
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| Label | Tamla | |||
| Songwriter | Stevie Wonder | |||
| Producer | Stevie Wonder | |||
| Stevie Wonder singles chronology | ||||
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"Superwoman (Where Were You When I Needed You)" is a 1972 soul song by Stevie Wonder. It is 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 her old life behind to become a movie star. The second part—a reworking of "Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer" from his 1971 album, Where I'm Coming From —covers the narrator's wondering why she had not come back as soon as he had hoped.
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The song, both in its sound and length, was a first for Wonder, who recorded it independently of Motown and with Music of My Mind entered what was later termed his "classic period". As on most of his material between 1972 and 1974, he was a virtual one-man band on the song, playing all instruments except for Buzz Feiten's jazzy guitar part. [1] With the usage of the Moog and ARP modules of the enormous T.O.N.T.O modular synthesizer, the song marked the beginning of the more electronic sound of Wonder's 1972–1974 albums. [2]
The single version, a 3+1⁄2-minute edit which featured only the first part, reached a peak of number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Cash Box wrote of the song: "Superwoman, superproduction, supersong, superhit: AM and FM, pop/soul and MOR." [3]
