“Superstition” by Stevie Wonder

"Superstition" came out in November 1972 as the lead single from Talking Book, Stevie Wonder's fifteenth studio album, and that clavinet riff hits like a slap across the face: tight, funky, impossible to sit still through. Wonder plays the clavinet, the drums and the Moog himself, with Trevor Lawrence on saxophone and Steve Madaio on trumpet punching the horn line, and he produced it with Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, who also mixed. The lyric runs down common superstitions and the damage done by believing them.

It went to number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in January 1973, his first chart-topper since "Fingertips, Pt. 2" in 1963, and won him two Grammys at the 16th ceremony, Best Rhythm & Blues Song and Best R&B Vocal Performance, Male. Rolling Stone placed it at number 12 on its 2021 list of the greatest songs.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.