| "They Won't Go When I Go" | |
|---|---|
| SongbyStevie Wonder | |
| from the album Fulfillingness' First Finale | |
| Released | July 22, 1974 |
| Recorded | 1974 |
| Genre | Soul |
| Length | 5:59 |
| Label | Motown |
| Songwriter(s) |
|
"They Won't Go When I Go" is a song co-written and performed by Stevie Wonder from his 1974 album Fulfillingness' First Finale.
This song is the only one on the album that Wonder did not write by himself. His co-writer was Yvonne Wright, who co-wrote songs with Wonder for other albums.[1]
Wonder performed this song, along with "Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer", at Michael Jackson's memorial service on July 7, 2009.
The song has been considered a "retro composition", where comparisons of the piano part to the style of Chopin and the Baroque passacagliaorchaconne technique—a repeating bassline in a minor key and in triple metre—can be drawn. The song is also noted to have a "funeral march" like tone.[2] There is clear allusion to the 1850 German chorale tune "O mein Jesu," the setting of Thomas Kelly's 1805 Protestant hymn "Stricken, smitten, and afflicted." Critics noted that the song takes a more dramatic tone than most of Wonder's other compositions. The fact that the song specifically says "They won't go when I go" was said to imply the friends Wonder is talking about may get to heaven eventually, just not before he does.[3] Interpreted more broadly as a hymn, the song is the cry not just of Wonder, but the faithful in general, awaiting a second coming where they are taken and others are not.[4] Many consider this song to be a dark consequence of Wonder's 1973 car accident.
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