Lasting Rose

It is that time of the year when you start looking for anything which makes you feel good and forget the misery of the year gone by. It is the time when you search for and dust off the covers of old audio and video cassettes, nuggets of nostalgia locked up in shelves and boxes because whether you like it or not, strains of Christmas music everywhere fondle the weakest corners of your heart and you slowly succumb to the euphoria of the festive season. 

No one wants to be reminded about their national anthem or about this song either.

Still, if you have never heard "I Just Called To Say I Love You" , if no one ever sung it for you, if you have never danced to its tune and lines holding someone, forgetting yourself and the world around you, better hurry now because you haven't experienced love!

No New Years Day to celebrate, no chocolate covered candy hearts to give away. No first of spring, no song to sing, in fact it's just another ordinary day. No April rain, no flowers bloom, no wedding Saturday within the month of June. But what it is is something true made up of these three words that I must say to you: I just called to say I love you, I just called to say how much I care. I just called to say I love you and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
No summer's high, no warm July, no harvest moon to light one tender August night. No autumn breeze, no falling leaves, not even time for birds to fly to southern skies. No Libra sun, no Halloween, no giving thanks to all the Christmas joy you bring. But what it is, though, old so new, to fill your heart like no three words could ever do. I just called to say I love you, I just called to say how much I care. I just called to say I love you and I mean it from the bottom of my heart.
I just called to say I love you, I just called to say how much I care. I just called to say I love you and I mean it from the bottom of my heart. Of my heart, of my heart, this is from my heart. 

I have always wondered if Stevie Wonder wrote these lines first and set them to the wonderful music or if it was the other way around. No one really seems to know. What really matters is that very rarely have God given away such an abundance of simple thoughts and a powerful voice to touch hearts through astounding strains of melody, to produce  instant droplets of tears in exchange of the power of a pair of eyes.

Despite harsh criticism of his lyrics, in comparison to serious music he has produced, each of the occasions he sites as apt for expressing someone’s loving feelings actually make your heart swell with a surge of uncontrollable passion from the beginning to end, each and every time you listen to it, no matter how many, reason why the song has become inseparable from love and romance.

“Stevie Wonder has remained one of the truly essential artists of our lifetime and at age 58, Stevie Wonder remains among the most visionary and influential singers, songwriters, musicians and producers in music history. Winner of 25 Grammy Awards including a Lifetime Achievement Award, he was honoured with an induction into the Rock and Roll hall of Fame in 1989 and also received and Academy Award in 1984 for "I Just Called To Say I Love You" from the movie, "The Woman in Red". He has also had an astonishing 32 #1 singles and worldwide sales in excess of 100 million.”