Stevie Wonder I Don't Know Why on TOTP

[@lolgoodwin512]

Found this song on my old man's cassette years ago after he passed away, absolutely love this and the rolling stones version

[@jacklipinski2524]

How to write, compose and perform. It's all right there. One of the great great pieces of artistic work. How can you get all that emotion in 3 minutes, oh yes!

[@myradioshow1]

My god what a performance. An epic song. The Top of Pops orchestra does a sterling job too. I love the fuzziness of the footage but would love to see it in colour. In my book as one of the best TOTP performances.

[@naderroheny5563]

AYE JAKE. I was steering clear of this one for a minute because I thought TOTP was lip-synched at the time but WOW. Can you imagine if this had a hi-def recording quality? The musicianship back then was just so special. They were like a race of gods. Cheers.

[@misst.e.a.187]

Absolutely brilliant, Stevie. And who better to have presented TOTP than the late great Fluff Freeman. Happy times.

[@kurdtpatton5039]

The balls it took for a blind black man to stand up and be a"pop star" on TV like this. Nothing held him back.

[@misst.e.a.187]

What had his colour to do with it? He couldn't see it. Anyway, it was all the best of 'black' music then as it is now.

[@normavitale795]

Best song ...or one of the tops

[@EuropaSman]

Loving this Stevie Wonder track. It is the best live version of I Don't Know Why. Better than the performance live at the Hollywood Palace. The much maligned Top Of The Pops Orchestra gives the song a lot more power, which it fully deserves. It would be great if someone could clean up the audio with some trick software to take out some of the distortion from this off air recording -there is a guy at the BBC called Mark Ayers who I think specialises in audio restoration - would be so good to have a clean copy of this version.

[@misterbachelor6348]

Couldn't agree more re. "much maligned TOTP Orchestra" ... very nice guitar in there too.

[@wslvingtsun6768]

The rolling stones does a great cover of this.

[@rosemarieharris5921]

Let's please all remember that this song belongs to Stevie. He wrote it and was and always shall be how he .chooses to perform it.

[@chrissaltaur1254]

This is such a beautiful song that is underplayed in the media and the radio - in fact I have never heard it be played. I bought a 7 inch record by Stevie.. I think it was My Cherie Amour but astonishingly this song is ridicuously a B side song. Rather than play the A side I have played the B side song to death to the point that the small record is beautifully scratched from the etches of loving this song so much. Why don't we ever hear this song on radio? Why are there few recordings of Stevie singing this amazing song that he wrote?

[@cw7792]

Just played today on JazzFM :)

[@anthonyc-carnell6596]

Agreed. I only just found this through a KZbin contributor’s documentary on The Stones. This is a moving song 💜

[@chrisriches4688]

I thought the B side was My Cherie Amour.

[@jimroland2860]

An awesome 50th anniversary post. Was looking up the song after it featured on today's Pick of the Pops, no less.

[@joegreaves701]

Absolutely amazing really!

[@lynneforsyth8231]

Hell yes! Stevie God given voice and humanity ..reminds me of my first love...♥️

[@ecallender]

Stunning.

[@ScooterMcGraw]

Genius. Total genius..

[@jameswade1018]

Thank you for uploading this, I love his live songs

[@gergg]

As Muhammad Ali said,"He's A Bad Man"and it's totally appropriate for Steveland ❤

[@detoxbvigilant52]

I've only just this minute heard this song by the great Stevie Wonder, yet I knew of the song. I last heard it in the early 7O's. It was a reggae version put out by Trojan Records and sung by a certain Desi Young (never heard of him). I hadn't heard the song for almost 50 years, yet it always stuck in my head. About 5 minutes ago I thought ''Stop procrastinating and KZbin it''. And to my amazement I found it. Which version do I prefer? Can't say. Check out this song on Trojan Records. I think you'll like it.

[@petedossett6301]

The greatest of them all....our National Treasure!

[@stud105]

My favourite American ever.

[@stud105]

This planets finest. Genius

[@theboyfromxtown]

I recorded this on a reel to reel at the time. But to see it live again is amazing

[@chargrave3792]

Wish i could contact you to twk about this time

[@mikebrown1068]

Wasn't it beautiful when you had to actually know how to sing before Autotune garbage

[@theboyfromxtown]

@@mikebrown1068 Absolutely

[@angelocaputo4660]

Immenso ....a soli 18 anni già un musicista consumato....e pensare che il suo periodo migliore non era ancora iniziato

[@NickandFreddie]

Genius........

[@normavitale795]

Amazing

[@mokbusa5302]

That clavinet gave the song a real rawness here

[@astridpauli2145]

Wow. So bloody intense

[@arijitsengupta9766]

A wonder called Stevie

[@andrewescalona8447]

ALAN FLUFF FREEMAN WAS THE BEST PRESENTERS ON TOP OF THE POPS DURING THE 1960S

[@misst.e.a.187]

And into the 70s too

[@mullet53]

I bet the Rolling Stones watched this. They would record the song a month after Stevie's performance, the night that Brian Jones died. The Stones version more closely resembles this arrangement as compared to Stevie's recorded version .

[@andrewescalona8447]

ALAN FLUFF FREEMAN YOU NEVER BE FORGOTTEN. ALRIGHT NOL ARF

[@misst.e.a.187]

Alright? Not arf.

[@NickandFreddie]

Never heard this before, WOW!!!! Last year a girlfriend treated me like a doormat, then after cheating numerous times, she moved in with my next door neighbour!!!! And actually laughed in my face!!!! Spooky!!!!!

[@beyourself2444]

Really, this is one my favourite SW songs ever...

[@MrStreetwalkincheeta]

You're gonna kill me but I prefer this to the record...also it pisses on the Stones version

[@yukdhall1]

so nice to see how whites supported blacks in the UK etc

[@beyourself2444]

The Windrush took a lot of bashing in the UK after coming over to build back the "motherland". Trust me the Caribbean blacks did a lot for black people to find their footing in the UK

[@andrewescalona8447]

ALRIGHT ? NOL ARF