Stevie Wonder releases four previously unreleased songs from the Songs in the Key of Life sessions | Stevie Merveille

Stevie Wonder expanded the scope of what was already the most epic studio album in his catalog, 1976’s Songs in the Key of Life.

Four previously unreleased songs from the recording sessions were released today as a new EP of the same name, marking the 50th anniversary of an album that won Album of the Year at the Grammys and features a number of Wonder’s signature tracks, including Sir Duke, As and Isn’t She Lovely.

“We have lived with Songs in the Key of Life for 50 years, but there is still much more to hear,” Wonder said in a statement. “We didn’t add these songs to the album, but they were part of what I was feeling and discovering as we were doing it. They take me back to that time in my life, and now they’re part of yours.”

The songs are steeped in the style that Wonder created in the 1970s, and which arguably reached its apotheosis on this 21-track double album: a sunny, spiritually attuned type of soul and R&B, celebrating love and the richness of existence while acknowledging emotional conflict and social struggle.

The album’s accompaniments are beautifully detailed and instantly recognizable psychedelic soul arrangements with funk and jazz details, bringing the futuristic sound of synth keyboards and bass but fleshing it all out with a vast array of organic instrumentation.

The previously unreleased tracks continue in this vein: It’s Easier is a shimmering, bossa nova-style number that questions whether we should move away from the very concept of love; My Life Story of Love is a marvel par excellence with the singer using bucolic imagery (“let her bloom in my flower of love”) on the story of a blossoming relationship; I Can See the Sun in Late December is a slow jazz ballad about determined optimism and self-discovery; and I’m Into Livin’ is a quiet funk track in which Wonder renounces her old habits of partying and womanizing and commits to a single lover.

All four are written and produced by Wonder, although My Life Story of Love features a co-writing credit for former Supremes member Susaye Greene, who also co-wrote Michael Jackson’s I Can’t Help It with Wonder. Original recording and mixing engineers John Fischbach and Gary O Adante recently mixed the tracks for release.

The voices of two future stars – Thelma Houston and Deniece Williams – can be heard as backing singers on I’m Into Livin’, alongside Shirley Brewer, who features on Songs in the Key of Life’s Ordinary Pain.

The new EP arrives as Wonder prepares to perform the entirety of Songs in the Key of Life on an arena tour, which kicks off October 13 in Birmingham, UK. Wonder then toured across Europe before returning to the UK for three more dates in London, Manchester and Glasgow, then played five US cities: New York, Chicago, Washington DC, Detroit and Los Angeles.

Wonder’s most recent new material was the single Can We Fix Our Nation’s Broken Heart, released in 2024, although he has not released a new studio album since 2005’s A Time to Love.

In 2020, he announced a new “project” titled Through the Eyes of Wonder, although no news on its status has been released since.