Song Of The Day 4/20/2016: Eivets Rednow – “Bye Bye World”

The Randomizer – Hi, stoners! I'm counter-programming your high holiday -GUFFAW- with some easy-listening music by my personal music hero. I'm warning you: This is real easy-listening. This is so easy-listening it's Chapter One in the book Easy-Listening for Dummies. This is so easy-listening the producer's swivel chair had training wheels. This is so easy-listening the arrangement was written out in crayon. This is so easy-listening that dentists took it out of their waiting rooms and into their offices to use for anesthesia. This is so easy-listening the mice were hunchbacked. I mean it's real easy listening.

Eivets Rednow is, of course, Stevie Wonder spelled backwards. If you didn't catch onto that, early pressings of the 1968, all-instrumental album Eivets Rednow contained the helpful clue "How do you spell Stevie Wonder backwards?" printed in tiny type in the corner of the cover. That there should have proven that it wasn't another late '60s Eric Clapton project. Why the Eivets Rednow album was produced I have no earthly idea. It smells like an album one would have made to get out of a record contract, but Stevie wasn't eager to leave the Motown family of labels. (The album was on Motown imprint Gordy Records. Wonder regularly recorded for Motown imprint Tamla.) Wikipedia, that invaluable well of information about bronchial medical journals and the Toyama Chihō Railway Tateyama Line, says the album was quickly produced to capitalize on the Eivets Rednow rendition of "Alfie," which was a barn-burning #66 hit on the Billboard charts. "Bye Bye World" is one of the four Wonder originals on the album, and it also shows the risk of programming a week of randomly selected songs from one's personal collection.

Now I think I'll go listen to Rolyat Tfiws, or maybe some Ednezrütsnie Netuabuen. Or Otot.