I Wish

Recorded in 1976 during the Songs in the Key of Life sessions, with Stevie Wonder leading production at Crystal Sound in Hollywood and additional album work done at the Record Plant and the Hit Factory. Wonder later said he wrote the song after a Motown picnic that summer, and it became one of the last tracks finished for the project. Released as the lead single from Songs in the Key of Life, it became a major hit and reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and the soul chart. Its lyric turns Wonder's childhood memories into one of the album's most immediately popular songs. The song remained one of Wonder's defining hits and has been sampled and referenced repeatedly in later pop and hip-hop. Will Smith's 1999 No. 1 single "Wild Wild West" built directly on its melody and hook.