FEATURE:
Groovelines
Stevie Wonder - He's Misstra Know-It-All
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THERE are a couple of reasons…
why I am featuring this Stevie Wonder classic in Groovelines. The man himself turns seventy-five on 13th May. Stevie Wonder has some gigs this year and will be playing in the U.K. I am focusing on He's Misstra Know-It-All. This is a single released from his Innervisons album. The single came out in April 1974. It reached number ten on the UK Singles Chart. It is my favourite Stevie Wonder song, so I was keen to explore it more. Even though there is not a lot written about it, there are a couple of articles that I want to bring in. I have always had an impression regarding the story behind He's Misstra Know-It-All. However, exploring and researching has uncovered new dynamics and layers to the classic track. I want to start out with some observations from this article:
“Stevie Wonder is quite well known for writing songs with a political stance and indeed, in the 1980s, he campaigned to have a national holiday in America known as Martin Luther King Day. There had been attempts from 1979 but not enough votes were registered, but its success came when Stevie released the single Happy Birthday in 1980 in America (1981 in the UK) and it’s observed on the third Monday in January.
By the early seventies, Stevie Wonder had proved his worth to Motown. He’d been with them about 10 years, he wrote and produced his own material as well as doing the same for other acts and played multiple instruments. He’d married another Motown singer, Syreeta Wright and things were looking good. Berry Gordy, the label’s founder had to make sure he kept his genius and so negotiated a new contract that would grant Stevie full artistic control over all his music, allow him to have his own publishing company and an unparalleled royalty rate was agreed. No one else, certainly at that time, had been granted that much freedom. It was revolutionary. The only person who came close was Dave Clark.
IN THIS PHOTO: President Richard Nixon speaking at a rally at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island in 1972/PHOTO CREDIT: Michael Evans/The New York Times
In 1972, Stevie, now with a new contract, got to work on his 15th album, Talking Book and for many it’s said to be the start of his classic period. Although it spent nearly a year on the UK chart it climbed no higher than number 16. The following year he released Innervisions, that spent just over a year on the chart and gave Stevie his first top 10 UK album. Higher Ground, which all about reincarnation, was the first single from it followed by Living for the City, a funky but serious song examining systemic racism and in April 1974, He’s Misstra Know It All was released and peaked at number 10.
It’s a song with some mystery. Who is it about? Why Misstra? Was he a real person? Well, there are no definitive answers because Stevie has never really revealed, but it has been cited over the years that it was having a dig at the 37th President of the United States, Richard Nixon. Just bear in mind that Nixon’s nickname to those close to him was Tricky Dicky.
Now the character portrayed in the song is, to say the least, a little shady. He comes across as untrustworthy and devious – the opening line, ‘He’s a man with a plan, got a counterfeit dollar in his hand’ really set the scene. Each short version adds a line to raise an eyebrow, verse two – ‘talking fast, making sure that he won’t be the last’, verse three ‘Makes a deal, with a smile knowing all the time that his lie’s a mile and verse four, ‘He’s the coolest one with the biggest mouth’, you get the picture. He’s learning along the way that the more clued up people will not deal with him and only the stupid will. Any of this sound familiar in 2019 politics?! Another clue that Stevie Wonder was way ahead of his time.
You might also get the feeling that Stevie himself might have been on the receiving end and you can tell as the song moves on that Stevie is getting irritated by the conman. The lyrical comment, ‘If we had less of him don’t you know we’d have a better land’ makes him realise how bad things have got and that he can’t abide someone who doesn’t honour a handshake and someone who can’t accept criticism. It all comes to a head at two minutes 55 seconds in when Stevie starts to growl. He has had enough.
As for the title, if someone is so bad to you might find you can’t bring yourself to address them properly by name or title. There’s certainly one pop star that I find hard to call by name, but that’s a different story. In this case, there is no name given but maybe calling him Mister which is a title of respect and Stevie couldn’t bring himself to say that so a little jig around to still make it fit with the melody. This is not unheard of for songwriter to do that.
The parent album, Innervisions, was released on 3rd August 1973 and just three days later, whilst on his way to a radio station in North Carolina to promote the album, Stevie was involved in a serious car accident that left him in a coma for four days. It was only when his friend and singer of the lead gospel group The Dixie Hummingbirds, went to visit him did he get a response. Ira Tucker recalled at the time, “I got right down in his ear and sang Higher Ground. His hand was resting on my arm and after a while his fingers started going in time with the song. I said yeah, yeah! This dude is going to make it!”.
I want to end with an article from Medium from 2019. A fascinating song I have loved since childhood, its impact has not faded. Even if its political implications and meaning was not known to me when I was young, I have come to appreciate He's Misstra Know-It-All since. It is a stunning song that showcases Stevie Wonder’s peerless gift for melody and his phenomenal lyrics. A song that people have been picking apart and analysing for years:
“He’s Misstra Know-It-All” was the final track on Stevie Wonder’s 1973 album, “Innervisions”. Widely regarded as some of Stevie Wonder’s finest work, “Innervisions” was number 23 in Rolling Stone Magazine’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums Of All Time.
When you consider that’s a higher placing than “Dark Side Of The Moon”, “Ziggy Stardust” and “Tapestry”, among other classic albums, that perhaps gives you some idea how good an album “Innervisions” was.
You’ll recognise many of the other tracks on the album too, as they’ve become classics over the years… “Higher Ground”, “Living For The City” and “Don’t You Worry ‘Bout A Thing” all featured on “Innervisions” too, alongside “He’s Misstra Know-It-All”, of course.
Folklore has it that “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” was about President Richard Nixon…nicknamed “Tricky Dicky” in some quarters as a result of his somewhat shady reputation for being a man of his word and having other people’s best interests at heart. Harry Truman said of Nixon that “if he caught himself telling the truth, he’d lie just to keep his hand in”.
So there’s much to lead us to the conclusion that Nixon was the target of Stevie Wonder’s “He’s Misstra Know-It-All”. But I suspect the truth is more complicated than that. Certainly I can’t find anything definite attributed directly to Stevie Wonder where he says that Nixon was his intended target.
“He’s Misstra Know-It-All” is more likely to be a pastiche of a number of characters, possibly including Nixon, but the entertainment industry isn’t exactly short of smooth talking backstabbers itself.
Stevie Wonder’s boss at Motown, Berry Gordy, wasn’t always the nicest person to be around, if some of the stories are to be believed. And the same could probably be said of legions of A&R people and concert promoters Stevie Wonder will have come across in his long career.
He’s a man with a plan
Got a counterfeit dollar in his hand
He’s Misstra Know-It-All
Playin’ hard, talkin’ fast
Making sure that he won’t be the last
He’s Misstra Know-It-All
Stevie Wonder is telling us the tale of a “man on the make”…although please bear in mind this behaviour isn’t gender-specific. I’ve come across both men and women this song could have been written about.
Sadly, the undoing of people like those Stevie Wonder sings about is that they have trouble recognising that being successful in the short-term and in the long-term require two entirely different skill-sets. Before word gets round about their untrustworthiness, poor behaviour or sharp business practices, people can, and do, get ahead by screwing other people over.
Personally, I find that morally repugnant, so I’m not endorsing it as a strategy or suggesting you try this for yourself…far from it.
But I am acknowledging that sometimes, in the short-term, the strategy can look like it’s working to the uninitiated. Until you get found out…
If he shakes on a bet
He’s the kind of dude that won’t pay his debt
He’s Misstra Know-It-All
But once you get a reputation for being untrustworthy and not delivering on your promises, there’s no way back. People think they’re being screwed even when they aren’t and they’ll shy away from deals they would have taken from other people they trust more. The opportunities dry up.
After a while your “Misstra Know-It-All” characters find that only the desperate and the stupid will deal with them. But, again in the short-term, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The desperate and the stupid tend not to be the best dealmakers, so although the deals are fewer in number you can make more on each one, keeping your empire afloat a bit longer, even after most respectable operators won’t touch you with a barge-pole.
But that only lasts for as long as the desperate and the stupid remain solvent. Gradually, desperate and stupid people are subject to the same Darwinian processes that govern most other aspects of human behaviour and even that pool of people drops out.
At that point, the “Misstra Know-It-All” characters crash and burn, usually spectacularly, because they never saw it coming. They had convinced themselves they were so capable of bending the universe to their will that there would be a never-ending supply of desperate or stupid people even after the more respectable end of the market stop returning their phone calls.
They’re actually slightly emboldened by the fact that they’ve been able to keep operating, despite the fact that most of their market won’t deal with them any more. In their secret fears, they imagined that would be the point at which their business would fold.
But, au contraire, they’ve kept going just fine. For years, perhaps even decades.
By this stage they’ve suckered even themselves. They believe they can do no wrong. Their judgement is infallible. Their magnetic powers of persuasion will triumph over anyone they encounter.
They like to dispense advice on how great they are to other people. After all, they’re infallible, so who wouldn’t want to listen to them…?
When you say that he’s livin’ wrong
He’ll tell you he knows he’s livin’ right
And you’d be a stronger man
If you took Misstra Know-It-All’s advice
That was my old boss to a “T”. Someone who couldn’t even conceive that they might be doing anything wrong… “he knows he’s livin’ right”…it’s not a hope or a suspicion or a prayer. He knows it.
And if you know it, why would you listen to anyone telling you different?
But the truth is…
If we had less of him
Don’t you know we’d have a better land
He’s Misstra Know-It-All
Why I like “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” so much is that Stevie Wonder sings with sadness, not anger, in his heart.
It would be easy to angrily tear down someone who had behaved badly towards you. It takes a much better human being than I am to be sad for the person who had wronged him.
Sad that they’ll never know the joy of people warmly accepted by their peers as someone they like and trust. Sad that so many people they’ve “slashed and burned” in the past have had their lives destroyed because they trusted someone who was not deserving of that trust. Sad that a life which had so much potential was ultimately mired in failure and scandal.
“He’s Misstra Know-It-All” is a very gentle, almost contemplative, song. That’s a perspective on dealing with an unpleasant person that only someone with great personal qualities can adopt.
I just hope that in time I can feel about my old boss with the same level of class that Stevie Wonder mustered for whoever the original “Misstra Know-It-All” was.
I’ve long held the view that Stevie Wonder is one of the finest composers, songwriters and performers of the 20th Century.
Even with the high quality of his creative output over the years, “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” is one of those Stevie Wonder songs that showcases a master at the very top of his game…and bear in mind “his game” was already better than just about every other human being who has ever written a song or sung on a record.
Just the intro on “He’s Misstra Know-It-All” is better than many whole albums…even whole careers…from other artists. This style of long intro is something you’ll rarely hear nowadays, but Stevie Wonder certainly shows what you can do with a long intro if you take the time to craft something worth listening to”.
One of the greatest songs ever in my view, I was very keen to explore it for this Groovelines. The epic and beautiful finale from Innervisions, this classic is one of the standout Stevie Wonder tracks. A real gem from…
HIS 1973 masterpiece.