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Higher Ground (Red Hot Chili Peppers song)

"Higher Ground"
Higher Ground45.jpg
Cover for the 7" single in Germany.
Single by Stevie Wonder
from the album Innervisions
B-side "Too High"
Released July 1973
Format 7" 45 RPM
Recorded May 12, 1973
Genre Funk
Length 3:42 (Album version)
3:10 (Single version)
Label Tamla
Writer(s) Stevie Wonder
Producer(s) Stevie Wonder
Stevie Wonder singles chronology
"You Are the Sunshine of My Life"
(1973)
"Higher Ground"
(1973)
"Living for the City"
(1973)
"Higher Ground"
Red hot chili peppers higher ground.png
Single by Red Hot Chili Peppers
from the album Mother's Milk
B-side "Millionaires Against Hunger"
Released April 8, 1989
Format CD, cassette, 7", 12"
Genre Funk metal
Length 3:21
Label EMI America
Writer(s) Stevie Wonder
Producer(s) Michael Beinhorn
Red Hot Chili Peppers singles chronology
"Fight Like a Brave"
(1987)
"Higher Ground"
(1989)
"Knock Me Down"
(1989)
Music video
"Higher Ground" on official website
Music sample

"Higher Ground" is a funk song written by Stevie Wonder which first appeared on his 1973 album Innervisions. The song reached number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 1 on the US Hot R&B Singles chart. Wonder wrote and recorded the song in a three-hour burst of creativity in May 1973. The album version of the song contains an extra verse and runs 30 seconds longer than the single version. The unique wah-clavinet sound in the song was achieved with a Mu-Tron III envelope filter pedal. The bass line is provided by a Moog synthesizer and using overdubs, Wonder played all instruments on the track, including drums and percussion.

The song was also released in the UK but achieved only modest success, reaching number 29 in the UK Singles Chart.

The song lyrics address the issue of reincarnation. Wonder commented, when interviewed by The New York Times:

I would like to believe in reincarnation. I would like to believe that there is another life. I think that sometimes your consciousness can happen on this earth a second time around. For me, I wrote Higher Ground even before the accident. But something must have been telling me that something was going to happen to make me aware of a lot of things and to get myself together. This is like my second chance for life, to do something or to do more, and to value the fact that I am alive.

In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked the song #265 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, adding: "'Ground' was recorded just before Wonder was involved in a near-fatal accident in August '73 that left him in a coma. Early in Wonder's recovery, his road manager sang the song's melody into the singer's ear; Wonder responded by moving his fingers with the music."


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