Songfacts®:

• In this heartbreaker, Stevie Wonder does a post-mortem, trying to figure out where it all went wrong. He looks for blame anywhere he can find it: the sun, the wind, the birds, even the tides. But when he looks in his heart he sees where the blame truly lies: on himself.
• Wonder was just 22 when he released this song on his album Talking Book, but he had far more experience in music and life than most. In his teenage years at Motown Records, he watched their songwriters cover every conceivable permutation of love in musically ingenious fashion. He wrote some of his own songs back then, but by Talking Book he assumed complete control, and he used it to merge these lovelorn lyrics with a futuristic sound melding synthesizer, Moog bass, piano, drums, and even harpsichord, all of which he played himself.
• Wonder wrote this song with Syreeta Wright, his first wife. They met at Motown, where she was also a songwriter. According to Wonder, they divorced in 1972, but they kept their musical partnership going. It's possible his split with Wright influenced the lyric.
• Backing vocalist Lani Groves comes in at the end of the song to answer Wonder with the line, "Yeah, your heart blames it on you this time." She and Jim Gilstrap, who sings backup on the track, also appear on the Talking Book cut "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" singing lead vocals at the beginning.