Tell Me Something I Don't Know

So, I'm at this birthday party for a five year-old. Right? A great party. Lawn party. Pony rides, petting zoo. Burgers, dogs. Beer!

The mom (Stephanie) puts on her "mom mix" on the iPod and I'm listening to some good tunes from the '70s and the '80s when it happened.

I'm drinking my beer(s) and Rufus featuring Chaka Kahn's monster hit, Tell Me Something Good comes on. I've forgotten three important things about his song:

1. It is so goddamn slow. The deliberate nature of the piece makes you pay close attention.
2. While the singing is stellar the musicianship and the music are stellar-er.
3. It's possibly the hardest hard core slow jam of all time. No lie.

So, I buy it. $.99 from iTunes (second Apple Inc. reference of this posting). I open another beer - at home now - an put on the headphones. I could seriously listen to this song over and over all night and not get sick of it. Slow jam. Sensual. Bad.

I look up some information on the piece on AMG (from 1974's Rags to Rufus album). Uh, duh! Ka-boom!

The biggest hit here, "Tell Me Something Good," is a rare instance of an artist like Stevie Wonder giving away a tune that he could have had a big hit with himself. That being said, it was Khan's playful and sensual vocal that put it over the top.

Oh, Little Stevie Hardaway wrote that one. Oh. Everything makes sense at some point.

You think I'm kidding? Try me.