By Status Ain't Hood Staff
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November 13, 2025
As this Fall honoring change, maturity, letting go, and preparation comes to a close, this edition of Throwback Thursday is dedicated to an artist who has long celebrated both through his music, the incomparable Stevie Wonder . While his catalog overflows with timeless odes to love like “Ribbon in the Sky” and “Overjoyed,” today’s spotlight shines on a lesser-celebrated treasure from his discography: “These Three Words.” It’s a song that captures Wonder’s ability to distill deep emotion into the simplest yet most powerful expression imaginable. “These Three Words” appears on the Jungle Fever soundtrack, a 1991 album Wonder crafted with longtime collaborator Nathan Watts for Spike Lee’s film of the same name. The movie explored issues of race, addiction, and the complexities of interracial relationships in early-’90s America, while Wonder’s music provided a soulful emotional anchor. Despite mixed critical reception, the soundtrack achieved commercial success, and “These Three Words” reached No. 7 on the Billboard R&B chart, standing as one of the project’s most beloved cuts. More than three decades later, “These Three Words” continues to strike a chord with listeners. The song’s message, urging us to say “I love you” before it’s too late, feels even more profound in a world marked by distance, loss, and uncertainty. Scroll through the YouTube comments today, and you’ll find fans sharing stories of how the song comforted them through grief or rekindled appreciation for loved ones. It’s proof that, once again, Stevie Wonder found the universal in the personal, reminding us that love, when spoken simply and sincerely, never loses its power.