After taking some time to focus on their family, Ilana Glazer has resumed the pace of a prolific career. Glazer is best known for co-creating and starring in the beloved sitcom Broad City, which wrapped in 2019. Their recent projects include co-writing and starring in the films False Positive and Babes, creating the 2020 stand-up special The Planet is Burning, and gearing up for the release of their new comedy special Human Magic, set to hit Hulu in a couple of weeks.
For their Treat, Glazer reflects on their deep admiration for Stevie Wonder’s double album Songs in the Key of Life, describing it as a rich emotional journey akin to a biblical epic, complete with complex themes and emotional depth. They recall attending one of his concerts, where the live performance of "Love's in Need of Love Today" moved them to tears. Glazer also shares memories of being an adolescent and drumming along to this album. Plus, they reflect on how blown away they were to learn that Wonder is blind.
More: Abbi Jacobson & Ilana Glazer: Broad City (The Treatment, 2015)
This segment has been edited and condensed for clarity.
What I love about Songs in the Key of Life — the double album — [is that] it's almost biblical in these books in a way of what they cover. It does feel biblical in that it covers these major themes of birth, death, joy, deep sadness, and the depths that [all of these things] reach. It pushes me to allow for, ‘Okay, my space is comedy.’ And, you know, the genre today is stand-up, or the genre today is film. But one genre can contain all these emotions, like the full-color wheel of emotions.
Stevie Wonder did a final tour. My husband and I went to see him and when he started with “Love’s in Need of Love Today,” I burst into tears to hear him singing this live. This song is so touching and it makes me think of a choir of children singing it. It's just so beautiful.
“Isn't She Lovely?” I mean, you hear a damn baby crying on the album. I love it! I don't know if it's for Innervisions [or this album, or both] that he's playing all the damn instruments.
So I was a drummer. I was really obsessed with it from fifth grade to twelfth grade. On this album, Stevie Wonder is the drummer and you feel it. So fun. I would listen to this music and play [along] to this full album for hours as a kid.
As a kid, to learn who the hell Stevie Wonder is, and then to learn that he's blind? It's shocking. And then actually [for me], an understanding [comes] later… that if he doesn't have the sense of sight it's infused into all these other senses because he's seeing the colors, he's seeing the notes come out of the instruments in a way that a person who's able to see can't. What a magical person. Unbelievable. And the joy he's filled me with is such a gift. I feel indebted to this double-disc album.