Never Knew Love Like This Before

This is a song that seems to exist entirely in the feeling of wonder — specifically the particular astonishment of discovering that love, as an actual experience, exceeds everything you were told it would be. The production is warm and generously orchestrated, built around a cushion of strings, a lush keyboard bed, and a rhythm that rocks rather than drives, keeping the tempo gentle enough to feel like floating. There is nothing aggressive or anxious about the sonic landscape; it is designed to hold a state of grateful disbelief. Stephanie Mills brings a voice that is at once girlish and deeply felt — a high, bright soprano with a sweetness that never tips into saccharine because the emotional sincerity underneath it is absolutely real. She sings with open-faced conviction, as if reporting on something miraculous she has just witnessed. The lyric operates as a kind of testimony: I didn't know this was possible, and now I do, and I am undone by it. It comes from the late 1970s tradition of lush Black pop and soul balladry, when radio still had room for songs that asked nothing of the listener except to feel something tender. This is a slow-dance song, a first-love song, a song for moments when you want to mark that your understanding of the world has permanently shifted. Play it when someone has genuinely surprised you with how good it is to be alive.