Stevie Wonder wrote All In Love Is Fair during the sessions for his sixteenth studio album, Innervisions. Recording began on November 10, 1972 at 2:30 A.M., with Wonder on acoustic piano and Scott Edwards on guitar. The electric piano, vocals, and drums were added on April 3, 1973, though the initial electric piano take was rejected and re-recorded the following day. Written in C-sharp minor with vocals spanning from B2 to G-sharp 4, the ballad pairs acoustic piano with Fender Rhodes electric piano in an arrangement that critics noted could have come from the Broadway stage. Wonder addressed the theme of romantic dissolution through deliberately chosen cliches, aiming to prove those cliches true while depicting two people nearing the end of their bond. AllMusic praised the result as among his finest ballad statements, citing one of the most graceful and memorable hooks from the era, though Robert Christgau found the vocal performance immature. Never released as a commercial single in the United States, the track was issued as a seven-inch in Brazil in 1974, paired with Too High. Barbra Streisand recorded a widely admired version in December 1973 for her album The Way We Were, and further renditions by Nancy Wilson, Brook Benton, Cleo Laine, and Michael McDonald have followed. The composition has also been sampled in hip-hop by Jedi Mind Tricks and Kontrafakt.
