The thirty-third Skipped on Shuffle episode will be focused on the song “I Never Thought I’d See The Day” by Sade off their 1988 album Stronger Than Pride.

Sade is a soulful smooth jazz band that found instant international success and acclaim with their debut album, Diamond Life, in 1984. Featuring hits like “Smooth Operator” and “Your Love is King,” the band’s singer, Sade Adu, became the focus of much intrigue by the press. With songs of love and heartbreak, many wondered how much of the singer’s personal life was being revealed by the musical output of the band.

In this episode, Scott and Jason discuss how Sade uses the privacy she has long maintained, along with carefully crafted lyrics, to let the listener insert themselves into the songs in order to find their own meanings. While many Sade tracks are clearly about finding, celebrating, or losing love, “I Never Thought I’d See the Day” from their third record is an example of a song that keeps the situation ambiguous. Jason and Scott also talk about how the sound of Sade, which was remarkably consistent to this point, starts to change on subsequent albums and how this song in particular points to a few of the new directions the band would follow.