"Lovin' You" was a monster hit in 1975. It's one of those songs that doesn't get a lot of play anymore, but hearing just one bar of Minnie Riperton hitting those high notes brings back the '70s to me. It used to make me think of brushing those little side bangs back into "wings", and wearing brightly patterned qiana shirts, and teetering on platform shoes.

But suddenly this morning that's changed, because I just learned that she originally wrote it as a lullaby for her baby daughter. (Some of the words were changed a little when it was recorded, to make it more marketable.)

I'd always thought that the ending riff was "my oh my oh my oh". Nope. It's "Maya, Maya, Maya" -- Minnie's love song to her little girl, Maya Rudolph. Minnie died of cancer just four years later. Now I think about my own daughters when I hear this beautiful song.