Pastime Paradise

Pastime Paradise was one of the first songs to use a synthesizer, the Yamaha GX-1, to sound like a full string section. It was built first from synth tracks rather than from a drummer setting the basic rhythm, then augmented with rhythm parts from Wonder, Ray Maldonado and Bobbye Hall, and a persistent chinging bell pattern played by Hare Krishna musicians. A gospel choir from West Angeles Church of God and a Hare Krishna chanting group join for a multicultural finale.

Ian McCann of the Financial Times wrote that the lyrics are not entirely coherent but that their meaning is plain: in the west we enjoy endless distractions, but are we satisfied? Steve Lodder's book on the classic albums reads it as either the contrast between a flawed past and a hoped-for perfect future, or a comparison of selfish materialism with a work ethic rewarded in heaven.

Coolio reworked it as Gangsta's Paradise in 1995, and "Weird Al" Yankovic parodied that as Amish Paradise. Mary J. Blige's Time samples it, as does IAM's Tam Tam de l'Afrique, and in 2004 the boy band Blue built Curtain Falls around a repeating sample of it.