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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 2: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 2: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,

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Speaker 2: and more. We are your two autocratic polymaths of Midwestern Minutia,

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Speaker 2: flexing our dominance of multiple mediums to bring you the

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Speaker 2: first ever two part Too Much Information movie album tie

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Speaker 2: in Purple Brain. Baby shouts to Andre, who is a

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Speaker 2: bit been petitioning us on Twitter for months to do this,

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Speaker 2: and I'm not sure if this would be more than

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Speaker 2: he barret am I more than you bargained for yet? Baby,

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Speaker 2: because we're about to do fifteen pages on just the record,

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Speaker 2: and next week we're going to do the movie. So

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Speaker 2: I've obviously now given away the order in which we

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Speaker 2: are doing this. But my thought process was this which

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Speaker 2: came first. Technically, the earliest Purple Rain song could be

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Speaker 2: written was Baby on a Star, which Prince wrote in

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Speaker 2: nineteen eighty one. The bulk of the album was more

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Speaker 2: or less written and recorded, finalized and recorded between July

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Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty three and March of nineteen eighty four,

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Speaker 2: while the film started shooting on Halloween nineteen eighty three

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Speaker 2: and wrapped forty two days later. So while these two

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Speaker 2: pieces of art are inextricable for our purposes, this part

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Speaker 2: will tackle Prince's life and career in music up to

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Speaker 2: and including the album, and Part two will focus on

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Speaker 2: the movie's production, reception, legacy, etc. Just gonna speak truth here.

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Speaker 2: There's never and never will be again a person like Prince.

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Speaker 2: We'll stop not gonna happen. I apologize to all of you,

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Speaker 2: Jacob Collier, like all you bedroom musical polymaths who think

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Speaker 2: you are coming close, but you're not. This guy had

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Speaker 2: the entirety of the Black American musical tradition at his fingertips,

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Speaker 2: but was also constantly, relentlessly pushing forward into the future

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Speaker 2: with drum machines and synths. He was so so horny,

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Speaker 2: but also so mystical in a way that made cosmology

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Speaker 2: and dirty talk seem like natural bedfellows. And he was

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Speaker 2: so relentlessly self driven and self possessed in his productivity

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Speaker 2: and curation of artistic output that there is a very

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Speaker 2: good likelihood we will never truly hear everything the man did.

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Speaker 2: That's Prince. Who else you know? You can't have someone

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Speaker 2: that combines James Brown's charisma and also self regard, Michael

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Speaker 2: Jackson's fleet feet and sky high voice, Jimmy Hendrix's guitar,

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Speaker 2: wizardry and moon eyed mysticism, slyestones color and genderblind vision

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Speaker 2: of musical Utopia's Stevie Wonder's musical polymathy, and then all

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Speaker 2: of that went into a blender with again so much

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Speaker 2: horniness and also androgyny studio, wizardry, the fashion iconoclasm, dancing,

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Speaker 2: and he did it all from Minneapolis. It's like somebody

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Speaker 2: asked John Carpenter once what they thought about John Romero,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, well, he makes movies in Pittsburgh.

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Speaker 2: Somebody's got to do it. So it's like, yeah, man,

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Speaker 2: you think about Prince, you think about guys on Prince's level,

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Speaker 2: and it's like, I don't know, Miles Davis, like the

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Speaker 2: center of the like in New York or for the decades,

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Speaker 2: or Stevie Wonder, you know, in Detroit and LA and

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Speaker 2: then you're like, oh yeah, and then there's Prince out

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Speaker 2: in the hinterlands creating an entire universe unto himself.

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Speaker 1: Higel, I have a really shameful confession to make about Prince,

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Speaker 1: and I'm really embarrassed to do this both in front

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Speaker 1: of you and also our dear listeners.

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Speaker 2: Let me put it this way.

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Speaker 1: The time when we were coming into awareness musical awareness,

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Speaker 1: I should say, in the late nineties and early two

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Speaker 1: thousands was kind of the worst.

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Speaker 2: Time to be a Prince fan. I feel it was.

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Speaker 2: And I, okay, no, dude, we're in alignment on this,

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Speaker 2: because good, good, good good. My earliest musical memories are

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Speaker 2: just like in the car and with my dad, the

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Speaker 2: two classic rock stations that he vacillated between would never

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Speaker 2: have played any Prince and what my mom had on

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Speaker 2: in the car was just like the more bland kind

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Speaker 2: of sixties seventies pop throwback, and that included Motown. That's

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Speaker 2: the first place I heard Motown. But I did not

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Speaker 2: hear Prince on that either. And you would see Purple

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Speaker 2: Rain like named his stuff, and you kind of, oh,

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Speaker 2: this song sound that song sounds familiar, but like the

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Speaker 2: depth of his artistry was not at the four of

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Speaker 2: the conversation in the mid nineties because he was churning

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Speaker 2: out jazz fusion records with no name, you.

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Speaker 1: Know, Yeah, I mean this was the whole artist formerly

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Speaker 1: known as Era, and he was kind of, I feel like,

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Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early two thousands, an eccentric punchline,

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Speaker 1: like sort of slightly less troubling Michael Jackson. And this

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Speaker 1: this might just have been the Dave Chapelle connection, but

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Speaker 1: I sort of viewed Prince as a kid as like

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Speaker 1: on par with Rick James or something, which.

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Speaker 2: No, that's real, and I don't get okay, I can't

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Speaker 2: get into the weeds of that in this episode because

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Speaker 2: I didn't think it was germane to the conversation, but

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Speaker 2: it is a real thing, I think, if I recall correctly,

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Speaker 2: Rick James did like accuse Prince of like ripping off

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Speaker 2: his oh his sort of vibes and music. Let me

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Speaker 2: just fact check that real quick.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean the eighties in general have always

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Speaker 1: been kind of my big blind spot for the reasons

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Speaker 1: you mentioned. I mean, I aligned myself with like the

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Speaker 1: boomer music of the fifties, sixties, and seventies, and I

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Speaker 1: live through the nineties and onwards, so the eighties were

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Speaker 1: just kind of my own personal dead zone. So I

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Speaker 1: admittedly didn't dive super deep into his catalog, probably until

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Speaker 1: after his death. I have to say, and for that,

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Speaker 1: I feel like I need to atone Oh interesting, when

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Speaker 1: did you get into him college?

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Speaker 2: My big thing was I bought Sign of the Times

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Speaker 2: on cassette tape, played it in my saturn constantly, so

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Speaker 2: like that album is more in my head than any

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Speaker 2: other one. But I also really love Dirty Mind. Obviously

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Speaker 2: Purple Rain nineteen ninety nine is great too. I start

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Speaker 2: to tune out around the under the Cherry Moon, around

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Speaker 2: the world. Yeah, eras well. You know, there were people

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Speaker 2: who were a whole hog for it, and so that's yeah,

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Speaker 2: I mean, that's my standard boilerplate white hipster music guy answer.

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Speaker 2: About Prince and the fact that he was famous for

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Speaker 2: chasing his music offline. That was the big thing when

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Speaker 2: we were both writing professionally about music online. The whole

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Speaker 2: thing about Prince was that you couldn't find it. He

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Speaker 2: was just like buy the CDs from my website. You know,

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Speaker 2: there was no all of it was not on YouTube.

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Speaker 2: And you would hear these rumors about, like, oh, Prince

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Speaker 2: did this legendary cover of Creep at Bonnaroo or something.

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Speaker 2: People talked about it like it was the Sermon on

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Speaker 2: the Mount and no one could see it or hear

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Speaker 2: it and then like he equipped about it. I mean

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Speaker 2: he put it. He was like the creep covers back

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Speaker 2: on YouTube, get it before my lawyers do or something

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Speaker 2: like that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So that was everything, that was it. It was

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Speaker 1: his doing though, right, I mean he was the one

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Speaker 1: who I mean, he was one of.

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Speaker 2: The and again the incredible forward thinking of him. Like

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Speaker 2: before Taylor Swift really brought in the Weeds music contract

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Speaker 2: free to the to the full the mass, Yeah, to

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Speaker 2: the masses exactly, Prince was out there saying everything like

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Speaker 2: if you own slave on his face. Yeah, you know,

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Speaker 2: I think his thing was if you don't own the masters,

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Speaker 2: the if you don't own your masters, your label owns you, uh,

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Speaker 2: something to that effect. And he was so you know,

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Speaker 2: he dug his pointy little heels in man, and that's

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Speaker 2: what gave him the hip pain that killed him all.

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Speaker 2: I mean I admired these you know, him and Pearl

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Speaker 2: Jam who like essentially blacklisted themselves from the live circuit

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Speaker 2: for years in the nineties because they were trying to

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Speaker 2: fight Ticketmaster. Like if you're at the top of the

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Speaker 2: world and you use that platform to push back against

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Speaker 2: some it will cost you. But it is that much

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Speaker 2: more admirable well said well from Princes less than Royal

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Speaker 2: upbringing to how the title track was inspired by Bob Seeger,

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Speaker 2: possibly Journey and Stevie Nicks, to how Prince and the

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Speaker 2: band wound up covered in shredded doves at one video shoot.

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Speaker 2: Here's everything you didn't know about Prince's Purple Rain. Prince,

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Speaker 2: much like the recent topic of this podcast, Jim Morrison,

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Speaker 2: could be cagey about his upbringing and interviews throughout the

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Speaker 2: early eighties, he'd variously described his dad as Italian Filipino,

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Speaker 2: half black, half Italian, or describe his parents' marriage as

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Speaker 2: an interracial one. The truth of the matter is that

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Speaker 2: both of his parents were black. His father, John L. Nelson,

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Speaker 2: took part in the Great Migration, as it's referred to,

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Speaker 2: of many people black people from the South coming up

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Speaker 2: in the post war era to find work in the cities.

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Speaker 2: He left Louisiana for Minneapolis, and he would work at

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Speaker 2: the Honeywell plant for over thirty years. He then fell

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Speaker 2: in love with Mattie Shaw, a young jazz singer, and

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Speaker 2: the two married. It was Nelson's second marriage and they

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Speaker 2: had their firstborn child, Prince Rogers Nelson born on June seventh,

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Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight. He was named after his dad's stage name,

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Speaker 2: which is funny, and they called him Skipper to differentiate

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Speaker 2: him from his dad Prince, which is one of the

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Speaker 2: most cognitively disconnected nicknames I could ever imagine.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, And didn't he like answer to that even

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Speaker 1: later in life too.

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Speaker 2: I don't know, man, I mean, part of what we'll

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Speaker 2: get into is that the like this, the ascendency of

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Speaker 2: this album and film started his him with his dad.

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Speaker 2: Oh no, I was going to say, isolated him further. So,

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Speaker 2: although Prince's parents split when he was eight, they'd already

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Speaker 2: given him a musical jumpstart. His dad played drums, Maddie sang.

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Speaker 2: They were a working jazz trio, and Prince would recall

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Speaker 2: later that watching his parent's band at the age of

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Speaker 2: five jump started his love of music. But Prince's relationship

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Speaker 2: with his dad did not improve after the divorce. Famously,

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Speaker 2: he was kicked out of his dad's house as a teenager,

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Speaker 2: with one explanation of red being that he was caught

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Speaker 2: with a girl and his dad was super conservative and

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Speaker 2: religious sexually and every other way, and disowned him or

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Speaker 2: threw out of the house, and he basically just spent

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Speaker 2: years bouncing around with friends and relatives in Minneapolis, and

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Speaker 2: he would often tell the story of breaking down in

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Speaker 2: a phone booth while begging his dad to take him

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Speaker 2: back home as the last time I cried Jesus, Yeah,

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Speaker 2: it's grim. Prince would later just describe his dad as

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Speaker 2: a very strict disciplinarian, but he might have been doing

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Speaker 2: some waffling there. Maybe. Susan Rogers, who is Prince's engineer

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Speaker 2: from nineteen eighty three to nineteen eighty eight. Her name

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Speaker 2: will come up a lot here, said that he once

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Speaker 2: confided to her that he'd been abused as a kid.

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Speaker 2: She said he had a weird name, he was small,

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Speaker 2: which would have been enough to get bullied as a Innao, Minneapolis. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: I wonder if any of the replacements ever bullied him.

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Speaker 2: Now I don't think so. I think they just I

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Speaker 2: think they just missed each other on the fame, Like

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Speaker 2: Prince was like famous enough that Purple Rain was taking

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Speaker 2: off while the replacements were still like not the replacements

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Speaker 2: at all, Like Paul Westerberg has something about like I

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Speaker 2: tried to dig it up, but I don't have the

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Speaker 2: Replacements book anymore because it's so sad. Bob Muir's fantastic

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Speaker 2: Trouble Boys the story of the Replacements, and I think

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Speaker 2: in there there's an anecdote about Paul Westerberg seeing Prince

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Speaker 2: at like a urinal in First Avenue and he knew

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Speaker 2: who he was. First Avenue is the Minneapolis music venue,

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Speaker 2: which you'll all say hear a lot during this episode,

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Speaker 2: and he was like, hey, Prince, like, what's up? And

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Speaker 2: Prince Like, while peeing was like life, and then walked out.

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Speaker 1: And everybody who's curious about what a young Prince was

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Speaker 1: like at age ten or eleven, there's a great video

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Speaker 1: clip that was making the rounds a few years ago

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Speaker 1: of a young Prince I think he's eleven years old

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Speaker 1: being interviewed on a picket line for a teachers strike

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Speaker 1: by news crew and it's I mean, it's very clearly

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Speaker 1: obviously Prince like he still has that attitude and that

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Speaker 1: swag at age eleven.

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Speaker 2: It's amazing. So then they look that up. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 2: really quite a horrible but also threatening. Yeah, there's that

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Speaker 2: like laser focus. I know, I know Prince would also

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Speaker 2: put stronger claims in his songs than he wouldn't interviews.

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Speaker 2: He has a song called Papa that features the lyric

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Speaker 2: don't abuse children or else they turn out like me.

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Speaker 2: Weird thing to say. I mean, you know whatever that

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Speaker 2: means abuse in that could cover a lot of words. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: Prince didn't get along with his stepdad, his mom's new husband,

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Speaker 2: and I believe he described clashing with him, but that

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Speaker 2: left her to teach young Prince about the birds and

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Speaker 2: the bees when it was time, and she did so

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Speaker 2: by giving him some old playboys, which is hilarious when

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Speaker 2: you consider his horniness. But you know, he was also

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Speaker 2: a shy, really introverted kid who didn't conform to Minneapolis's

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Speaker 2: usual vision of masculinity, and he was a target for

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Speaker 2: that too. He would say, I went through a lot

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Speaker 2: when I was a boy. They called me sissy, punk freak,

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Speaker 2: the hard F word.

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Speaker 3: See.

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Speaker 2: Girls loved you, but the boys hated you. They called

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Speaker 2: me princess. And also in his song, he talked about

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Speaker 2: having seizures until he was seven, So just throw that

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Speaker 2: into the mix.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, he didn't really talk about that until the

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Speaker 1: end of his life. Gave an interview to Tavis Smiley.

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Speaker 1: He said, I used to have seizures when I was young.

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Speaker 1: My mother and father didn't know what to do or

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Speaker 1: how to handle it, but they did the best they

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Speaker 1: could with what little they had. My mother told me

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Speaker 1: one day I walked into her room and said, Mom,

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to be sick anymore. And she said why,

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Speaker 1: And I said, because an angel told me so. Yes,

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Speaker 1: and so it was incredible. Prince answer. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: As he grew into adolescence, Prince found himself living with

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Speaker 2: a high school friend who had a band, and he

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Speaker 2: basically lived in this kid's basement for a while, getting

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Speaker 2: familiar with various instruments and honing his craft. And he

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Speaker 2: was also, as is well known by this point, no

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Speaker 2: slouch at basketball during this time period either. And once

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Speaker 2: again he must have had a time machine man or like,

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Speaker 2: was not sleeping because the ten thousand hours he put

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Speaker 2: in to achieve I mean, it might have been ten

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Speaker 2: thousand hours at each of those things, you know, people,

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Speaker 2: not the four octave vocal range, but the guitar, playing,

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Speaker 2: the bass, playing the keyboard playing, I mean drumming. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: that is just really to get that fluent, he must

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Speaker 2: not have been sleeping. I for basketball, yes, sex, yeah,

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Speaker 2: and also so tiny.

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Speaker 1: He was five foot two, that's like Lady Gaga height.

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Speaker 1: That can't be.

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Speaker 2: How could he have been that good at basketball getting

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Speaker 2: dominated by prints on the basketball court and then like

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Speaker 2: seeing him later prancing around in like assless chaps and

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Speaker 2: ripping a guitar solo. Must have crushed so many Minneapolis

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Speaker 2: men in their middle age.

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Speaker 1: And the ping pong We forgot about his prowess at

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Speaker 1: ping pong?

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Speaker 2: Yes, your favorite story, which I'm sure you have. You

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Speaker 2: shoehorned this in later. I didn't know, no, but tact

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Speaker 2: full of you. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Prince and Michael Jackson faced off on the on the

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Speaker 1: ping Pong table famous musical rivals. That was kind of

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Speaker 1: their main their main showdown. Who on oh Prince, Prince,

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Speaker 1: Prince scared off MJ and uh and as MJ slunk away,

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Speaker 1: Prince said the very un PC did you see that

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Speaker 1: he's playing like Helen Keller?

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Speaker 2: And then what's the other Prince MJ thing where Prince

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Speaker 2: aggressively played Prince slap base in Michael Jackson's face. I

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Speaker 2: don't know, Michael Jackson.

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Speaker 1: Michael Jackson the next day referred to him as a

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Speaker 1: big meanie because will I am will I am was like, Hey,

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Speaker 1: Prince has got a show tonight, Michael, do you want

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Speaker 1: to go see him?

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Speaker 2: He's playing in Vegas when it come with me? All right?

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Speaker 1: And so he like went and like sat in the

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Speaker 1: front row and Prince came down and yeah, played aggressive

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Speaker 1: slap base in his face, and it ruffled Michael.

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Speaker 2: He's a big meanie. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So Prince co founded his first band with his cousin

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Speaker 1: at age thirteen, and they were called Grand Central, which

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Speaker 1: I assume was a nod to Graham Central Station. I

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Speaker 1: had to found it by slap base. But again get

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Speaker 1: back on the slap base train, slap based Larry Graham.

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Speaker 1: A young Prince's group played original songs that were inspired

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Speaker 1: by Sly and the Family Stone and Earth Wind and Fire.

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Speaker 1: But one of his weirder, or I guess i'll say

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Speaker 1: unexpected influences was Joni Mitchell.

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Speaker 2: Did you know, Yes, he loved Joni Mitchell. Love Jonni Mitchell.

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Speaker 2: One of the when piano and a microphone came out

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Speaker 2: the which we'll get to later. Yeah, nineteen eighty three

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Speaker 2: recordings of him just running through really songs and sketches

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Speaker 2: for songs on the piano. People pointed out how some

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Speaker 2: of the melodies and playing sounded like some of like

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Speaker 2: Joni Mitchell's River in particular was compared to Purple Rain,

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Speaker 2: which I think is really funny. But yeah, I love

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Speaker 2: that for him. And also you can hear it like

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Speaker 2: some of the just the upper effortless like upper registered

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Speaker 2: leaps and navigating there. It's like not that hard to

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Speaker 2: connect Joni's voice to Prince's voice.

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Speaker 1: Joni's name features prominently on the cover art for Prince's

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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one album Controversy, and the song titled ice

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Speaker 1: Cream Castles is a reference to her immortal feel bad

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Speaker 1: anthem both sides now and Prince, I love this so much.

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Speaker 1: He apparently sent her so many fan letters as a

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Speaker 1: young boy that Joni's management thought it was quote from

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Speaker 1: the Lunatic Fringe, and he went to see her play

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Speaker 1: in Minneapolis at age fifteen. So what would that have

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Speaker 1: been around like nineteen seventy three or so. And Joni

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Speaker 1: said years later that she actually remembered him. She said

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Speaker 1: he had distinctive eyes like an Egyptian wall painting, which

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Speaker 1: is pretty cool in a She's not wrong.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: In a nineteen eighty five INU for Rolling Stone, Prince

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Speaker 1: was asked whether or not he liked any.

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Speaker 2: Current pop music.

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Speaker 1: Prince replied, Nah, The last album I loved all the

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Speaker 1: way through was The Hissing of Summer Lawns, Joni Mitchell's

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Speaker 1: nineteen seventy five album Awesome.

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Speaker 2: I feel like he would have been a hijira guy.

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Speaker 2: Is that the The one was the fusion one with Jocko? Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Another of Prince's early bands, Champagne, recorded at a local

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Speaker 2: Minneapolis studio with Chris Moon, who was a local concert promoter.

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Speaker 2: He wrote jingles as well, and he took notice of

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Speaker 2: Prince's talents and he offered Prince recording time at his studio,

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Speaker 2: which was called Moon Sound, in exchange for his help

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Speaker 2: with some songs. Prince got the keys to the studio,

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Speaker 2: I believe immediately after or on the day he graduated

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Speaker 2: high school, and he just went to work. He started

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Speaker 2: putting demos together. At one point he went to New

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Speaker 2: York to shop some around. Didn't get any traction there,

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Speaker 2: but Moon had played some of Prince's demos to a

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Speaker 2: local music impressario named Owen Husney, who agreed to finance

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Speaker 2: Prince's next steps getting his music off the ground. Fun

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Speaker 2: fact when he met Prince. Husney nicknamed Prince's Afro J

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Speaker 2: seven because it was that much bigger than those of

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Speaker 2: the Jackson fives. Husney got Prince into the door at

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Speaker 2: Warner Brothers, whom he signed with in June of nineteen

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Speaker 2: seventy seven, so a month out of high school.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Warners wanted to give him a producer and one

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Speaker 2: of the big things that Prince did to convince them

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Speaker 2: that he could operate with semi autonomy was to visit

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Speaker 2: one of their studios and Lenny Waronker, who's one of

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Speaker 2: the Warrenker I still don't know to say he's a

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Speaker 2: big deal. Yeah, he's a famous A and R guy

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Speaker 2: for Warners and other suits, came in to the studio

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Speaker 2: just to watch eighteen year old Prince sit down at

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Speaker 2: a drum set to record a drum track all the

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Speaker 2: way through, then picked up a bass and recorded a

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Speaker 2: bassline all the way through, then move over to guitar

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Speaker 2: and keys and vocals, and that song was just as

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Speaker 2: long as We're Together. So they obviously saw that this

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Speaker 2: kid knew what he was doing and allowed Prince to

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Speaker 2: produce his first record, but they installed a guy named

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Speaker 2: Tommy Viccari, who Prince probably only allowed because Prince was

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Speaker 2: a huge Santana fan, which is really interesting to me,

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Speaker 2: and that guy's credit was brought on as executive producer,

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Speaker 2: but Prince being Prince, that did not pan out.

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Speaker 1: And yeah, Prince in your estimation kind of lost the

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Speaker 1: plot while recording his first record. He eventually fired Vikari

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Speaker 1: after basic tracking was complete and became obsessed with overdubbing,

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Speaker 1: eventually finishing his debut album two months late at a

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Speaker 1: cost of this is insane even now, one hundred and

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Speaker 1: seventy thousand, five hundred dollars, which is just five hundred

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Speaker 1: dollars short of Warner Brothers planned budget for Prince's first

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Speaker 1: three albums.

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Speaker 2: I love it blowing your three album deal on one record.

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Speaker 1: That's over a million dollars in today money. That's insane.

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Speaker 2: I mean, you know this kind of could happen back.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it still happens today. It's just happening with TikTok.

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Speaker 2: But it's like this is what Kate happened with Kate Bush.

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Speaker 2: You know, oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. They're just like

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Speaker 2: we're like blown away, and they're like, let's throw money

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Speaker 2: at it and just see what happens, because you can

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Speaker 2: do that in the seventies. Oh what a great era.

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Speaker 1: Britz's debut for You came out in April nineteen seventy eight,

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Speaker 1: famously with him credited as playing twenty three different instruments

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Speaker 1: on it.

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Speaker 2: I don't know if I could name twenty.

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Speaker 1: Three instruments, let alone pick out twenty three instruments on there.

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Speaker 2: Okay, maybe I could. I you know, I don't know, man,

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Speaker 2: when you're splitting hairs between like since piano, you know,

402
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Speaker 2: electric piano, organ like alright, because it's kind of like

403
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Speaker 2: and I'm sure every individual percussion piece was also credited.

404
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Speaker 2: But he's like that guy from the Brian Jones Sound Massacre,

405
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Speaker 2: being like I play two hundred instruments, and it's like, yeah,

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Speaker 2: you play like you know enough about guitar to play

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Speaker 2: like weird ethnic stringed instruments and get a sound out

408
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Speaker 2: of them, and you know how to make tambourines and

409
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Speaker 2: like shakers and sound good. But you do not play

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Speaker 2: those instruments. I'm sorry. In the spirit, you do in

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Speaker 2: the spirit in the letter, if not the spirit, you know, yeah,

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Speaker 2: because I'll tell you one thing. You listen to a

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Speaker 2: really solid tambourine player, and your mind will be blown.

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Speaker 2: But that's true that a serious tambourine player can do,

415
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Speaker 2: not a Davy Jones. But yeah, and then I was

416
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Speaker 2: gonna say, and we, having our popular consciousness, relegated that

417
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Speaker 2: instrument to just like something the lead singer does to

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Speaker 2: make themselves feel better about not contributing anything.

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Speaker 1: The title track of for You features forty six layered

420
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Speaker 1: vocal tracks from Prince Goddamn Yeah tape like magic Bohemian

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Speaker 1: Rhapsody level like tape Transluci.

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Speaker 2: And also the thing is like to do these Susan

423
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Speaker 2: would talk about how he would just do stuff in

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Speaker 2: one take, like because the songs were just already in

425
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Speaker 2: his head and he would just be like, well, there's

426
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Speaker 2: the drum track all the way through, and then do

427
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Speaker 2: his own punches too, like just you know, just totally

428
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Speaker 2: self possessed, a self contained production unit.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was a crazy quote later on in here,

430
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Speaker 1: when when it's engineer was like, yeah, he would sit

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Speaker 1: down and play the drums just listening to nothing, just

432
00:24:04,880 --> 00:24:08,000
Speaker 1: the sound in his head, no click track, I don't think,

433
00:24:08,400 --> 00:24:11,439
Speaker 1: just like nope, I know exactly where everything's going to go,

434
00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:14,280
Speaker 1: and I am locked into the music in my mind Yeah,

435
00:24:14,320 --> 00:24:18,040
Speaker 1: insane but soft and wet, the single track released from

436
00:24:18,160 --> 00:24:22,160
Speaker 1: Prince's debut, released on his twentieth birthday, which is even

437
00:24:22,240 --> 00:24:25,600
Speaker 1: more depressing to me, only made it to number ninety

438
00:24:25,640 --> 00:24:27,719
Speaker 1: two on the Billboard Hot one hundred. That was in

439
00:24:27,760 --> 00:24:30,280
Speaker 1: August nineteen seventy nine, and then a little over a

440
00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:33,480
Speaker 1: year later, in August nineteen seventy nine, Prince released the

441
00:24:33,520 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 1: first single from a self titled second album, I Want

442
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:37,919
Speaker 1: to Be Your Lover, one of my favorite print songs.

443
00:24:38,359 --> 00:24:40,680
Speaker 1: That song entered the Hot one hundred at the number

444
00:24:40,760 --> 00:24:41,760
Speaker 1: eighty five slot.

445
00:24:41,800 --> 00:24:44,720
Speaker 2: It deserves so much more. It really does, It really does.

446
00:24:45,000 --> 00:24:47,439
Speaker 1: The song, which Prince later said was about his crush

447
00:24:47,520 --> 00:24:51,920
Speaker 1: on pianist and singer Patrese Russian, eventually reached number eleven

448
00:24:52,000 --> 00:24:54,800
Speaker 1: on the Hot one hundred and January nineteen eighty and

449
00:24:54,880 --> 00:24:57,560
Speaker 1: held there for two weeks, capturing the top spot on

450
00:24:57,600 --> 00:25:01,359
Speaker 1: Billboard's Hot Soul Singles chart for two weeks. I love

451
00:25:01,400 --> 00:25:05,280
Speaker 1: how many songs were inspired by Princess, unrequesded crushes, love,

452
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:10,040
Speaker 1: the Man, loved Love, Yes, I appreciate that. Prince's next

453
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,000
Speaker 1: two albums, Dirty Mind, in nineteen eighty and controversy in

454
00:25:13,080 --> 00:25:16,199
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty one made him the proverbial critical darling, but

455
00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:19,200
Speaker 1: only Controversy made any chart impact, with its title track

456
00:25:19,280 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 1: landing at a dismal number seventy on the Billboard Charts

457
00:25:22,520 --> 00:25:23,640
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty.

458
00:25:23,400 --> 00:25:27,000
Speaker 2: Didn't he have the disastrous tour opening for the Rolling

459
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:28,440
Speaker 2: Stones around this time too?

460
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:31,520
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was up there with like Hendrix opening

461
00:25:31,520 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 1: for the Monkeys in terms of just misplaced talent being combined.

462
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:39,840
Speaker 2: Nineteen eighty one at LA the Coliseum, Oh it was

463
00:25:39,920 --> 00:25:43,680
Speaker 2: just the one. Yeah, Oh my god. As Prince and

464
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:45,440
Speaker 2: his band tried their best to get through the set,

465
00:25:45,480 --> 00:25:48,679
Speaker 2: they faced a barrage of fried chicken, bottles, cans, and

466
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:51,800
Speaker 2: other objects. All too soon a wave of racist and

467
00:25:51,800 --> 00:25:57,800
Speaker 2: homophobic slurs followed. Oh my, the brown Mark, whose name

468
00:25:57,800 --> 00:26:02,119
Speaker 2: I believe is just brown Mark Brown. Prince, the Revolution bassist,

469
00:26:02,440 --> 00:26:04,800
Speaker 2: was like, imagine ninety This was a quote he gave.

470
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 2: Imagine ninety four thousand people throwing food at each other.

471
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:09,439
Speaker 2: I got hit in the shoulder with a bag of

472
00:26:09,440 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 2: fried chicken. Then my guitar got knocked out of tune

473
00:26:12,119 --> 00:26:14,199
Speaker 2: by large grapefruit that hit the tuning keys.

474
00:26:14,560 --> 00:26:18,040
Speaker 1: Who brings a Grapefruit to a Rolling Stones concert. That

475
00:26:18,200 --> 00:26:19,440
Speaker 1: was wrong with you people? Yeah?

476
00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:23,440
Speaker 2: I know. They only got through four. They quit after

477
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,719
Speaker 2: four songs and Prince left the venue in tears. So

478
00:26:26,760 --> 00:26:32,040
Speaker 2: talking to what's the last time you cracked? Caught you

479
00:26:32,040 --> 00:26:35,959
Speaker 2: in a lie there, Prince. Apparently you dug this up.

480
00:26:36,000 --> 00:26:36,399
Speaker 2: I didn't know.

481
00:26:36,400 --> 00:26:38,440
Speaker 1: This is a version of when You Were Mine, which

482
00:26:38,480 --> 00:26:40,720
Speaker 1: is one of your favorite Prince songs.

483
00:26:40,280 --> 00:26:42,880
Speaker 2: So Good, which which was done.

484
00:26:42,680 --> 00:26:45,640
Speaker 1: By Mitch Rider of Mitch Rider in the Detroit Wheels,

485
00:26:45,640 --> 00:26:47,639
Speaker 1: a great yes sixties R and B band.

486
00:26:48,400 --> 00:26:50,080
Speaker 2: Well, I would have thought it was the Cindy Lauper

487
00:26:50,160 --> 00:26:52,960
Speaker 2: version because that's the one. Yeah, that's the one that's

488
00:26:52,960 --> 00:26:56,919
Speaker 2: on She's so unusual and that cover bangs. But I

489
00:26:56,960 --> 00:26:59,399
Speaker 2: would have thought that that would have been the highest.

490
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:04,160
Speaker 2: But bar trivia, it was Mitch Ryder. That's bizarre. Prince

491
00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:07,199
Speaker 2: parted ways with Hussny in nineteen eighty. Remind us who

492
00:27:07,240 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 2: Husney is? I forget? No? Sorry, Ohwen Husney, the guy

493
00:27:10,240 --> 00:27:12,480
Speaker 2: who helped him get signed to Warners. He was, yes,

494
00:27:12,640 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 2: the Minneapolis impresario that the original studio guy put Prince

495
00:27:17,280 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 2: in touch with. At this point, it was nineteen ninety nine,

496
00:27:22,200 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 2: which always confusingly was released in nineteen eighty two that

497
00:27:26,520 --> 00:27:29,560
Speaker 2: changed Prince's fortunes from being a critical darling to more

498
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:34,199
Speaker 2: of a mainstream quantity. Little Red Corvette and Delirious were

499
00:27:34,240 --> 00:27:37,200
Speaker 2: both top ten singles, and the double album sold over

500
00:27:37,240 --> 00:27:39,919
Speaker 2: four million copies in the US and another close to

501
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,639
Speaker 2: two million more internationally. And then Prince broke his album

502
00:27:43,680 --> 00:27:46,760
Speaker 2: a year streak in nineteen eighty three, and this was

503
00:27:46,800 --> 00:27:50,000
Speaker 2: fortunate because that was the year of Thriller and not

504
00:27:50,160 --> 00:27:53,080
Speaker 2: much else. It was also a good use of time

505
00:27:53,440 --> 00:27:55,800
Speaker 2: because the next Prince project would position him as no

506
00:27:55,920 --> 00:27:59,200
Speaker 2: other pop star, not even his chief rival Michael Jackson

507
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 2: had ever purple rained the album, and purple rained the

508
00:28:03,200 --> 00:28:04,600
Speaker 2: movie so much.

509
00:28:04,640 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: A Prince's myth at the time was Senator around as

510
00:28:06,840 --> 00:28:11,200
Speaker 1: isolationist genius. Dick Clark famously asked Prince how many instruments

511
00:28:11,200 --> 00:28:14,880
Speaker 1: he played, to which Prince answered thousands.

512
00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 2: Which got a crowd laugh.

513
00:28:16,840 --> 00:28:19,199
Speaker 1: But the image of Prince is that of an eccentric

514
00:28:19,280 --> 00:28:23,520
Speaker 1: island surrounded by drum machines and guitars and synths. This

515
00:28:23,720 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: wasn't exactly correct, though, des Dickerson played the guitar solo

516
00:28:27,560 --> 00:28:30,159
Speaker 1: on Little Red Corvette and Morris Day wrote Party up

517
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,520
Speaker 1: on Dirty Mind in exchange for getting Prince to write

518
00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: more songs for a side project. But Day at the time,

519
00:28:36,200 --> 00:28:39,760
Speaker 1: Prince's former bassist and childhood friend, Andre Simmon, has always

520
00:28:39,760 --> 00:28:41,480
Speaker 1: been alleged to be the real writer of Doo Me

521
00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:44,240
Speaker 1: Baby the note that's the whitest that's ever been said,

522
00:28:45,520 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: though no official Prince release credits him as such. The

523
00:28:48,600 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: song Kiss even originated as a song Prince gave another band,

524
00:28:51,840 --> 00:28:56,880
Speaker 1: working with Prince's engineer, David z Z, essentially reinvented the song,

525
00:28:56,960 --> 00:28:59,160
Speaker 1: and when Prince heard what he'd done, he took it back,

526
00:28:59,440 --> 00:29:02,720
Speaker 1: creditings only with the arrangement on the final track.

527
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:07,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really interesting the degree to which Prince meddled

528
00:29:07,720 --> 00:29:12,280
Speaker 2: with his own songs. Oh yeah, and like just presenting

529
00:29:12,320 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 2: them to people in their barest skeletons, hearing what they did,

530
00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,840
Speaker 2: and then taking what they did and undoing some of

531
00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,640
Speaker 2: it and keeping more of it, or simply replacing what

532
00:29:23,680 --> 00:29:28,000
Speaker 2: they added with his own version of their contributions. Did

533
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:30,840
Speaker 2: he do that with Was it with Bad?

534
00:29:31,120 --> 00:29:34,040
Speaker 1: It was with something that Michael wanted, Michael Jackson wanted

535
00:29:34,120 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: him to work on, I think, and then he was like, no,

536
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:39,960
Speaker 1: I'm not doing this with you, but if I did,

537
00:29:40,720 --> 00:29:42,920
Speaker 1: here's how it should go. And he sent him a

538
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,239
Speaker 1: version that he did on his own, just to be like,

539
00:29:45,520 --> 00:29:46,680
Speaker 1: this is how I would have done it.

540
00:29:46,840 --> 00:29:49,360
Speaker 2: But no, you can't have this, Michael. You're correct. Michael

541
00:29:49,440 --> 00:29:53,240
Speaker 2: wanted Prince to do it with him on Bad, Yeah,

542
00:29:53,280 --> 00:29:57,040
Speaker 2: and Prince was like, no, but if I did, here's

543
00:29:57,080 --> 00:30:00,320
Speaker 2: how it should go. I saw Quincy I Quincy name

544
00:30:00,320 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 2: come up in this as It as It does. Producer

545
00:30:02,600 --> 00:30:04,760
Speaker 2: Quincy Jones set up a meeting between the two in

546
00:30:04,800 --> 00:30:07,920
Speaker 2: the summer of nineteen eighty six. So Michael sent Prince

547
00:30:07,960 --> 00:30:10,200
Speaker 2: a demo. Yes you are you were correct. I don't

548
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 2: know why I'm bothered to correct you, but I have

549
00:30:11,640 --> 00:30:15,080
Speaker 2: now verified this Prince sent Michael. Michael sent Prince an

550
00:30:15,080 --> 00:30:18,360
Speaker 2: early version of Bad and then Prince re recorded virtually

551
00:30:18,400 --> 00:30:23,240
Speaker 2: everything and sent it back. Do you know what? Do

552
00:30:23,280 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 2: you know what Prince's nickname for Michael was No Camille

553
00:30:29,560 --> 00:30:33,360
Speaker 2: Why because that was also the name of Prince's sped

554
00:30:33,440 --> 00:30:38,600
Speaker 2: up tape manipulated female voice. That's what he nicknamed it.

555
00:30:38,640 --> 00:30:41,840
Speaker 2: So he also called called Michael Jackson that it's like

556
00:30:41,920 --> 00:30:43,640
Speaker 2: the rolling. The rest of the Rolling Stones calling Mick

557
00:30:44,320 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 2: Jagger Brenda.

558
00:30:46,160 --> 00:30:50,360
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and didn't Freddie Mercury and Elton John and

559
00:30:50,440 --> 00:30:53,400
Speaker 1: Rod Stewart and all those like early seventies British rock

560
00:30:53,480 --> 00:30:56,560
Speaker 1: like future Sirs all have names for each other also

561
00:30:56,640 --> 00:30:58,080
Speaker 1: that were like also like Brenda.

562
00:30:58,120 --> 00:30:59,520
Speaker 2: I'm trying to remember what they were. They were all

563
00:30:59,600 --> 00:31:03,600
Speaker 2: I don't know, like very upper middle class english woman names.

564
00:31:04,920 --> 00:31:08,800
Speaker 2: Mimsy Purple Rain was not destined to be one of

565
00:31:08,840 --> 00:31:12,120
Speaker 2: these cases, however. This whole situation, though, had its roots

566
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:16,280
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety nine to sharp eyed fans, Prince Snuck

567
00:31:16,880 --> 00:31:20,040
Speaker 2: and the Revolution as a credit line on the cover

568
00:31:20,080 --> 00:31:22,600
Speaker 2: of nineteen ninety nine. Now, of course it was written

569
00:31:22,640 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 2: backwards and in the middle of a weird football shaped

570
00:31:26,280 --> 00:31:28,640
Speaker 2: doodle that was affixed to the eye in his name,

571
00:31:28,840 --> 00:31:30,400
Speaker 2: but it was the first time a backing band had

572
00:31:30,400 --> 00:31:33,280
Speaker 2: been credited on his release. The core of this band,

573
00:31:33,480 --> 00:31:36,479
Speaker 2: Mark Brown, always referred to as Brown Mark on bass,

574
00:31:36,960 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 2: Bobby Z on drums, who I believe God, there's so

575
00:31:40,400 --> 00:31:43,120
Speaker 2: many Davids in the Prince story too, so he related

576
00:31:43,160 --> 00:31:46,560
Speaker 2: to David Z. I think they're brothers. Yes, sorry, I

577
00:31:46,720 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 2: did have this and then forgot to mention this David

578
00:31:49,360 --> 00:31:52,600
Speaker 2: z Is. His real name is David Rifkin. He was

579
00:31:52,640 --> 00:31:56,200
Speaker 2: a member of Lips inc Oh Wow, Funky Town, and

580
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:59,920
Speaker 2: he also produced Fine Young Cannibals, She Drives Me Crazy, Weird.

581
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 2: And he is the eldest of three brothers. His youngest brother,

582
00:32:03,360 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 2: Bobby Ze, was the the original drummer in The Revolution

583
00:32:07,520 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 2: Cool Oh and then keyboardists Matt doctor Fink and Lisa Coleman.

584
00:32:13,520 --> 00:32:15,640
Speaker 2: They had been with the band for years. Bobby z

585
00:32:15,840 --> 00:32:17,960
Speaker 2: and David Fink were part of the very first live

586
00:32:18,000 --> 00:32:20,600
Speaker 2: band that Prince put together to support his first record.

587
00:32:21,040 --> 00:32:23,560
Speaker 2: Promo shots of the Revolution are so hilarious around this

588
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:26,720
Speaker 2: time because the rest of them are in the classic

589
00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:32,880
Speaker 2: day glow, gay pirate, new romantic thing that we associate

590
00:32:32,920 --> 00:32:35,360
Speaker 2: with Prince. And then there's a guy in surgical scrubs

591
00:32:36,760 --> 00:32:40,240
Speaker 2: that so villaged people, and that was Matt doctor Fink.

592
00:32:43,240 --> 00:32:46,560
Speaker 2: So guitarist As Dickerson left the band after nineteen ninety nine.

593
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:48,360
Speaker 2: I've heard it was either that he wanted to strike

594
00:32:48,400 --> 00:32:50,640
Speaker 2: out on his own or he was like a religious

595
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:54,959
Speaker 2: man and increasingly uncomfortable with Prince's horniness. But crucially he

596
00:32:55,000 --> 00:32:58,760
Speaker 2: was replaced by Lisa Coleman's then girlfriend Wendy Melvoyn, and

597
00:32:58,840 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 2: Wendy and Lisa became an enormously crucial to Prince's sound

598
00:33:02,160 --> 00:33:05,080
Speaker 2: for the next few years and the image too. You know,

599
00:33:05,760 --> 00:33:08,520
Speaker 2: Prince was sort of keen to highlight the fact that

600
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:12,720
Speaker 2: there were women who were not entirely closeted, but still

601
00:33:12,760 --> 00:33:17,640
Speaker 2: sort of closeted in his band. Also, Wendy Melvoyn was

602
00:33:17,720 --> 00:33:21,200
Speaker 2: eighteen when she joined Prince's band, so they also weren't

603
00:33:21,240 --> 00:33:23,800
Speaker 2: like particularly clause. As I mentioned earlier, they were kind

604
00:33:23,800 --> 00:33:25,840
Speaker 2: of walking a weird line. Wendy Melvoyn would later tell

605
00:33:25,840 --> 00:33:28,720
Speaker 2: Out Magazine. I just didn't want to be a lesbian musician.

606
00:33:29,000 --> 00:33:31,720
Speaker 2: I felt really uncomfortable with that role. I was already

607
00:33:31,720 --> 00:33:33,840
Speaker 2: fighting being a guitar player in a man's world, and

608
00:33:33,840 --> 00:33:35,600
Speaker 2: then to have that on top of it, it just

609
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,160
Speaker 2: didn't seem like something I could handle. And then Lisa

610
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,000
Speaker 2: would joke with Prince in the Revolution. I think it

611
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:41,720
Speaker 2: was just taken for granted that we were supposed to

612
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:44,400
Speaker 2: be the gay representatives of the band, and being in

613
00:33:44,440 --> 00:33:48,360
Speaker 2: the Revolution often meant more than sitting or playing through

614
00:33:48,480 --> 00:33:53,000
Speaker 2: Prince's famously grueling rehearsals. Brown Mark said, my first assignment.

615
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 2: Before I even picked up a guitar, was in Prince's

616
00:33:55,040 --> 00:33:57,880
Speaker 2: living room. Look at myself in the mirror. Eight hours

617
00:33:57,880 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: a day. He would tell me how to stand. You say, no,

618
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 2: pivot your foot that way, okay, Now turn your cheek

619
00:34:03,800 --> 00:34:06,400
Speaker 2: to do this. Get your shoulder up, bend your shoulder back.

620
00:34:06,880 --> 00:34:09,600
Speaker 2: Prince also made all of the Revolution take ballet lessons

621
00:34:09,640 --> 00:34:12,680
Speaker 2: to prep for being on screen in Purple Rain and

622
00:34:12,719 --> 00:34:18,000
Speaker 2: to dance in the Windows Cry video Fossy I know, yeah, yeah, yeah.

623
00:34:18,440 --> 00:34:21,040
Speaker 2: So Wendy and Lisa are the ones having the sexy

624
00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,520
Speaker 2: dialogue at the beginning of Computer Blue. They're also super

625
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:29,359
Speaker 2: important to Raspberry Beret sometimes it snows in April, and

626
00:34:29,480 --> 00:34:32,520
Speaker 2: also Prince, as we mentioned earlier, would sometimes just slap

627
00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:34,919
Speaker 2: his name on things that they had brought to him

628
00:34:35,960 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 2: as a song. This relationship was also compounded by the

629
00:34:39,480 --> 00:34:43,239
Speaker 2: fact that Prince was dating Wendy Melvoy's sister Susannah for

630
00:34:43,280 --> 00:34:43,880
Speaker 2: a little while.

631
00:34:45,320 --> 00:34:49,040
Speaker 1: Anyway, we mentioned earlier that Purple Rain the album came

632
00:34:49,120 --> 00:34:51,680
Speaker 1: first before the movie, but Prince had been kicking around

633
00:34:51,680 --> 00:34:54,880
Speaker 1: the idea of a film for some time. Lisa Coleman

634
00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:57,560
Speaker 1: told Spin in two thousand and nine the idea of

635
00:34:57,600 --> 00:35:00,360
Speaker 1: doing a movie had been bubbling for years. Prince carried

636
00:35:00,360 --> 00:35:02,960
Speaker 1: a notebook and he'd always come up with little scenarios

637
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:05,360
Speaker 1: on a plane, or on buses or back then in

638
00:35:05,440 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: the occasional station wagon.

639
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:08,919
Speaker 2: I have a motorcycle.

640
00:35:12,880 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: Of course, the way the film came into being was

641
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:19,080
Speaker 1: just a case of princess tremendous self confidence. The Purple

642
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:21,279
Speaker 1: One had been with one management group since the late

643
00:35:21,320 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 1: seventies and would ultimately stay with them until nineteen eighty nine.

644
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 1: But in early nineteen eighty three, their contract was about

645
00:35:27,120 --> 00:35:29,960
Speaker 1: to expire, and one of their team members, Bob Cavallo,

646
00:35:30,360 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: got a call from his associate, Steve Pargnoli, then out

647
00:35:33,680 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: on tour with Prince Carvolo Total Cut magazine. Steve says,

648
00:35:38,480 --> 00:35:41,239
Speaker 1: you're not gonna believe this. Princess will resign with us

649
00:35:41,360 --> 00:35:44,239
Speaker 1: if we get of a motion picture, and this is

650
00:35:44,280 --> 00:35:47,520
Speaker 1: Prince's quote. I want it from a major studio. I

651
00:35:47,560 --> 00:35:50,320
Speaker 1: don't want it from some drug dealer or diamond jeweler

652
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,360
Speaker 1: that you find, and I want my name above the title.

653
00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:57,080
Speaker 2: I was shocked. I thought, Holy Christ, how am I

654
00:35:57,120 --> 00:35:59,000
Speaker 2: going to handle this? Now?

655
00:35:59,040 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 1: We'll cover this in next week's episode. Which focuses on

656
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:03,640
Speaker 1: the film Purple Rain. But the point that I'm trying

657
00:36:03,680 --> 00:36:07,080
Speaker 1: to make here is that Prince was confronting, largely by

658
00:36:07,120 --> 00:36:11,759
Speaker 1: will power, two huge artistic projects, molding and working on

659
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:14,040
Speaker 1: songs with the Revolution for an album that would be

660
00:36:14,040 --> 00:36:18,160
Speaker 1: a companion to a film that he'd only scribbled notebook

661
00:36:18,239 --> 00:36:23,920
Speaker 1: notions of Purple Rain's eventual director, Albert Marknoli recalled Prince

662
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:26,320
Speaker 1: meeting him and saying that he had about one hundred

663
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 1: songs in mind for the film, but as the pair

664
00:36:29,120 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 1: refined the story, eventually the album's nine track sequence was

665
00:36:32,280 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: whittled into place. Wednesday with singer Jill Jones and Electric

666
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:40,760
Speaker 1: Interchorus both made it, but then we're eventually cut. Prince

667
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:43,000
Speaker 1: had also wanted to release Purple Rain with songs from

668
00:36:43,000 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: Morris Day and Apollonia six, but was convinced not to

669
00:36:46,000 --> 00:36:48,239
Speaker 1: release another double app album as a follow up.

670
00:36:48,160 --> 00:36:51,080
Speaker 2: To nineteen ninety nine, which was a double album. Prince

671
00:36:51,120 --> 00:36:54,480
Speaker 2: stopped putting out so much music. Yeah, what was I

672
00:36:54,560 --> 00:36:57,080
Speaker 2: going to say? Your drip is too qwa? That's the Yeah,

673
00:36:57,080 --> 00:36:59,839
Speaker 2: your smoke too tough, You're drip too crazy. They'll kill

674
00:36:59,840 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 2: you for it, Prince, and they almost did. Yeah, man,

675
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:05,960
Speaker 2: I Prince is kind of the embodiment of that tweet.

676
00:37:06,040 --> 00:37:10,240
Speaker 2: That's like like rip to Icarus, but I'm built different, better,

677
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,359
Speaker 2: maybe maybe better than the rip to everyone killed by

678
00:37:14,360 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 2: the gods for their hubris. But I'm different, better, better

679
00:37:17,640 --> 00:37:22,680
Speaker 2: than maybe even the gods. And Prince was correct, like

680
00:37:23,600 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 2: just the balls on that tiny man. Yo, God love him.

681
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:33,640
Speaker 4: As you meditate on that. We'll be right back with

682
00:37:33,719 --> 00:37:36,160
Speaker 4: more too much information after these messages.

683
00:37:40,160 --> 00:37:43,880
Speaker 2: Hello, folks, it's me the mean one, Alex from too

684
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:48,040
Speaker 2: much information. I'm here too. Jordan's here too, for a

685
00:37:48,120 --> 00:37:51,359
Speaker 2: variety of reasons that they're not interesting. Jordan and I have,

686
00:37:52,080 --> 00:37:55,239
Speaker 2: in our quest to make this thing as efficient as

687
00:37:55,239 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 2: possible and justify the enormous amount of time we spend

688
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,040
Speaker 2: on it weekly, have been trying a variety of things,

689
00:38:01,640 --> 00:38:04,759
Speaker 2: and we are now at the begging stage. We're not

690
00:38:04,760 --> 00:38:06,040
Speaker 2: going to do a paywall, We're not going to do

691
00:38:06,080 --> 00:38:09,400
Speaker 2: a Patreon, but what we are going to do is

692
00:38:09,520 --> 00:38:14,720
Speaker 2: drop the I'm told it is pronounced co fee, which

693
00:38:14,719 --> 00:38:18,080
Speaker 2: is sort of a digital tip jar into this episode's description.

694
00:38:18,280 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 2: I know people complain about the ads, but trust us,

695
00:38:20,840 --> 00:38:22,879
Speaker 2: we're not seeing ad revenue and this is a way

696
00:38:22,920 --> 00:38:26,640
Speaker 2: to make it a little more sustainable and let us

697
00:38:26,680 --> 00:38:32,200
Speaker 2: keep doing it. Essentially, if the average monthly listenership of

698
00:38:32,239 --> 00:38:35,839
Speaker 2: this podcast just gave us fifty cents, it would be

699
00:38:35,880 --> 00:38:39,040
Speaker 2: a truly affecting amount of money, And if everyone gave

700
00:38:39,080 --> 00:38:41,960
Speaker 2: a dollar, it would be like life changing for a

701
00:38:41,960 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 2: few months. So that's all there is. We're not doing

702
00:38:44,800 --> 00:38:46,759
Speaker 2: a payroll, We're not doing a Patreon. We're going to

703
00:38:46,840 --> 00:38:49,879
Speaker 2: drop a koffee link in there, and if you feel

704
00:38:49,960 --> 00:38:53,120
Speaker 2: so compelled, you may donate to it and we will

705
00:38:53,160 --> 00:38:56,600
Speaker 2: be ever so grateful and not let it go to

706
00:38:56,640 --> 00:39:01,799
Speaker 2: our heads or affect our work in any way. That

707
00:39:01,960 --> 00:39:13,040
Speaker 2: is all onto our regular scheduled programming. Since Purple raym

708
00:39:13,160 --> 00:39:17,680
Speaker 2: was before the construction of Prince's custom mansion performance recording

709
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 2: basketball court compound Paisley Park, The album was recorded in

710
00:39:23,360 --> 00:39:27,200
Speaker 2: a few different Minneapolis locales. It was a former pet

711
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:30,759
Speaker 2: food warehouse that Prince and the Revolution shared with Morris

712
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,920
Speaker 2: Day in the time at six fifty one Highway seven

713
00:39:34,080 --> 00:39:37,040
Speaker 2: in Saint Louis Park, and then Prince's home studio at

714
00:39:37,080 --> 00:39:39,120
Speaker 2: the place that he lived from nineteen eighty to nineteen

715
00:39:39,160 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 2: eighty five, and also as we'll get to later Minneapolis's

716
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 2: famed First Avenue venue. The sessions were immediately more collaboratively

717
00:39:47,600 --> 00:39:50,320
Speaker 2: minded with the Revolution. It was a very creative time,

718
00:39:50,640 --> 00:39:52,799
Speaker 2: Matt Fink told Pop Matters in two thousand and nine.

719
00:39:53,120 --> 00:39:54,919
Speaker 2: There was a lot of influence and input from band

720
00:39:54,920 --> 00:39:57,359
Speaker 2: members towards what he was doing. He was always open

721
00:39:57,400 --> 00:39:59,960
Speaker 2: to anybody trying to contribute creatively to the process of

722
00:40:00,480 --> 00:40:02,800
Speaker 2: Also cruisell to this time period, as we mentioned earlier,

723
00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 2: is sound engineer Susan Rodgers, who's hired after Prince parted

724
00:40:06,600 --> 00:40:09,680
Speaker 2: ways with his previous engineer. Rogers arrived in Minneapolis from

725
00:40:09,840 --> 00:40:14,160
Speaker 2: la and was tasked first with moving Prince's studio from

726
00:40:14,160 --> 00:40:18,759
Speaker 2: his house into the warehouse. So like, welcome to Minneapolis,

727
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:22,279
Speaker 2: welcome to your new job, move this recording console from

728
00:40:22,320 --> 00:40:25,120
Speaker 2: my apartment into a warehouse, and then set it up

729
00:40:25,160 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 2: all over again. But we're getting ahead of ourselves, or

730
00:40:29,080 --> 00:40:31,200
Speaker 2: are we No. I think we're actually making good time.

731
00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:33,040
Speaker 2: Let's go through these songs.

732
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:35,200
Speaker 1: One of the most important dates in the history of

733
00:40:35,200 --> 00:40:38,600
Speaker 1: Purple Rain is August third, nineteen eighty three, when Prince

734
00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:41,040
Speaker 1: and the Revolution played a benefit show for the Minnesota

735
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:44,400
Speaker 1: Dance Theater Company at the city's first Avenue venue that

736
00:40:44,840 --> 00:40:47,960
Speaker 1: four monty grand Oh my god.

737
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:49,640
Speaker 2: Right, you see if we can do better than that

738
00:40:49,719 --> 00:40:52,640
Speaker 2: on this show, Wow, that is wild.

739
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 1: Four songs from that set, Let's Go Crazy, I Would

740
00:40:56,040 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 1: Die for You Baby, I'm a Star, and Purple Rain,

741
00:40:58,480 --> 00:41:01,320
Speaker 1: were captured by the Record Plants Studio mobile recording truck

742
00:41:01,360 --> 00:41:05,040
Speaker 1: parked outside the venue. But crucially, though the version of

743
00:41:05,080 --> 00:41:07,479
Speaker 1: Let's Go Crazy capture that night is the one heard

744
00:41:07,480 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 1: in the film, it's not the one that wound up

745
00:41:09,680 --> 00:41:12,720
Speaker 1: on the record. Prince reconvened the Revolution at the warehouse

746
00:41:12,760 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: four days later for another go at it. Literally just

747
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:18,680
Speaker 1: setting up in the one hundred by fifty foot room

748
00:41:18,800 --> 00:41:22,120
Speaker 1: with high ceilings and no isolation and wheeling the console

749
00:41:22,160 --> 00:41:23,280
Speaker 1: over to where they were playing.

750
00:41:24,040 --> 00:41:28,440
Speaker 2: Not ideal recording set up. Yeah, Susan was like a yeah,

751
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 2: you know, concrete walls, big cavernous space. But I just

752
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:34,239
Speaker 2: did what he said and made it work.

753
00:41:36,280 --> 00:41:38,160
Speaker 1: Let's Go Crazy was written by Prince to be a

754
00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,879
Speaker 1: catchy single, and he talked in nineteen ninety seven about

755
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:43,480
Speaker 1: having to revise it from the initial draft. As I

756
00:41:43,520 --> 00:41:45,799
Speaker 1: wrote it, Let's Go Crazy was about God and the

757
00:41:45,840 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 1: de elevation of sin, But the problem was that religion

758
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,160
Speaker 1: is a subject is taboo and pop music people think

759
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:54,000
Speaker 1: that the records they release have got to be hip.

760
00:41:54,480 --> 00:41:57,120
Speaker 1: But what I need to do is tell the truth. Obviously,

761
00:41:57,160 --> 00:41:59,160
Speaker 1: he was not a fan of Brian Wilson's God Only

762
00:41:59,200 --> 00:42:01,560
Speaker 1: Knows George Harrison's My Sweet Lord.

763
00:42:01,880 --> 00:42:04,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't know. You do have to

764
00:42:04,480 --> 00:42:09,200
Speaker 2: take Prince with a grain of salt. Yeah, he was everyone,

765
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:11,719
Speaker 2: you know, and people kind of talk about how he

766
00:42:12,280 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 2: almost felt like Wendy. Lisa and and Susan all kind

767
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:19,319
Speaker 2: of talked about how he sort of was that line

768
00:42:19,360 --> 00:42:23,080
Speaker 2: from Mother Night by Kurt Vonneguet is like we are

769
00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:25,440
Speaker 2: what we pretend to be, so we must be careful

770
00:42:25,520 --> 00:42:28,200
Speaker 2: with what we pretend to be. Wow. And they talked

771
00:42:28,239 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 2: about how Prince was just this sweet, shy guy, but

772
00:42:36,160 --> 00:42:40,799
Speaker 2: as he became Prince, he felt more obligated to put

773
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:44,640
Speaker 2: on that persona and that character in public, and you know,

774
00:42:46,680 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 2: maybe to his detriment, because he seemed inscrutable and bizarre

775
00:42:51,120 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 2: and perhaps unintentionally hilarious half the time he was in public.

776
00:42:54,560 --> 00:42:57,160
Speaker 2: But it's just so funny to me that everyone was like, yeah,

777
00:42:57,160 --> 00:43:00,239
Speaker 2: he was just like the quietest nicest little guy as

778
00:43:00,280 --> 00:43:03,040
Speaker 2: a sweet little boy, take me with you. The song

779
00:43:03,120 --> 00:43:06,160
Speaker 2: was originally intended for Vanity, the model musician Prince meant

780
00:43:06,200 --> 00:43:09,960
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty two. Her real name was Denise Catherine Matthews,

781
00:43:09,960 --> 00:43:14,200
Speaker 2: but Prince, after first trying to name her Vagina pronounced

782
00:43:14,440 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 2: Regina Jesus, christened her Vanity, and as was his wont

783
00:43:19,239 --> 00:43:22,480
Speaker 2: began building both a band and an album around her.

784
00:43:23,080 --> 00:43:26,120
Speaker 2: A Nasty Girl was the first Vanity sixth release and

785
00:43:26,160 --> 00:43:28,080
Speaker 2: became a minor hit in September of nineteen eighty two,

786
00:43:28,120 --> 00:43:31,600
Speaker 2: though Vanity was uncomfortable with this sexually explicit music and

787
00:43:31,680 --> 00:43:35,360
Speaker 2: image that Prince was forcing honor so consequently, a year later,

788
00:43:35,480 --> 00:43:38,320
Speaker 2: as they're getting ready to shoot Purple Rain in September

789
00:43:38,360 --> 00:43:41,360
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty three, Vanity abruptly quits the band and

790
00:43:41,400 --> 00:43:44,120
Speaker 2: pulls out of the movie. So Prince held on to

791
00:43:44,239 --> 00:43:47,600
Speaker 2: the song and then reshaped it around the new woman

792
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,880
Speaker 2: that would be taking this role and place, Patricia Kotero

793
00:43:51,280 --> 00:43:55,839
Speaker 2: aka Apollonia and Susan. Rogers said that this was very

794
00:43:55,840 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 2: difficult for Prince because she just said that Apollonia could

795
00:43:58,760 --> 00:44:02,480
Speaker 2: not sing, and said came in and coached her through

796
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:05,759
Speaker 2: it line to line. And the thing that I find

797
00:44:05,840 --> 00:44:08,840
Speaker 2: most hilarious about this whole situation is that Apollonia was

798
00:44:08,920 --> 00:44:13,280
Speaker 2: dating David Lee Roth at the time and I didn't

799
00:44:13,320 --> 00:44:17,520
Speaker 2: know that. Yeah, she told the Sunset Sound Studio they

800
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 2: do like a podcast like live show, and this was

801
00:44:19,600 --> 00:44:22,160
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one, and she said Prince was hell

802
00:44:22,200 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 2: bent on maintaining this illusion that he had discovered her,

803
00:44:26,040 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 2: and when David Lee Roth would send her flowers, it

804
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,239
Speaker 2: made Prince mad. She said, he didn't let me get

805
00:44:32,239 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 2: the flowers. He didn't want me to be seen with

806
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:36,520
Speaker 2: anybody else. He wanted to be the one to discover me.

807
00:44:37,000 --> 00:44:38,680
Speaker 2: Prince was the one that said, don't go out with

808
00:44:38,680 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 2: someone famous in public until the movie settles. And hilariously, Apollonia,

809
00:44:44,120 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 2: in that same bit contends that Prince started doing mid

810
00:44:47,000 --> 00:44:50,320
Speaker 2: air splits from watching David Lee Roth do them in

811
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:54,479
Speaker 2: Van Halen First Wow, Yeah, Hi Yeah.

812
00:44:58,320 --> 00:45:01,720
Speaker 1: Well, with his heart still presumably reeling over the vanity situation,

813
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,640
Speaker 1: Prince got back on the horse during Purple Rain's production.

814
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:09,759
Speaker 1: Following madly in love with new guitarist Wendy Melvoyn's twin sister, Susannah.

815
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:12,480
Speaker 1: She was in a relationship at the time, though, leaving

816
00:45:12,560 --> 00:45:16,240
Speaker 1: Prince to Pine as only Prince could by having flowers

817
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 1: delivered to her house every day for over a year on.

818
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:25,160
Speaker 2: The Iken sent flowers David Lee Roth You cannot Yes.

819
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:28,880
Speaker 1: The track The Beautiful Ones was a last minute replacement

820
00:45:28,920 --> 00:45:32,880
Speaker 1: for the much less subtly titled Electric Intercourse, one of

821
00:45:32,880 --> 00:45:35,480
Speaker 1: the live recordings from the August nineteen eighty three First

822
00:45:35,520 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: Avenue show. Even though both songs were meant to be

823
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:41,880
Speaker 1: a beautiful expression of Prince and Apollonia's character's love story

824
00:45:41,880 --> 00:45:44,839
Speaker 1: in the film, once Prince came up with The Beautiful Ones,

825
00:45:44,880 --> 00:45:47,359
Speaker 1: it became clear by his own admission that the song

826
00:45:47,440 --> 00:45:50,480
Speaker 1: was a better fit. Vanity would later claim the song

827
00:45:50,520 --> 00:45:52,879
Speaker 1: and been written about her, but Prince shot her down,

828
00:45:53,080 --> 00:45:55,480
Speaker 1: saying the love triangle in the song is about his

829
00:45:55,600 --> 00:45:59,600
Speaker 1: character Apollonia and Morris Day, Prince's chief musical rival in

830
00:45:59,600 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 1: the film. No, you can't have this song. Yeah, this

831
00:46:02,640 --> 00:46:09,080
Speaker 1: song is. Yes, it is about Morris Day. We'll get

832
00:46:09,080 --> 00:46:11,560
Speaker 1: into Morris Day in the time the next next episode.

833
00:46:11,640 --> 00:46:14,360
Speaker 1: I just did not shove it into this one. Computer

834
00:46:14,400 --> 00:46:17,439
Speaker 1: Blue actually started life as a warehouse jam session. Matt

835
00:46:17,480 --> 00:46:20,000
Speaker 1: Fink started playing a bass synth line, and the rest

836
00:46:20,000 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: of the band just joined in and started jamming on it.

837
00:46:22,560 --> 00:46:24,960
Speaker 1: Susan Rodgers was there to or David z was there

838
00:46:25,000 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: to record, and uh then Prince came back like as

839
00:46:29,200 --> 00:46:32,359
Speaker 1: again as was his Wont came back the following day

840
00:46:32,560 --> 00:46:37,200
Speaker 1: and just re recorded the whole thing himself. But it's

841
00:46:37,239 --> 00:46:39,640
Speaker 1: cool because it has one very personal touch that's kind

842
00:46:39,680 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 1: of a Russian nesting doll. The guitar solo in Computer

843
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:47,640
Speaker 1: Blue is based on a song that Prince's dad wrote,

844
00:46:48,040 --> 00:46:51,480
Speaker 1: Oh Yeah. He had reappeared in Prince's life around this

845
00:46:51,560 --> 00:46:54,440
Speaker 1: time and was often seen hanging at the at the

846
00:46:54,480 --> 00:46:58,839
Speaker 1: warehouse or the live shows and the movie shoots and

847
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,360
Speaker 1: Prince plays the this tune on piano in the film,

848
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:05,000
Speaker 1: but he just transferred the melody over to guitar for

849
00:47:05,080 --> 00:47:07,279
Speaker 1: the recorded version of Computer Blue, and that's why his

850
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:09,239
Speaker 1: dad has a writing credit on the song, which I

851
00:47:09,239 --> 00:47:11,040
Speaker 1: think is just so so cute.

852
00:47:11,719 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 2: Computer Blue, as we mentioned earlier, is also known for

853
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:17,959
Speaker 2: its weird spoken word section between Wendy Melvoy and Lisa Coleman.

854
00:47:19,400 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 1: Wendy, Yes, Lisa is the water warm enough?

855
00:47:25,880 --> 00:47:32,520
Speaker 3: Yes, Lisa, shall we begin? Yes Lisa.

856
00:47:33,160 --> 00:47:35,720
Speaker 2: For Spin's oral history of Purple Rain. In two thousand

857
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 2: and nine, Lisa Coleman said, I don't know what it means.

858
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:40,879
Speaker 2: Prince handed us a piece of paper and said, will

859
00:47:40,920 --> 00:47:43,040
Speaker 2: you guys go out there and say this? I didn't

860
00:47:43,040 --> 00:47:46,000
Speaker 2: think twice. Wendy Melvoy added, we had no idea that

861
00:47:46,000 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 2: it had some weird psycho sexual connotations. Now it's like

862
00:47:49,200 --> 00:47:52,080
Speaker 2: some odd tagline for us. I roll my eyes because

863
00:47:52,080 --> 00:47:54,000
Speaker 2: some people say it like I've never heard it before.

864
00:47:56,000 --> 00:47:58,200
Speaker 2: If you meet Wendy Melvoy and do not ask her

865
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 2: if the water is warm enough yet, just a horrible

866
00:48:02,680 --> 00:48:05,640
Speaker 2: weird thing to ask a woman in public period a stranger,

867
00:48:05,719 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 2: it is. Some versions of this song were twelve to

868
00:48:10,040 --> 00:48:13,120
Speaker 2: fourteen minutes in length, but it was cutting down to

869
00:48:13,440 --> 00:48:15,880
Speaker 2: seven and a half minutes a tight seven and a

870
00:48:15,920 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 2: half minutes when two late era additions to the Purple Rain,

871
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,480
Speaker 2: take Me with You and When Doves Cry were added.

872
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 2: The twelve minute plus version of the song, which features

873
00:48:26,640 --> 00:48:30,560
Speaker 2: another spoken word track where Prince likens emotions to different

874
00:48:30,640 --> 00:48:32,920
Speaker 2: rooms of a house, is out referred to it as

875
00:48:33,080 --> 00:48:38,440
Speaker 2: Prince Hallway speech. As the Hallway speech, what room is

876
00:48:38,440 --> 00:48:41,120
Speaker 2: is sadness. I believe it is the hallway. I don't know,

877
00:48:41,160 --> 00:48:45,160
Speaker 2: I will now have to skip through this entire thing. Oh,

878
00:48:45,680 --> 00:48:46,760
Speaker 2: I have it on genius.

879
00:48:47,160 --> 00:48:49,520
Speaker 1: He didn't like living home alone. The house really lived

880
00:48:49,520 --> 00:48:51,480
Speaker 1: at many hallways. It was a long walk to his

881
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:55,240
Speaker 1: bedroom because the him, each hallway represented an emotion, everyone

882
00:48:55,360 --> 00:48:58,160
Speaker 1: vastly different from the next. One day, while she was

883
00:48:58,160 --> 00:49:00,240
Speaker 1: with him, he decided to name each one of them.

884
00:49:00,440 --> 00:49:02,680
Speaker 1: She was at his side, one hand on his thigh.

885
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:05,399
Speaker 1: No wait, she was sort of half a step behind him.

886
00:49:05,560 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 2: Yeah.

887
00:49:06,200 --> 00:49:09,040
Speaker 1: The grip on his thigh intensified. As they walked slowly

888
00:49:09,080 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 1: through the corridor, he named the hallway lust, and as

889
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,320
Speaker 1: they passed through the next one, he named it fear.

890
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,359
Speaker 1: The grip she now loosened, so he walked faster. Her

891
00:49:17,400 --> 00:49:20,200
Speaker 1: hands now trembling, she let drop to her side. As

892
00:49:20,200 --> 00:49:23,280
Speaker 1: he wrote the word insecurity. He looked in her eyes

893
00:49:23,320 --> 00:49:26,440
Speaker 1: and smiled a demon smile, and quickly walked on to

894
00:49:26,560 --> 00:49:30,000
Speaker 1: the next corridor. Walked on to the next corridor. After corridor,

895
00:49:30,560 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 1: he named almost all. When he suddenly stopped. He picked

896
00:49:33,920 --> 00:49:37,000
Speaker 1: up the word hate. She was gone. Oh, so he

897
00:49:37,080 --> 00:49:43,959
Speaker 1: picked up the last one, pain, oh pain, Okay. Brackets solo.

898
00:49:45,880 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 2: I in my personal headcanon have this now image of

899
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:54,000
Speaker 2: Prince walking, nay running through a s of a series

900
00:49:54,040 --> 00:49:56,360
Speaker 2: of doors with a woman a La Scooby Doo to

901
00:49:56,400 --> 00:50:03,680
Speaker 2: the set of yaks as scribbling various words like insecurity, hate, pain,

902
00:50:08,239 --> 00:50:14,520
Speaker 2: is Chelsea boots and ruffles custom made guitar soloing wildly

903
00:50:14,920 --> 00:50:19,320
Speaker 2: with another hand as he's writing because it's Prince custom

904
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:23,560
Speaker 2: a guitar that spells pain. We'll also cover the cloud

905
00:50:23,600 --> 00:50:27,680
Speaker 2: guitar next episode four. Rubes thought I wasn't going to

906
00:50:27,719 --> 00:50:31,480
Speaker 2: get to the guitars. Oh, how wrong you were. Bring

907
00:50:31,480 --> 00:50:32,879
Speaker 2: it well.

908
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,600
Speaker 1: Now we're going to talk about Darling Nicki, my favorite track.

909
00:50:35,680 --> 00:50:38,720
Speaker 1: I'd have to say on this christ I'm so basic.

910
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:40,839
Speaker 1: I just go for the title. The title cut man,

911
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,080
Speaker 1: that's you know this is gonna make you sad. That's

912
00:50:44,080 --> 00:50:46,080
Speaker 1: actually one of my least favorite songs on the album.

913
00:50:46,160 --> 00:50:47,879
Speaker 2: Do you not love emotions?

914
00:50:48,280 --> 00:50:53,560
Speaker 1: I mean no, not these days, my friends, Now, I

915
00:50:53,600 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 1: don't very much. No, give me, give me Darling Nicki

916
00:50:57,840 --> 00:51:00,640
Speaker 1: any day, or let's go crazy fair for all the

917
00:51:00,680 --> 00:51:04,000
Speaker 1: controversy it would cause later. Darling Nicky had humble beginnings

918
00:51:04,000 --> 00:51:06,759
Speaker 1: as a basement track Prince finished at home when his

919
00:51:06,800 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 1: new engineer Susan Rodgers showed up, presumably sore from moving

920
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:13,360
Speaker 1: his console around. He simply handed her the tape and

921
00:51:13,400 --> 00:51:13,840
Speaker 1: told her to.

922
00:51:13,800 --> 00:51:14,800
Speaker 2: Get a rough mix together.

923
00:51:15,760 --> 00:51:17,919
Speaker 1: In the Purple Rain film, you'll remember that the song

924
00:51:18,000 --> 00:51:20,960
Speaker 1: is directed towards Apollonio's character when she decides to work

925
00:51:21,000 --> 00:51:24,960
Speaker 1: with Prince's character's rival played by Morris Day. But that's

926
00:51:25,000 --> 00:51:27,400
Speaker 1: not how it would be remembered after eleven year old

927
00:51:27,480 --> 00:51:30,800
Speaker 1: Karina Gore made the rookie move of listening to Purple

928
00:51:30,880 --> 00:51:33,359
Speaker 1: Rain in her mother's earshot in nineteen eighty four.

929
00:51:33,560 --> 00:51:36,960
Speaker 2: Karina Gore is kind of an unnecessarily metal name.

930
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:41,040
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, that name is far too cool

931
00:51:41,040 --> 00:51:45,799
Speaker 1: to be coming from Alan Tipper Gore. Uh. Karina Gore's mom,

932
00:51:45,840 --> 00:51:49,600
Speaker 1: Tipper Gore, wife of Democratic Tennessee Senator Al Gore, overheard

933
00:51:49,600 --> 00:51:52,440
Speaker 1: the lyrics to Darling Nicky, which famously make reference to

934
00:51:52,480 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 1: the titular character quote masturbating with a magazine.

935
00:51:56,880 --> 00:52:01,760
Speaker 2: Now I've never understood, as I don't believe it's clear

936
00:52:01,880 --> 00:52:05,439
Speaker 2: as to whether it was a tool or inspiration. Thank you, Yeah,

937
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:07,600
Speaker 2: that was my question. Okay, thank you, thank you. Okay.

938
00:52:08,360 --> 00:52:11,760
Speaker 1: This launched one of the stupidest moral panics of the eighties,

939
00:52:11,840 --> 00:52:15,680
Speaker 1: the Parents Music Resource Center, convened by Gore with her

940
00:52:15,680 --> 00:52:18,600
Speaker 1: friend Susan Baker, wife of then Secretary of the Treasury.

941
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:20,960
Speaker 1: I don't know the man's name, doesn't matter.

942
00:52:21,200 --> 00:52:23,800
Speaker 2: Just important to know that, you know, as de Snyder

943
00:52:23,840 --> 00:52:28,680
Speaker 2: Frank in one of the VH one countdowns, like these

944
00:52:28,719 --> 00:52:32,640
Speaker 2: wives got together and persuaded their husbands, and he'd like us.

945
00:52:32,719 --> 00:52:34,760
Speaker 2: His eyes get wide and he uses scare quotes.

946
00:52:37,320 --> 00:52:41,880
Speaker 1: So the group assembled a list of the quote Filthy fifteen,

947
00:52:42,120 --> 00:52:44,960
Speaker 1: a playlist's worth of songs that they deemed indicative of

948
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:48,320
Speaker 1: the moral rot that America's musicians were trying to breed

949
00:52:48,360 --> 00:52:52,080
Speaker 1: in the nation's youth via their lyrics. Prince actually held

950
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:54,920
Speaker 1: the number one and number two slots, with both Darling

951
00:52:55,040 --> 00:52:57,320
Speaker 1: Nikki and a Song You've written for She and Easton

952
00:52:57,480 --> 00:53:00,839
Speaker 1: Sugar Walls. I Love Sugar Walls. That song rip No

953
00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:05,440
Speaker 1: but No but but Sadly. Vanity strap On Robbie Baby,

954
00:53:05,480 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: a song from her solo album written about her vibrator,

955
00:53:08,400 --> 00:53:10,800
Speaker 1: also made the list, but was not written by Prince,

956
00:53:11,640 --> 00:53:14,439
Speaker 1: thus denying him the Filthy fifteen hat trick.

957
00:53:15,120 --> 00:53:18,920
Speaker 2: Imagine had he had a full fifth of the Filthy

958
00:53:19,200 --> 00:53:22,399
Speaker 2: fifteen the power. Yes.

959
00:53:22,680 --> 00:53:26,879
Speaker 1: Yeah, and as you mentioned, as anyone who tuned into

960
00:53:26,920 --> 00:53:28,920
Speaker 1: VH one at any point during the aughts will know.

961
00:53:29,080 --> 00:53:31,359
Speaker 1: The Senate hearing is convened that the behest of the

962
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:35,799
Speaker 1: Parents Music Resource Center PMRC brought together strange bedfellows from

963
00:53:35,840 --> 00:53:38,040
Speaker 1: across the music industry to fight the organization.

964
00:53:38,800 --> 00:53:39,240
Speaker 2: You mentioned.

965
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:42,960
Speaker 1: D Snyder of Twist's Sister, Jello Biaffro of The Dead

966
00:53:43,080 --> 00:53:46,200
Speaker 1: Kennedy's I Forgot About That, and Frank Zappa were all

967
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:50,840
Speaker 1: joined by John Denver, who opposed censorship in all its forms.

968
00:53:51,360 --> 00:53:55,600
Speaker 1: Frank Zappa offered a typically caustic rejonder to the group's efforts,

969
00:53:55,640 --> 00:53:58,280
Speaker 1: saying that it was quote the equivalent of treating dandruff

970
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:02,319
Speaker 1: by decapitation, further adding that the proceedings were quote an

971
00:54:02,320 --> 00:54:05,399
Speaker 1: ill conceived piece of nonsense which fails to deliver any

972
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,680
Speaker 1: real benefit to children, but infringes the civil liberties of

973
00:54:08,719 --> 00:54:10,040
Speaker 1: people who are not children.

974
00:54:10,480 --> 00:54:14,040
Speaker 2: Frank he ran to this soaurus when he got mad. Yeah,

975
00:54:14,280 --> 00:54:16,400
Speaker 2: you know, like so many of his quotes, of these

976
00:54:16,440 --> 00:54:19,640
Speaker 2: elaborate dressing downs. It's like you sat and thought that

977
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:21,280
Speaker 2: one out. You didn't pull that out of your pocket.

978
00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:25,240
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, The only material chains. That the PMRC resulted

979
00:54:25,280 --> 00:54:27,640
Speaker 2: in was the parental advisory stickers to be placed on

980
00:54:27,680 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 2: albums with lyrical material deemed unsafe for children, the design

981
00:54:31,480 --> 00:54:34,640
Speaker 2: of which would become one of the hardest of all time.

982
00:54:35,480 --> 00:54:38,000
Speaker 2: Of course, many musicians suggested the obvious, which was that

983
00:54:38,040 --> 00:54:41,440
Speaker 2: these stickers suddenly began attracting young people to the records

984
00:54:41,440 --> 00:54:44,600
Speaker 2: they were supposed to be prohibited from buying, simply because

985
00:54:44,680 --> 00:54:48,719
Speaker 2: they were now confirmed to be dangerous, instead of the

986
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:54,360
Speaker 2: mere implication, whereas iced Tea would later wrap much more succinctly, Hey, PMRC,

987
00:54:54,680 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 2: use stupid files. The sticker on the record is what

988
00:54:57,560 --> 00:54:59,760
Speaker 2: makes them sell gold. Is that what's called a slant

989
00:54:59,800 --> 00:55:07,000
Speaker 2: ry it is actually perhaps most hilariously, a guy named

990
00:55:07,040 --> 00:55:10,920
Speaker 2: Joe Stoucy had presented a talk on back masking recovered

991
00:55:10,920 --> 00:55:14,279
Speaker 2: back masking before. It is the practice of bands and

992
00:55:14,440 --> 00:55:18,279
Speaker 2: musicians allegedly inserting subliminal messaging into songs that are only

993
00:55:18,360 --> 00:55:20,680
Speaker 2: heard when the record is played backwards. So this guy,

994
00:55:20,760 --> 00:55:24,360
Speaker 2: Joe Steucy, does a presentation on back masking during the

995
00:55:24,360 --> 00:55:28,080
Speaker 2: PMRC hearings, but he failed to mention that Darling Nikki

996
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:32,640
Speaker 2: actually contains intentional and purposeful back Masking At three point

997
00:55:32,640 --> 00:55:36,360
Speaker 2: forty two, there's backwards sounding dialogue by Prince that is

998
00:55:36,440 --> 00:55:39,480
Speaker 2: just repetitions and variations on the line Hello, how are you?

999
00:55:39,960 --> 00:55:42,640
Speaker 2: And fine fine because I know that the Lord is

1000
00:55:42,640 --> 00:55:46,920
Speaker 2: coming soon. And engineer Susan Rogers told tapeop that Prince

1001
00:55:46,960 --> 00:55:49,759
Speaker 2: had a complex relationship with sex. He had a father

1002
00:55:49,880 --> 00:55:52,440
Speaker 2: was a jazz musician, very religious, and his father had

1003
00:55:52,440 --> 00:55:56,040
Speaker 2: a very strong anti sex views. So when Prince would

1004
00:55:56,040 --> 00:55:59,080
Speaker 2: have a strong statement of lust like the song Darling Nicki,

1005
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:02,160
Speaker 2: it's usually fall by some sort of exorcism like forgive me,

1006
00:56:02,560 --> 00:56:05,759
Speaker 2: get this out of me. Backmasking, she said, was his

1007
00:56:05,800 --> 00:56:08,400
Speaker 2: way of asking for forgiveness for having lust in his

1008
00:56:08,520 --> 00:56:10,480
Speaker 2: heart and doing it in a way that was artistic.

1009
00:56:10,960 --> 00:56:13,319
Speaker 1: When Prince became a Jehovah's witness in two thousand and one,

1010
00:56:13,400 --> 00:56:15,560
Speaker 1: he actually shelved this song for a long time, and

1011
00:56:15,600 --> 00:56:18,080
Speaker 1: he didn't play it live again until six years later

1012
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:20,359
Speaker 1: in two thousand and seven. Now we're got to talk

1013
00:56:20,360 --> 00:56:23,840
Speaker 1: about When Doves Cried. Despite being one of Prince's signature songs,

1014
00:56:24,160 --> 00:56:26,759
Speaker 1: it wasn't recorded until the film was actually in its

1015
00:56:26,920 --> 00:56:31,440
Speaker 1: editing stage. Princess breakup with Apollonius six. Singer Susan Moonsey

1016
00:56:31,680 --> 00:56:34,120
Speaker 1: inspired the tune and he was so insistent on its

1017
00:56:34,120 --> 00:56:37,200
Speaker 1: inclusion that they had to add an extra montage scene

1018
00:56:37,239 --> 00:56:40,000
Speaker 1: the slotted in, although you've also read that it was

1019
00:56:40,040 --> 00:56:42,720
Speaker 1: the other way around, and the film's director Albert Magnoli

1020
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:45,520
Speaker 1: said that he told Prince that he needed an extra song,

1021
00:56:45,560 --> 00:56:48,879
Speaker 1: and Prince delivered too, the other being God a track

1022
00:56:48,920 --> 00:56:50,800
Speaker 1: that ended up as Purple Rains b side.

1023
00:56:51,080 --> 00:56:53,960
Speaker 2: Your mileage may vary. I just think it's so good, Prince,

1024
00:56:53,960 --> 00:57:00,359
Speaker 2: any an extra attack, here's two. You're also so you're

1025
00:57:00,360 --> 00:57:02,600
Speaker 2: in the editing stage of this movie. I'm just gonna

1026
00:57:02,640 --> 00:57:06,759
Speaker 2: drop one of the hardest songs ever casually and find

1027
00:57:06,800 --> 00:57:09,160
Speaker 2: a way to work on end. Thanks. Yeah, appreciate it.

1028
00:57:10,120 --> 00:57:12,080
Speaker 2: I'll need to see dailies later. Yeah.

1029
00:57:12,239 --> 00:57:16,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, either way, Prince and Susan Rodgers, his engineer, had

1030
00:57:16,840 --> 00:57:20,520
Speaker 1: already spent something like thirty hours toying with the track

1031
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:22,840
Speaker 1: when Doves Cry before he decided to strip it down

1032
00:57:22,880 --> 00:57:24,120
Speaker 1: those constituent parts.

1033
00:57:24,440 --> 00:57:28,040
Speaker 2: I believe the timeline of this is that he, like

1034
00:57:28,480 --> 00:57:31,280
Speaker 2: the director, asked him for this, and he wrote two

1035
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:34,280
Speaker 2: of them in a day and then spent like the

1036
00:57:34,320 --> 00:57:38,200
Speaker 2: next day with Susan Rogers around with Win Doves Cry.

1037
00:57:38,560 --> 00:57:40,160
Speaker 2: So it was just like a two or three day

1038
00:57:40,240 --> 00:57:44,320
Speaker 2: process to deliver those songs fully formed and insist that

1039
00:57:44,360 --> 00:57:48,240
Speaker 2: they'd be slotted into a movie that was almost edited fully.

1040
00:57:50,200 --> 00:57:53,479
Speaker 1: Susan Rodgers, Prince's engineer, told The Guardian, we would work

1041
00:57:53,560 --> 00:57:57,240
Speaker 1: fast and quietly, without speaking. He would record the drums

1042
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:00,120
Speaker 1: from top to bottom, listening to nothing, just the song

1043
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:02,919
Speaker 1: in his head. Next thing, he'd play the bass part,

1044
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:05,840
Speaker 1: and the keyboard part, the rhythm part, then his vocals

1045
00:58:05,880 --> 00:58:09,320
Speaker 1: alone in the control room. But she continued, he'd get

1046
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 1: really quiet, and that's when he started getting rid of things.

1047
00:58:12,440 --> 00:58:15,160
Speaker 1: He stripped down the whole top line and then changed

1048
00:58:15,200 --> 00:58:17,040
Speaker 1: the tempo with the tape machine to see if it

1049
00:58:17,080 --> 00:58:18,880
Speaker 1: was going to work better, slower or faster.

1050
00:58:19,160 --> 00:58:21,360
Speaker 2: Top line is the vocal melody of a song. When

1051
00:58:21,400 --> 00:58:23,920
Speaker 2: people talk about top lining demos, they're talking about putting

1052
00:58:24,000 --> 00:58:27,280
Speaker 2: a original. In some cases, many versions of an original

1053
00:58:27,280 --> 00:58:31,120
Speaker 2: melody over bed tracks. Yeah, Prince was crazy for the

1054
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:35,040
Speaker 2: tape machine. There's the whole Camille thing, and apparently there

1055
00:58:35,040 --> 00:58:37,600
Speaker 2: is an entire album of Camille songs coming out. I

1056
00:58:37,760 --> 00:58:41,280
Speaker 2: just saw that it was a forthcoming posthumous album called Camille.

1057
00:58:42,640 --> 00:58:43,720
Speaker 2: You can hear some of that on some of the

1058
00:58:43,720 --> 00:58:46,400
Speaker 2: different albums. There's one he does on the Black album

1059
00:58:46,560 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 2: and then he does another one. I think she also

1060
00:58:51,080 --> 00:58:55,600
Speaker 2: sings on one part of signing the song on Sign

1061
00:58:55,640 --> 00:58:58,919
Speaker 2: of the Time somewhere. But yeah. So Prince was listening

1062
00:58:58,960 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 2: to playback of When Else Cry with his backing vocalist

1063
00:59:02,120 --> 00:59:05,280
Speaker 2: Jill Jones sitting next to him. Fun fact, Jill Jones

1064
00:59:05,280 --> 00:59:07,240
Speaker 2: and Lisa Coleman were supposed to sing on Baby I'm

1065
00:59:07,240 --> 00:59:09,680
Speaker 2: a Star, but Prince got annoyed with them at one

1066
00:59:09,720 --> 00:59:11,720
Speaker 2: point because they were giggling, so he kicked them out

1067
00:59:11,800 --> 00:59:13,800
Speaker 2: and finished the song with his own voice layered in,

1068
00:59:13,920 --> 00:59:15,880
Speaker 2: and you can actually hear it on the track. The

1069
00:59:15,920 --> 00:59:18,640
Speaker 2: point at which he stopped using their vocals and started

1070
00:59:18,720 --> 00:59:23,920
Speaker 2: using his own incredible. So. In a nineteen ninety nine

1071
00:59:24,000 --> 00:59:27,720
Speaker 2: interview with bass Player magazine, Prince said that he made

1072
00:59:27,800 --> 00:59:31,160
Speaker 2: the last minute change to the famous last minute decision

1073
00:59:31,160 --> 00:59:33,840
Speaker 2: to strip the bass track out because the sound was

1074
00:59:34,040 --> 00:59:37,080
Speaker 2: just too conventional like every other song with drums and

1075
00:59:37,120 --> 00:59:41,520
Speaker 2: bass and keyboards, and Prince said he told Jill Jones,

1076
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:44,000
Speaker 2: if I could have my way, it would sound like

1077
00:59:44,040 --> 00:59:46,640
Speaker 2: this and played it without the bass track, and she

1078
00:59:46,720 --> 00:59:50,560
Speaker 2: answered him gnostically, why don't you have it your way, Prince,

1079
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:55,600
Speaker 2: Why don't you cleanse yourselves from freshing waters of Lake Minutetonka.

1080
00:59:56,440 --> 01:00:00,439
Speaker 2: And the rest of it is proverbial history. Good enough.

1081
01:00:00,480 --> 01:00:02,240
Speaker 2: This song just it does have a bassline that you

1082
01:00:02,320 --> 01:00:04,600
Speaker 2: can now hear online. It's not that it was recorded.

1083
01:00:04,600 --> 01:00:06,200
Speaker 2: It was just muted for the final mix, so it

1084
01:00:06,240 --> 01:00:08,920
Speaker 2: exists on the multi track tape. The other bit of

1085
01:00:08,920 --> 01:00:11,600
Speaker 2: studio geekery in this song, in particular, is that Prince

1086
01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:14,760
Speaker 2: used the time Honor George Martin in My Life method

1087
01:00:15,080 --> 01:00:18,760
Speaker 2: of playing something that you physically cannot play at half

1088
01:00:18,760 --> 01:00:22,000
Speaker 2: speed and then using tape to speed it up. Of course,

1089
01:00:22,040 --> 01:00:24,960
Speaker 2: he did not extend this luxury to the Revolution's keyboardist,

1090
01:00:25,000 --> 01:00:28,240
Speaker 2: the aforementioned Matt doctor Fink, who then had to play

1091
01:00:28,240 --> 01:00:31,440
Speaker 2: the song's two solos, which are something like thirty second

1092
01:00:31,560 --> 01:00:35,160
Speaker 2: notes at whatever the tempo is. For this, I had

1093
01:00:35,200 --> 01:00:37,840
Speaker 2: to play them live, and he talked about like whatever.

1094
01:00:37,880 --> 01:00:40,400
Speaker 2: We played that song live and it came time for

1095
01:00:40,440 --> 01:00:42,480
Speaker 2: the solos, Prince would look over at me like, yeah,

1096
01:00:42,480 --> 01:00:43,240
Speaker 2: I did that to you.

1097
01:00:47,760 --> 01:00:51,960
Speaker 1: Session player in Novi Navogue an incredible name Yeah played

1098
01:00:51,960 --> 01:00:54,680
Speaker 1: electric viola on this track, and she recalled to uncut

1099
01:00:54,720 --> 01:00:56,640
Speaker 1: how Prince used her first take. She said, I was

1100
01:00:56,680 --> 01:00:59,160
Speaker 1: just learning the song. I said, oh, let me tee

1101
01:00:59,200 --> 01:01:01,520
Speaker 1: that part again. He said, no, no, I like that feel.

1102
01:01:01,960 --> 01:01:03,160
Speaker 1: He loved first takes.

1103
01:01:03,920 --> 01:01:06,520
Speaker 2: It's bontanaity baby. Best take is I've found is the

1104
01:01:06,560 --> 01:01:11,680
Speaker 2: third interesting? And then you're just dry humping. You never

1105
01:01:11,760 --> 01:01:16,400
Speaker 2: do more than five. One of Prince's biggest supporters of

1106
01:01:16,400 --> 01:01:20,480
Speaker 2: Warner was then promoter for Black Radio, Mary lou Badeaux,

1107
01:01:20,880 --> 01:01:24,840
Speaker 2: and she said that Prince threw Warner, who already didn't

1108
01:01:24,880 --> 01:01:27,240
Speaker 2: know what to do with him, an even larger than

1109
01:01:27,320 --> 01:01:31,400
Speaker 2: usual curveball when he delivered Win Doves Cry, a baseless,

1110
01:01:31,640 --> 01:01:35,760
Speaker 2: spartan icy song, and said this is the lead single.

1111
01:01:37,040 --> 01:01:39,040
Speaker 2: What the f do we do with this? She recalled

1112
01:01:39,080 --> 01:01:43,320
Speaker 2: some execs saying radio will never accept this. Obviously they

1113
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:45,840
Speaker 2: were wrong, as we'll get into the numbers later. But

1114
01:01:46,080 --> 01:01:49,360
Speaker 2: when does Cry number one hit? You ever heard the

1115
01:01:49,440 --> 01:01:53,720
Speaker 2: Metallica cover? No, It's one of the worst things I've

1116
01:01:53,760 --> 01:01:55,959
Speaker 2: ever heard in my life. When did they do that?

1117
01:01:56,480 --> 01:02:00,240
Speaker 2: Right after he died? It was It's Kirk Hammett, Kirk

1118
01:02:00,280 --> 01:02:03,880
Speaker 2: Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo do this thing at Metallica

1119
01:02:03,920 --> 01:02:06,320
Speaker 2: shows where they just like Lars Arek and James Headfield

1120
01:02:06,440 --> 01:02:09,800
Speaker 2: like leave the stage and the other two just like

1121
01:02:09,840 --> 01:02:12,720
Speaker 2: sit there and noodle and do like your own little versions.

1122
01:02:13,400 --> 01:02:17,160
Speaker 1: Oh this kind of sounds familiar now, and uh.

1123
01:02:17,800 --> 01:02:19,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, they did it. You gotta punch it in, man,

1124
01:02:20,040 --> 01:02:24,040
Speaker 2: because it's, first of all, it's hilarious for them forcing

1125
01:02:24,200 --> 01:02:28,360
Speaker 2: a Metallica crowd to listen to wind Dove's cry and

1126
01:02:28,400 --> 01:02:31,480
Speaker 2: then it is just the most bass tone and like

1127
01:02:31,920 --> 01:02:37,640
Speaker 2: chud knuckle dragging bullshit. And I think at one point,

1128
01:02:37,680 --> 01:02:40,640
Speaker 2: if I'm remembering this correctly, Robert Trio like tries to

1129
01:02:40,640 --> 01:02:42,800
Speaker 2: give the crowd like that you sing the wind Doves

1130
01:02:42,800 --> 01:02:47,120
Speaker 2: cry apart and there's just like baffled applause. Dude, this

1131
01:02:47,200 --> 01:02:50,920
Speaker 2: sounds like elementary school musicians like practicing before they have

1132
01:02:50,960 --> 01:02:53,320
Speaker 2: a drummer, Like the first guy you know with a

1133
01:02:53,360 --> 01:02:56,560
Speaker 2: bass you invite him over and you're like, yeah, man,

1134
01:02:56,640 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 2: like let's jam and.

1135
01:02:57,680 --> 01:03:01,840
Speaker 1: It's just Robin Kirk's doodle. It's actually on the Metallica

1136
01:03:01,960 --> 01:03:02,800
Speaker 1: YouTube channel.

1137
01:03:03,120 --> 01:03:31,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, let's see if you picture.

1138
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:37,720
Speaker 2: You and I your gage swear, have you bad?

1139
01:03:37,920 --> 01:03:43,600
Speaker 3: You talk with me? You dad Ji.

1140
01:03:45,280 --> 01:03:52,479
Speaker 2: Warrior fat, you look like Christopher walking a deer hunter.

1141
01:03:52,640 --> 01:03:56,000
Speaker 2: Having listened to that, I think when Stereo Gum posted

1142
01:03:56,000 --> 01:03:58,760
Speaker 2: this originally they titled it this is what it sounds

1143
01:03:58,800 --> 01:04:00,200
Speaker 2: like when lugs.

1144
01:04:03,560 --> 01:04:06,040
Speaker 4: As you meditate on that. We'll be right back with

1145
01:04:06,080 --> 01:04:08,520
Speaker 4: more too much information after these messages.

1146
01:04:19,720 --> 01:04:22,400
Speaker 2: So, as we mentioned earlier, three album tracks Purple Rain,

1147
01:04:22,520 --> 01:04:24,320
Speaker 2: I Would Die for You, and Baby I'm a Star

1148
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:28,400
Speaker 2: We're all recorded live during one heroic set in Minneapolis's

1149
01:04:28,480 --> 01:04:32,000
Speaker 2: First Avenue. Before getting into the majesty of the title

1150
01:04:32,040 --> 01:04:33,960
Speaker 2: track of the album, let's hear a bit about how

1151
01:04:33,960 --> 01:04:37,360
Speaker 2: that night went. Engineer David Z had known Prince from

1152
01:04:37,400 --> 01:04:39,920
Speaker 2: the early days. As we mentioned earlier, he had an

1153
01:04:39,920 --> 01:04:43,240
Speaker 2: older brother named Cliff Rifkin, who is a regional promotion

1154
01:04:43,320 --> 01:04:47,440
Speaker 2: executive for Warners in Minneapolis helped grease the wheels Prince's

1155
01:04:47,520 --> 01:04:50,520
Speaker 2: assent to the label. David Z's older brother, Cliff Rifkin,

1156
01:04:50,640 --> 01:04:53,880
Speaker 2: was a regional promo exec for Warners in Minneapolis who

1157
01:04:53,880 --> 01:04:57,080
Speaker 2: had facilitated Princess signing to the label, and his younger brother,

1158
01:04:57,120 --> 01:05:01,200
Speaker 2: Bobby Z, was Prince's drummer in the Revolution so used

1159
01:05:01,240 --> 01:05:05,000
Speaker 2: to rolling with Prince's punches, David simply prepared himself when

1160
01:05:05,040 --> 01:05:07,240
Speaker 2: Prince told him to get ready to record the band's

1161
01:05:07,240 --> 01:05:10,040
Speaker 2: live set. Susan Rodgers had been hired by Prince but

1162
01:05:10,080 --> 01:05:13,080
Speaker 2: had not yet moved to Minneapolis, so Prince's manager, guy

1163
01:05:13,120 --> 01:05:17,200
Speaker 2: named Alan Leeds, secured the Record Plants mobile recording studio

1164
01:05:17,480 --> 01:05:21,400
Speaker 2: simply known as the Black Truck, and it came with

1165
01:05:21,520 --> 01:05:24,080
Speaker 2: not just state of the art equipment, but two engineers,

1166
01:05:24,240 --> 01:05:27,840
Speaker 2: Dave Hewitt and a guy named Koster McAllister. I'm getting

1167
01:05:27,840 --> 01:05:29,680
Speaker 2: all this from I think sound on Sound where they

1168
01:05:29,720 --> 01:05:31,720
Speaker 2: really get into the nitty gritty the recording stuff or

1169
01:05:31,760 --> 01:05:34,439
Speaker 2: no mix online. But at the bottom of the article,

1170
01:05:34,520 --> 01:05:37,200
Speaker 2: people are like, there are a lot of David's in

1171
01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:40,000
Speaker 2: Prince's orbit around now, and not all of these people

1172
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:44,560
Speaker 2: could agree that they were there that night, so this

1173
01:05:44,680 --> 01:05:47,760
Speaker 2: is just a kind of melunge. They set up everything

1174
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:50,560
Speaker 2: pretty bare bones, he says. The band was just listening

1175
01:05:50,560 --> 01:05:52,240
Speaker 2: to their mix through the monitors.

1176
01:05:52,440 --> 01:05:52,680
Speaker 4: You know.

1177
01:05:52,720 --> 01:05:54,840
Speaker 2: It was just kind of the live setting, your classic

1178
01:05:54,880 --> 01:05:57,320
Speaker 2: sure zone and guitar rams and all this stuff. The

1179
01:05:57,360 --> 01:06:00,800
Speaker 2: Prince was at this time apparently running two rum machines

1180
01:06:01,000 --> 01:06:05,560
Speaker 2: throughout the entire show, like one would just be the

1181
01:06:05,560 --> 01:06:08,560
Speaker 2: playback that Bobby was listening to keep everything on tempo,

1182
01:06:08,880 --> 01:06:10,520
Speaker 2: and then there was a separate one that he could

1183
01:06:10,560 --> 01:06:14,360
Speaker 2: trigger with a sample pad, which is insane for nineteen

1184
01:06:14,400 --> 01:06:16,560
Speaker 2: eighty three that he was putting people through this. We

1185
01:06:16,600 --> 01:06:19,720
Speaker 2: also talk a lot about recording trucks on this show.

1186
01:06:19,920 --> 01:06:20,480
Speaker 2: Is that correct?

1187
01:06:20,520 --> 01:06:20,640
Speaker 1: Oh?

1188
01:06:20,760 --> 01:06:23,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, we do. We talked about Neil Young's record truck.

1189
01:06:23,880 --> 01:06:26,040
Speaker 2: I think we then got to a discussion about the

1190
01:06:26,040 --> 01:06:29,040
Speaker 2: guy from Boston's truck that they parked outside of his

1191
01:06:29,080 --> 01:06:32,240
Speaker 2: apartment because he refused to record anywhere else. I have

1192
01:06:32,320 --> 01:06:33,800
Speaker 2: to you know, what I have to assume put them

1193
01:06:33,800 --> 01:06:35,920
Speaker 2: out of business was the invention of the solid state

1194
01:06:36,000 --> 01:06:39,000
Speaker 2: and or digital boards, because that meant that venues could

1195
01:06:39,000 --> 01:06:41,080
Speaker 2: afford their own and just start recording the house mixes.

1196
01:06:42,880 --> 01:06:46,000
Speaker 2: I think the first recording on a solid state console

1197
01:06:46,520 --> 01:06:50,600
Speaker 2: is ry Cooter Bop until You Drop in nineteen eighty

1198
01:06:50,720 --> 01:06:51,800
Speaker 2: Make of that what you will.

1199
01:06:52,640 --> 01:06:55,200
Speaker 1: Recording during a live show meant that all three engineers

1200
01:06:55,240 --> 01:06:56,919
Speaker 1: had to keep an eye on the levels and ride

1201
01:06:56,920 --> 01:06:59,800
Speaker 1: the faders as the set progressed. Even a band thus

1202
01:06:59,800 --> 01:07:02,600
Speaker 1: type rehearsed as The Revolution would have had consistent volume

1203
01:07:02,680 --> 01:07:05,400
Speaker 1: levels in mind while playing to a packed club, it

1204
01:07:05,440 --> 01:07:07,840
Speaker 1: must have been nerve racking and somewhat miserable, both in

1205
01:07:07,880 --> 01:07:10,760
Speaker 1: the club and the truck. Bobby Z told The Guardian

1206
01:07:10,880 --> 01:07:13,920
Speaker 1: that day at First Avenue it was ninety degrees a humid,

1207
01:07:13,920 --> 01:07:17,240
Speaker 1: wet August, cigarette smoke everywhere. It was a battle to

1208
01:07:17,280 --> 01:07:19,520
Speaker 1: get through and it was kind of forging metal in

1209
01:07:19,560 --> 01:07:22,760
Speaker 1: hot conditions. But things went off smoothly, and David Z

1210
01:07:22,960 --> 01:07:25,400
Speaker 1: remembered a particularly memorable scene from the end of the night.

1211
01:07:25,920 --> 01:07:28,040
Speaker 1: Prince drove up to the truck after the show and

1212
01:07:28,080 --> 01:07:31,120
Speaker 1: asked how it sounded. He's talking to mix online. I

1213
01:07:31,160 --> 01:07:33,240
Speaker 1: was about to answer when a girl wearing a raincoat

1214
01:07:33,280 --> 01:07:35,840
Speaker 1: and nothing else stepped off the curb and flashed Prince.

1215
01:07:36,120 --> 01:07:38,560
Speaker 1: Then he drove away. That was pretty much our post

1216
01:07:38,600 --> 01:07:43,040
Speaker 1: recording conversation. It was like a Fellini movie. One fun

1217
01:07:43,080 --> 01:07:47,400
Speaker 1: tidbit from the overdubed session at Las Sunset Sound some

1218
01:07:47,440 --> 01:07:49,960
Speaker 1: of the weird sounds heard just before the verse verse

1219
01:07:49,960 --> 01:07:52,840
Speaker 1: of the song could be snare symbol hits played in reverse,

1220
01:07:53,280 --> 01:07:55,560
Speaker 1: but the studio engineer said they could also just be

1221
01:07:55,640 --> 01:08:00,040
Speaker 1: Prince scatting. He often added onomopoetic effects as layers, and

1222
01:08:00,040 --> 01:08:02,760
Speaker 1: he was tracking vocals just so funny.

1223
01:08:02,600 --> 01:08:04,520
Speaker 2: And he did these. He did his vocal takes in

1224
01:08:04,600 --> 01:08:08,200
Speaker 2: the control room. They just put an annoyment, a U

1225
01:08:08,280 --> 01:08:11,480
Speaker 2: forty seven, an annoyment Telefunken. They put a U forty seven

1226
01:08:11,880 --> 01:08:14,280
Speaker 2: on a boom stand over the recording console, and he

1227
01:08:14,280 --> 01:08:16,280
Speaker 2: would just stand in the room with the engineer and

1228
01:08:16,320 --> 01:08:20,080
Speaker 2: do take after take of comps and other layers. So

1229
01:08:20,120 --> 01:08:21,840
Speaker 2: you just imagine being in this room with Prince and

1230
01:08:21,840 --> 01:08:24,160
Speaker 2: you're hearing this like insane vocal parts, and then he

1231
01:08:24,240 --> 01:08:30,200
Speaker 2: just rewinds it back and just goes, what does ever

1232
01:08:30,680 --> 01:08:34,880
Speaker 2: take after take after take, like he's a genius, all right.

1233
01:08:34,920 --> 01:08:40,160
Speaker 2: Onto the titular song. Purple Rain got its titular. My favorite,

1234
01:08:40,160 --> 01:08:42,360
Speaker 2: No No No was just not my favorite. Oh okay,

1235
01:08:42,400 --> 01:08:43,639
Speaker 2: Onto the eponymous song.

1236
01:08:45,280 --> 01:08:47,360
Speaker 1: The song itself is not one of my favorites.

1237
01:08:47,760 --> 01:08:50,240
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, idiot. Purple Wayne got a start during the

1238
01:08:50,320 --> 01:08:53,920
Speaker 2: tour for nineteen ninety nine, which coincidentally saw Prince in

1239
01:08:53,960 --> 01:08:57,519
Speaker 2: the Revolution hit a lot of cities. I think right

1240
01:08:57,600 --> 01:09:01,439
Speaker 2: after Bob Seger had just blown through town, like they

1241
01:09:01,439 --> 01:09:04,080
Speaker 2: were on the same route, but Bob Seger was like

1242
01:09:04,120 --> 01:09:06,280
Speaker 2: two or three days ahead. Of them something like that,

1243
01:09:06,920 --> 01:09:10,160
Speaker 2: and Matt doctor Fink remembers talking to Prince on the

1244
01:09:10,200 --> 01:09:13,000
Speaker 2: bus at one point and Prince was just like, did

1245
01:09:13,040 --> 01:09:18,120
Speaker 2: not understand Bob Seeger's appeal, And Matt Fink was like, well,

1246
01:09:18,120 --> 01:09:21,000
Speaker 2: you know, secers got those big power ballots like turn

1247
01:09:21,080 --> 01:09:24,160
Speaker 2: the page or We've got Tonight. It really stirs people.

1248
01:09:25,080 --> 01:09:27,639
Speaker 2: And that seeded the idea in Prince's mind of writing

1249
01:09:27,640 --> 01:09:30,000
Speaker 2: something similar. But when you listen to the version of

1250
01:09:30,000 --> 01:09:32,920
Speaker 2: Purple Rain that's released on this piano and a microphone

1251
01:09:32,920 --> 01:09:36,240
Speaker 2: album that I mentioned earlier, it just sounds like the

1252
01:09:36,280 --> 01:09:40,479
Speaker 2: barest thumbnail sketch. At that point. He has the verse melody,

1253
01:09:40,640 --> 01:09:42,960
Speaker 2: he has the chorus, and then he just kind of

1254
01:09:43,040 --> 01:09:48,320
Speaker 2: dicks around on piano like very very unfinished Italy. And

1255
01:09:48,360 --> 01:09:50,719
Speaker 2: so as he went through these successive iterations, he began

1256
01:09:50,760 --> 01:09:53,519
Speaker 2: to fear that he had inadvertently copied the chord progression

1257
01:09:53,520 --> 01:09:57,200
Speaker 2: to Journeys Faithfully, which had been a monster smash in

1258
01:09:57,240 --> 01:10:00,960
Speaker 2: April of nineteen eighty three. So he called Columbia and

1259
01:10:01,040 --> 01:10:04,320
Speaker 2: asked them to connect him with Jonathan Kane, Journey's keyboardist,

1260
01:10:04,400 --> 01:10:07,679
Speaker 2: who had written the song. Prince played him the song

1261
01:10:07,840 --> 01:10:10,719
Speaker 2: Purple Rain on the piano over the phone and said

1262
01:10:10,880 --> 01:10:13,439
Speaker 2: these core changes are close to faithfully and I don't

1263
01:10:13,479 --> 01:10:16,439
Speaker 2: want you to sue me. This apparently hadn't even crossed

1264
01:10:16,479 --> 01:10:19,519
Speaker 2: Kane's mind. He had later recalled telling Prince that he

1265
01:10:19,560 --> 01:10:21,600
Speaker 2: was flattered he'd even gotten a call. He said it

1266
01:10:21,640 --> 01:10:24,080
Speaker 2: was a classy move, and then he said, good luck

1267
01:10:24,080 --> 01:10:26,000
Speaker 2: with the song. I know it's going to be a hit.

1268
01:10:26,800 --> 01:10:27,479
Speaker 2: Very classy.

1269
01:10:28,200 --> 01:10:30,920
Speaker 1: There is, however, yet another eighties icon who was involved

1270
01:10:30,920 --> 01:10:34,280
Speaker 1: with Purple Rain, Stevie Nicks. She and Prince had just

1271
01:10:34,320 --> 01:10:37,639
Speaker 1: worked together on stand Back from her album The Wild Heart,

1272
01:10:37,880 --> 01:10:40,120
Speaker 1: and she claimed to have written that song by improvising

1273
01:10:40,160 --> 01:10:42,759
Speaker 1: a melody while listening to Little Red Corvette on the radio.

1274
01:10:43,280 --> 01:10:45,000
Speaker 1: So when it came time to record it, she asked

1275
01:10:45,000 --> 01:10:47,559
Speaker 1: Prince to come in and play on the song. You

1276
01:10:47,600 --> 01:10:49,920
Speaker 1: say he either played up synth or he came in

1277
01:10:49,960 --> 01:10:51,880
Speaker 1: and programmed the drum machine and added a bunch of

1278
01:10:51,960 --> 01:10:53,839
Speaker 1: other stuff, depending on who's telling the story.

1279
01:10:54,120 --> 01:10:57,960
Speaker 2: Yeah, so Stevie Niggs and her keyboard is and I

1280
01:10:58,080 --> 01:11:03,800
Speaker 2: think H. David Iovini was the engineer on this. I

1281
01:11:03,840 --> 01:11:06,000
Speaker 2: think they said like Prince came in and just like

1282
01:11:06,760 --> 01:11:09,080
Speaker 2: doodled on keys for a while and that was his contribution,

1283
01:11:09,120 --> 01:11:12,200
Speaker 2: and the keyboarders was like he only added one part. Prince,

1284
01:11:12,240 --> 01:11:16,040
Speaker 2: in his telling, said that Stevie and Jimmy Ivini couldn't

1285
01:11:16,040 --> 01:11:18,840
Speaker 2: figure out how to program the drum machines, and so

1286
01:11:18,960 --> 01:11:20,960
Speaker 2: Prince came in programmed a drum machine for the whole

1287
01:11:20,960 --> 01:11:23,920
Speaker 2: song and then just hung out and kept tracking over it.

1288
01:11:24,840 --> 01:11:27,760
Speaker 2: So you know, whichever version you prefer, take that one

1289
01:11:27,800 --> 01:11:32,000
Speaker 2: to heart, which one lives in your heart, Definitely the

1290
01:11:32,080 --> 01:11:34,120
Speaker 2: version where he just came in and took over everything,

1291
01:11:35,360 --> 01:11:37,120
Speaker 2: because it's funny when you listen. I mean, one of

1292
01:11:37,120 --> 01:11:39,439
Speaker 2: the other quotes that Stevie has given about this was like,

1293
01:11:39,760 --> 01:11:42,160
Speaker 2: you know, I was in a pretty bad drug phase

1294
01:11:42,200 --> 01:11:45,200
Speaker 2: at the time, so it's just like, yeah, she might

1295
01:11:45,240 --> 01:11:47,080
Speaker 2: have just been snowblind, like off in the court of

1296
01:11:47,200 --> 01:11:49,479
Speaker 2: just watching Prince work as he just kind of came

1297
01:11:49,520 --> 01:11:52,439
Speaker 2: in and silently bullied her in Jimmy Iovini into letting

1298
01:11:52,479 --> 01:11:54,240
Speaker 2: him play all over their song.

1299
01:11:55,120 --> 01:11:57,120
Speaker 1: So as Prince toyed with Purple Rain, he sent the

1300
01:11:57,160 --> 01:11:59,519
Speaker 1: ten minute instrumental version of Stevie to ask her to

1301
01:11:59,520 --> 01:12:03,240
Speaker 1: write lyric and she basically caved. She told The Guardian

1302
01:12:03,280 --> 01:12:05,880
Speaker 1: it was so overwhelming that ten minute track. I listened

1303
01:12:05,880 --> 01:12:08,320
Speaker 1: to it and I just got scared. I called him

1304
01:12:08,320 --> 01:12:10,479
Speaker 1: back and said, I can't do it. I wish I could.

1305
01:12:10,640 --> 01:12:12,800
Speaker 1: It's just too much for me. And I'm so glad

1306
01:12:12,840 --> 01:12:16,679
Speaker 1: I didn't because he wrote it and it became Purple Rain. Later,

1307
01:12:16,720 --> 01:12:19,160
Speaker 1: Stevie would walk out of the premiere at Grahlman's Chinese

1308
01:12:19,160 --> 01:12:21,280
Speaker 1: theater of the Purple Rain movie over the scene where

1309
01:12:21,320 --> 01:12:25,519
Speaker 1: Prince slaps Apollonia. When she told Prince, he chastised her,

1310
01:12:25,920 --> 01:12:27,560
Speaker 1: saying that it would have made sense.

1311
01:12:27,360 --> 01:12:30,960
Speaker 2: If she had finished the movie such a power move. Yeah,

1312
01:12:31,000 --> 01:12:33,120
Speaker 2: I didn't like that scene where you hit someone, where

1313
01:12:33,120 --> 01:12:35,519
Speaker 2: you hit a woman, and Prince going, you should have stayed.

1314
01:12:35,520 --> 01:12:39,680
Speaker 2: It would have made sense. Even after all this, the

1315
01:12:39,720 --> 01:12:42,559
Speaker 2: song wasn't done evolving. Keyboardist Lisa Coleman told The Guardian

1316
01:12:42,560 --> 01:12:44,479
Speaker 2: that Prince was still thinking of it as quote a

1317
01:12:44,600 --> 01:12:48,800
Speaker 2: country song. Wendy Melvoyn joined the band once again at

1318
01:12:48,880 --> 01:12:53,360
Speaker 2: eighteen years old on guitar. One day, he decided to

1319
01:12:53,400 --> 01:12:56,320
Speaker 2: fool around with it at rehearsal. Coleman said Wendy started

1320
01:12:56,360 --> 01:12:59,080
Speaker 2: hitting these big chords and that rejigged his idea of

1321
01:12:59,120 --> 01:13:01,839
Speaker 2: the song. He was excited to hear it voiced differently.

1322
01:13:02,040 --> 01:13:04,160
Speaker 2: It took it out of that country feeling. Then we

1323
01:13:04,200 --> 01:13:05,960
Speaker 2: all started playing it a bit harder and taking it

1324
01:13:06,000 --> 01:13:09,040
Speaker 2: more seriously. We played it for six hours straight and

1325
01:13:09,080 --> 01:13:10,880
Speaker 2: by the end of that day we had it mostly

1326
01:13:10,880 --> 01:13:13,840
Speaker 2: written and arranged. Drummer Bobby ze who says he was

1327
01:13:13,880 --> 01:13:16,599
Speaker 2: basically just doing an impression of Led Zeppelin. Drummer John

1328
01:13:16,640 --> 01:13:20,599
Speaker 2: Bonham once the song kicks in, remembers it similarly says

1329
01:13:20,600 --> 01:13:22,480
Speaker 2: Purple Rain was brought in at the end of rehearsal.

1330
01:13:22,600 --> 01:13:25,000
Speaker 2: We had just gone through the set twice and Prince said,

1331
01:13:25,040 --> 01:13:27,280
Speaker 2: I want to try something before we go home. It's

1332
01:13:27,360 --> 01:13:31,439
Speaker 2: mellow once again. First Avenue, Oh I didn't. I actually

1333
01:13:31,479 --> 01:13:35,200
Speaker 2: didn't mention this earlier. The first Avenue show, the one

1334
01:13:35,200 --> 01:13:38,320
Speaker 2: that was recorded and multiple tracks of which formed the

1335
01:13:38,320 --> 01:13:42,839
Speaker 2: bedrock of the Purple Rain album, was Wendy Melvoin's first

1336
01:13:42,880 --> 01:13:47,639
Speaker 2: live set with the band. So that immortal Purple Rain

1337
01:13:47,720 --> 01:13:51,240
Speaker 2: intro that she does with all these crazy spread voicing

1338
01:13:51,640 --> 01:13:56,120
Speaker 2: fingersplaying jazz chords was her live debut with the band.

1339
01:13:56,680 --> 01:13:59,120
Speaker 2: She recorded it with a Rickenbacker guitar with the f

1340
01:13:59,200 --> 01:14:03,120
Speaker 2: holes taped over to prevent feedback into the legendary boss

1341
01:14:03,280 --> 01:14:05,880
Speaker 2: ce one chorus pedal, which is one of the most

1342
01:14:06,000 --> 01:14:10,240
Speaker 2: recorded guitar pedals of the nineteen eighties. Prince was famously

1343
01:14:10,280 --> 01:14:12,800
Speaker 2: a boss guy. Did you know this? Oh yeah, when

1344
01:14:12,800 --> 01:14:14,679
Speaker 2: someone showed his pedal board at a show. It wasn't

1345
01:14:14,720 --> 01:14:17,840
Speaker 2: one of these crazy shoegaze rack things that you would imagine,

1346
01:14:18,080 --> 01:14:19,880
Speaker 2: I'm like that I have, or you would imagine like

1347
01:14:19,920 --> 01:14:22,400
Speaker 2: my bloody Valentine or having. It was just like the

1348
01:14:22,439 --> 01:14:25,639
Speaker 2: size of a small briefcase and it was all Boss pedals.

1349
01:14:26,200 --> 01:14:28,880
Speaker 2: A boss for non guitar pedal nerds are like some

1350
01:14:28,920 --> 01:14:31,160
Speaker 2: of the sturdiest pedals you can buy. You can change

1351
01:14:31,160 --> 01:14:35,120
Speaker 2: a tire with them. But entry to mid level. That

1352
01:14:35,200 --> 01:14:38,439
Speaker 2: guitar and a copy that Melvoyne had were both stolen

1353
01:14:38,479 --> 01:14:41,560
Speaker 2: from her studio one point, which brings us to this episode.

1354
01:14:41,760 --> 01:14:45,439
Speaker 2: It belongs in a museum. Wendy was still talking about

1355
01:14:45,439 --> 01:14:46,720
Speaker 2: this as the top of this year. I think it

1356
01:14:46,760 --> 01:14:48,800
Speaker 2: was a January twenty four interview where she was like,

1357
01:14:48,880 --> 01:14:53,040
Speaker 2: I still go on Craigslist, eBay, used gear sites looking

1358
01:14:53,080 --> 01:14:56,439
Speaker 2: for those stolen guitars. She gives a great in depth

1359
01:14:56,560 --> 01:15:01,400
Speaker 2: playthrough and interview to I think it's premier guitar where

1360
01:15:01,439 --> 01:15:05,080
Speaker 2: she just like is sitting down playing the Purple Rain part,

1361
01:15:05,800 --> 01:15:08,320
Speaker 2: and she was talking about how Prince showed them this

1362
01:15:08,479 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 2: on the piano using mostly just triads and then her

1363
01:15:12,520 --> 01:15:17,320
Speaker 2: finger stretching jazzy intro is all in the upper chord

1364
01:15:17,320 --> 01:15:20,120
Speaker 2: extensions and which she calls the blue notes, and Prince

1365
01:15:20,200 --> 01:15:22,559
Speaker 2: loved it. There are live videos not just from the

1366
01:15:22,560 --> 01:15:24,920
Speaker 2: first Avenue show, but from other shows around this time

1367
01:15:24,960 --> 01:15:29,320
Speaker 2: where he just like walks around the stage seemingly overcome

1368
01:15:29,360 --> 01:15:32,439
Speaker 2: with emotion as Wendy and the band just circle around

1369
01:15:32,439 --> 01:15:36,400
Speaker 2: that chord progression for minutes at a clip before he

1370
01:15:36,439 --> 01:15:39,679
Speaker 2: gets to the first line. Prince overdubbed extra tracks onto

1371
01:15:39,680 --> 01:15:43,080
Speaker 2: Purple Rain at Sunset Sound as well. I found this

1372
01:15:43,479 --> 01:15:45,559
Speaker 2: via this guy named Nate Johnson. He has a site

1373
01:15:45,600 --> 01:15:49,720
Speaker 2: called chops Angelus, which is medium good and he just

1374
01:15:49,800 --> 01:15:53,360
Speaker 2: goes around a bunch of la icons and so he

1375
01:15:53,800 --> 01:15:56,559
Speaker 2: did a tourist studio sound and he doesn't name the guy.

1376
01:15:56,560 --> 01:15:58,920
Speaker 2: He says it's the studio manager, and that's a guy

1377
01:15:59,000 --> 01:16:01,680
Speaker 2: named Paul, the owner, guy named Paul Camarado, but he

1378
01:16:01,680 --> 01:16:03,920
Speaker 2: doesn't name him. The article and he says this guy

1379
01:16:03,960 --> 01:16:08,559
Speaker 2: confirmed a long standing Prince rumor about recording Purple Rain.

1380
01:16:08,680 --> 01:16:13,160
Speaker 2: At Sunset's down, Prince asked him to go get purple sheets,

1381
01:16:13,400 --> 01:16:17,040
Speaker 2: purple pillowcases, and a purple bedspread to go on the

1382
01:16:17,080 --> 01:16:20,320
Speaker 2: bed that Prince had brought into the studio so that

1383
01:16:20,360 --> 01:16:23,400
Speaker 2: he could lay down and rework lyrics when the mood

1384
01:16:23,400 --> 01:16:27,639
Speaker 2: struck him. So let's get the numbers out of the way.

1385
01:16:28,120 --> 01:16:30,840
Speaker 2: Purple Rain was released on June twenty fifth, nineteen eighty four,

1386
01:16:31,000 --> 01:16:34,200
Speaker 2: a month before the film came out. It became Prince's

1387
01:16:34,200 --> 01:16:36,599
Speaker 2: first album to reach number one on the Billboard two hundred,

1388
01:16:37,280 --> 01:16:40,960
Speaker 2: spent twenty four consecutive weeks just under half a year

1389
01:16:41,600 --> 01:16:44,879
Speaker 2: up there at the Billboard two hundred, and was present

1390
01:16:45,000 --> 01:16:48,799
Speaker 2: on the chart for one hundred and sixty seven weeks total,

1391
01:16:49,960 --> 01:16:52,559
Speaker 2: when Doves Cry and Let's Go Crazy reached number one

1392
01:16:52,600 --> 01:16:55,040
Speaker 2: on the Billboard Hot one hundred, while Purple Rain peaked

1393
01:16:55,040 --> 01:16:57,759
Speaker 2: at number two and I Would Die For You peaked

1394
01:16:57,760 --> 01:17:00,920
Speaker 2: at number eight. When Dove's Cry of Course Famously to

1395
01:17:01,040 --> 01:17:04,960
Speaker 2: Me kept Bruce Springsteen's Dancing in the Dark from ascending

1396
01:17:04,960 --> 01:17:07,080
Speaker 2: to the number one position, which would have been Bruce's

1397
01:17:07,080 --> 01:17:09,720
Speaker 2: only number one hit. In May of nineteen ninety six,

1398
01:17:09,720 --> 01:17:14,000
Speaker 2: Purple Rain was certified thirteen times platinum by the RIBLE

1399
01:17:14,040 --> 01:17:17,639
Speaker 2: A Recording Industry Association of America. It has sold twenty

1400
01:17:17,680 --> 01:17:21,040
Speaker 2: five million copies internationally, and bear in mind this figure

1401
01:17:21,120 --> 01:17:24,559
Speaker 2: is from two thousand and five, so that's almost certainly

1402
01:17:24,600 --> 01:17:27,280
Speaker 2: more now. I don't I think they just stopped counting.

1403
01:17:27,360 --> 01:17:30,200
Speaker 2: It's gotta be like thirty in the thirty million range

1404
01:17:30,200 --> 01:17:33,040
Speaker 2: at this point. Prince of the Revolution won Grammy Awards

1405
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:35,679
Speaker 2: for Best Rock Performance by Duo or Group with Vocal,

1406
01:17:35,960 --> 01:17:39,200
Speaker 2: Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media. Prince also won an

1407
01:17:39,240 --> 01:17:42,040
Speaker 2: OSCAR for Best Original Song Score for the film, and

1408
01:17:42,080 --> 01:17:44,840
Speaker 2: Purple Rain is both in the Grammy Hall of Fame

1409
01:17:44,880 --> 01:17:48,880
Speaker 2: and my Beloved National Recording Archive at the Library of Congress,

1410
01:17:48,920 --> 01:17:56,960
Speaker 2: having been deemed historically significant mothers. The first single from

1411
01:17:56,960 --> 01:17:59,479
Speaker 2: the album, When Doves Cry, came out on May sixteenth,

1412
01:17:59,560 --> 01:18:02,559
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty four. It was Prince's first signal since Let's

1413
01:18:02,560 --> 01:18:05,200
Speaker 2: Pretend Were Married from nineteen ninety nine in November of

1414
01:18:05,280 --> 01:18:09,799
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty three, and its weird alien sound immediately captured

1415
01:18:09,800 --> 01:18:13,000
Speaker 2: the public. The video, which hit MTV the following month,

1416
01:18:13,280 --> 01:18:15,880
Speaker 2: was a similar sensation shot at the A and m

1417
01:18:15,920 --> 01:18:18,360
Speaker 2: Record soundstage in Los Angeles. It was set to be

1418
01:18:18,400 --> 01:18:22,559
Speaker 2: handled by photographer Larry Williams and directed by Apollonia. Before

1419
01:18:22,600 --> 01:18:25,640
Speaker 2: anything was shot, however, Prince told producer Simon Feels that

1420
01:18:25,680 --> 01:18:29,200
Speaker 2: Williams would not be needed, so Williams read magazines outside

1421
01:18:29,240 --> 01:18:33,040
Speaker 2: while Prince directed, choreographed, and starred in the video. Prince

1422
01:18:33,080 --> 01:18:37,120
Speaker 2: was cuckoo, paranoid about letting anyone take control of something

1423
01:18:37,120 --> 01:18:39,759
Speaker 2: once he had in his mind. Sharon Ork, who produced

1424
01:18:39,760 --> 01:18:40,719
Speaker 2: the Wind Doves Cry.

1425
01:18:40,560 --> 01:18:43,439
Speaker 1: Video, said in The Oral History of MTV by Craig

1426
01:18:43,479 --> 01:18:46,799
Speaker 1: Marx and Rob Tannebaum, she asked the director Larry Williams

1427
01:18:46,800 --> 01:18:49,519
Speaker 1: what she could get and was told a stage, a crew,

1428
01:18:49,680 --> 01:18:52,400
Speaker 1: a bunch of cameras, a bunch of smoke, and some doves.

1429
01:18:53,080 --> 01:18:54,840
Speaker 2: The day before we're going to shoot, I was.

1430
01:18:54,800 --> 01:18:57,080
Speaker 1: Told paint a room purple and get a bathtub and

1431
01:18:57,120 --> 01:18:59,680
Speaker 1: some candles, and the bathtub wrangler had to get three

1432
01:18:59,720 --> 01:19:03,280
Speaker 1: baths so Prince could choose. Prince was six hours late

1433
01:19:03,320 --> 01:19:05,880
Speaker 1: for the first day of shooting and would communicate only

1434
01:19:05,920 --> 01:19:08,639
Speaker 1: through Simon Fields. At one point he had a pair

1435
01:19:08,680 --> 01:19:12,080
Speaker 1: of long woolen underwear delivered, which he had wardrobe die

1436
01:19:12,160 --> 01:19:16,320
Speaker 1: purple and fashioned in a small smeedoesque undergarment which he

1437
01:19:16,320 --> 01:19:19,960
Speaker 1: could wear in the bath. According to Lisa Coleman also

1438
01:19:20,000 --> 01:19:22,439
Speaker 1: and I Want My MTV, the video was the first

1439
01:19:22,439 --> 01:19:25,160
Speaker 1: time the band had the perform choreographed dance steps.

1440
01:19:25,560 --> 01:19:27,160
Speaker 2: Prince tortured us in rehearsal.

1441
01:19:27,240 --> 01:19:29,400
Speaker 1: She said, he said, everybody, come to the front of

1442
01:19:29,400 --> 01:19:31,840
Speaker 1: the stage, let me see you walk, and of course

1443
01:19:31,880 --> 01:19:34,679
Speaker 1: he started making fun of us again like Bob Fosse.

1444
01:19:35,160 --> 01:19:39,120
Speaker 2: Yeah. Producer Sharon Rik also related this story in I

1445
01:19:39,200 --> 01:19:42,680
Speaker 2: Want My MTV and I'm going to present it unedited. God,

1446
01:19:42,680 --> 01:19:46,400
Speaker 2: we should put like Brian's music for airports under this.

1447
01:19:47,640 --> 01:19:50,000
Speaker 2: There was a story told at Limelight Productions about an

1448
01:19:50,040 --> 01:19:53,240
Speaker 2: early Prince video. Supposedly, there was a shot where Prince

1449
01:19:53,240 --> 01:19:56,120
Speaker 2: wanted doves released into the air, but the production manager

1450
01:19:56,160 --> 01:19:58,160
Speaker 2: decided not to work with an animal trainer because it

1451
01:19:58,160 --> 01:20:00,560
Speaker 2: was too expensive, so he bought some doves from a

1452
01:20:00,600 --> 01:20:03,120
Speaker 2: local pet store. When it came time to throw the

1453
01:20:03,120 --> 01:20:05,400
Speaker 2: doves into the air, he literally threw them from the

1454
01:20:05,400 --> 01:20:08,400
Speaker 2: stages and they were immediately sucked into a giant fan,

1455
01:20:08,960 --> 01:20:11,519
Speaker 2: chopped up, and then sprayed around the room and all

1456
01:20:11,560 --> 01:20:13,760
Speaker 2: over the band. That was one of the first rock

1457
01:20:13,840 --> 01:20:22,320
Speaker 2: video Legends When Doves Die. God, what a horrifying image,

1458
01:20:22,520 --> 01:20:28,000
Speaker 2: A fine slurry of doves coating a fabulously attired Prince

1459
01:20:28,040 --> 01:20:32,240
Speaker 2: in the Revolution. What do you think dove meat taste like?

1460
01:20:33,160 --> 01:20:33,320
Speaker 1: Oh?

1461
01:20:33,400 --> 01:20:37,240
Speaker 2: God. Helping build momentum for the film was the fact

1462
01:20:37,240 --> 01:20:40,760
Speaker 2: that Prince was resolute about not doing any press. Alan Light,

1463
01:20:40,800 --> 01:20:42,879
Speaker 2: who wrote a book about this specific period of Prince's

1464
01:20:42,880 --> 01:20:46,040
Speaker 2: life called Let's Go Crazy, told NPR in twenty fourteen,

1465
01:20:46,240 --> 01:20:48,439
Speaker 2: we really didn't know much about Prince. He did not

1466
01:20:48,600 --> 01:20:51,040
Speaker 2: do any press. It's amazing to look back and think

1467
01:20:51,080 --> 01:20:54,439
Speaker 2: Prince did not do one interview during the entire Purple

1468
01:20:54,520 --> 01:20:57,679
Speaker 2: Rain cycle. That's nuts. From the time that nineteen ninety

1469
01:20:57,760 --> 01:21:00,479
Speaker 2: nine came out until after a round the World in

1470
01:21:00,479 --> 01:21:03,760
Speaker 2: a Day the next album came out, he did not

1471
01:21:03,880 --> 01:21:08,280
Speaker 2: do one any kind of interview, any kind of press anywhere.

1472
01:21:08,800 --> 01:21:10,920
Speaker 1: So the singles are out, the album's out, the movie

1473
01:21:10,920 --> 01:21:13,320
Speaker 1: comes out, and Prince gets about four months to enjoy

1474
01:21:13,360 --> 01:21:16,320
Speaker 1: it before embarking on the Purple Rain Tour, which began

1475
01:21:16,320 --> 01:21:19,640
Speaker 1: in November nineteen eighty four. Des Dickerson, who left the

1476
01:21:19,680 --> 01:21:22,320
Speaker 1: band just before all this madness, saw Prince on the

1477
01:21:22,400 --> 01:21:24,360
Speaker 1: DC tour and hung out with him after the show.

1478
01:21:24,760 --> 01:21:26,839
Speaker 1: When he was leaving, he told Spin that he invited

1479
01:21:26,840 --> 01:21:29,639
Speaker 1: Prince to go shopping the following day at Georgetown, an

1480
01:21:29,640 --> 01:21:33,200
Speaker 1: old ritual from when the band came through DC. Dickinson remembered.

1481
01:21:33,479 --> 01:21:35,280
Speaker 1: At first he got the smile on his face and

1482
01:21:35,360 --> 01:21:37,840
Speaker 1: was about to say something, but then he stopped. I'll

1483
01:21:37,880 --> 01:21:39,880
Speaker 1: never forget the look in his face changed and his

1484
01:21:39,960 --> 01:21:42,760
Speaker 1: voice dropped, and he said, you know, I can't really

1485
01:21:42,800 --> 01:21:44,599
Speaker 1: go out anymore to.

1486
01:21:44,600 --> 01:21:47,000
Speaker 2: Lighten the mood. It was on the Purple Rain tour

1487
01:21:47,040 --> 01:21:49,559
Speaker 2: that Prince instituted a new tradition for the live band.

1488
01:21:50,240 --> 01:21:53,960
Speaker 2: He would say, hit me insert number of times, which

1489
01:21:54,000 --> 01:21:56,000
Speaker 2: the band would then have to incorporate into the very

1490
01:21:56,040 --> 01:21:58,920
Speaker 2: next bar of music. I think he got this from

1491
01:21:58,960 --> 01:22:03,400
Speaker 2: James Brown. Yeah, bass player Brown Mark. Once again, the

1492
01:22:03,400 --> 01:22:05,320
Speaker 2: man's name is Mark Brown. I want to be very

1493
01:22:05,400 --> 01:22:09,839
Speaker 2: clear about that throughout this episode. Hit me two times

1494
01:22:09,920 --> 01:22:12,559
Speaker 2: is an easy instruction to follow, he said. But when

1495
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:15,000
Speaker 2: he yells hit me twenty five times, we have to

1496
01:22:15,040 --> 01:22:17,800
Speaker 2: do a percussive hit twenty five times, and if we

1497
01:22:17,840 --> 01:22:21,320
Speaker 2: miss one, we are fined one hundred dollars. He got

1498
01:22:21,320 --> 01:22:22,719
Speaker 2: from James Brown. James Bowner.

1499
01:22:22,760 --> 01:22:27,280
Speaker 1: Yeah, besides the suffocating effective movie stardom for the creatively

1500
01:22:27,320 --> 01:22:30,080
Speaker 1: restless Prince, being trapped in one set of songs was

1501
01:22:30,120 --> 01:22:32,479
Speaker 1: his own kind of hell. I nearly had a nervous

1502
01:22:32,520 --> 01:22:34,600
Speaker 1: breakdown on the Purple Rain tour because he was the

1503
01:22:34,640 --> 01:22:37,639
Speaker 1: same every night, Prince told the Chicago Tribune in twenty twelve,

1504
01:22:37,880 --> 01:22:40,360
Speaker 1: adding in a separate interview with Icon, I was doing

1505
01:22:40,439 --> 01:22:43,320
Speaker 1: the seventy fifth show, doing the same thing over and over,

1506
01:22:43,360 --> 01:22:45,559
Speaker 1: and I just lost it. I said, I can't do it.

1507
01:22:45,880 --> 01:22:47,400
Speaker 1: I knew I had to get away from all that.

1508
01:22:48,200 --> 01:22:51,440
Speaker 1: Tour manager Alan Leeds said in Allen Knight's book Creatively,

1509
01:22:51,479 --> 01:22:53,439
Speaker 1: he was over it. I'm sure it was fun playing

1510
01:22:53,439 --> 01:22:55,320
Speaker 1: the music for a while, but this is a guy

1511
01:22:55,320 --> 01:22:58,040
Speaker 1: who never stopped rehearsing. Say they were all tired of

1512
01:22:58,080 --> 01:23:00,800
Speaker 1: playing the songs long before the tour start. They'd been

1513
01:23:00,800 --> 01:23:03,040
Speaker 1: playing them every day in rehearsals for a year, and

1514
01:23:03,080 --> 01:23:05,000
Speaker 1: the crew had been hearing them every day for a year.

1515
01:23:05,320 --> 01:23:08,200
Speaker 2: I cannot imagine. I probably would have put a bullet

1516
01:23:08,240 --> 01:23:12,439
Speaker 2: in my head. Yeah, six hours of rehearsals what daily?

1517
01:23:12,600 --> 01:23:15,760
Speaker 2: Semi daily? Yeah, like three four times a week. I

1518
01:23:15,800 --> 01:23:19,160
Speaker 2: have to assume playing these songs, then going out on

1519
01:23:19,280 --> 01:23:24,320
Speaker 2: tour playing all of these songs. Holy crap. Of course,

1520
01:23:24,479 --> 01:23:28,920
Speaker 2: the show itself was also insane. Two hour and change

1521
01:23:28,960 --> 01:23:32,519
Speaker 2: set an average of six nights a week for six months,

1522
01:23:32,600 --> 01:23:35,400
Speaker 2: with a lone ten day break in the middle, more

1523
01:23:35,439 --> 01:23:40,240
Speaker 2: than one hundred concerts, along with multiple after party charity performances,

1524
01:23:40,320 --> 01:23:43,080
Speaker 2: award shows, and recording sessions. And so it came to

1525
01:23:43,120 --> 01:23:46,280
Speaker 2: pass that on April second, nineteen eighty five, just five

1526
01:23:46,360 --> 01:23:48,320
Speaker 2: days before the tour's final day at the Orange Bowl

1527
01:23:48,360 --> 01:23:51,800
Speaker 2: in Miami, held on Easter Sunday, Prince announced by a

1528
01:23:51,840 --> 01:23:55,400
Speaker 2: statement from his manager, Stephen Fargnoley, that he was withdrawing

1529
01:23:55,479 --> 01:23:58,479
Speaker 2: from the live performance scene for an indefinite period of time,

1530
01:23:59,200 --> 01:24:02,240
Speaker 2: with that Miami concert being his last performance for an

1531
01:24:02,240 --> 01:24:06,400
Speaker 2: indeterminate amount of years. In the statement, Fernoli added, I

1532
01:24:06,439 --> 01:24:09,040
Speaker 2: asked Prince what he planned to do. He told me,

1533
01:24:09,360 --> 01:24:12,120
Speaker 2: I'm going to look for the latter. I asked him

1534
01:24:12,160 --> 01:24:15,240
Speaker 2: what that meant. All he said was sometimes it snows

1535
01:24:15,240 --> 01:24:18,120
Speaker 2: in April, and both of those are Prince lyrics and

1536
01:24:18,240 --> 01:24:20,519
Speaker 2: or Prince titles. And this is where it gets a

1537
01:24:20,520 --> 01:24:23,680
Speaker 2: little sad to me, you know. Although Prince had been

1538
01:24:23,720 --> 01:24:26,519
Speaker 2: with as we mentioned, some members of the Revolution like

1539
01:24:26,640 --> 01:24:30,439
Speaker 2: drummer Bobby Z for nearly a decade, same with Matt

1540
01:24:30,520 --> 01:24:33,960
Speaker 2: doctor Fink. The idea of having a band that was

1541
01:24:34,000 --> 01:24:38,000
Speaker 2: independent of Prince was pretty much a concept with an

1542
01:24:38,040 --> 01:24:41,640
Speaker 2: expiration date from the start. Alan Light told NPR and

1543
01:24:41,680 --> 01:24:44,559
Speaker 2: the aforementioned interview Purple Rain was not an album by Prince.

1544
01:24:44,920 --> 01:24:47,240
Speaker 2: It was an album by Prince and the Revolution, and

1545
01:24:47,280 --> 01:24:49,360
Speaker 2: he made a very clear distinction that he was going

1546
01:24:49,400 --> 01:24:51,880
Speaker 2: to bring the band forward put himself at the center

1547
01:24:51,920 --> 01:24:54,280
Speaker 2: of that. But the fact is, this is a guy

1548
01:24:54,280 --> 01:24:56,640
Speaker 2: who writes and sings and produces and is capable of

1549
01:24:56,720 --> 01:24:59,720
Speaker 2: doing everything himself. So how much actual input he's willing

1550
01:24:59,760 --> 01:25:01,600
Speaker 2: to take from them, how much of that was just

1551
01:25:01,640 --> 01:25:03,880
Speaker 2: about how he could use the band for positioning. How

1552
01:25:03,960 --> 01:25:06,120
Speaker 2: much were they actually a creative force was something that

1553
01:25:06,120 --> 01:25:08,439
Speaker 2: became a source of real tension as the project went on,

1554
01:25:08,680 --> 01:25:11,120
Speaker 2: and as they went out touring and playing stadiums. Where

1555
01:25:11,120 --> 01:25:13,280
Speaker 2: these guys just hired hands or were they actually a

1556
01:25:13,280 --> 01:25:16,400
Speaker 2: real band. That's something that they still struggle with. So

1557
01:25:16,479 --> 01:25:18,439
Speaker 2: byen nineteen eighty six is Hit and Run Tour, which

1558
01:25:18,479 --> 01:25:21,400
Speaker 2: Prince used to promote both under the Cherry Moon and Parade.

1559
01:25:21,680 --> 01:25:25,040
Speaker 2: The band had expanded to include a horn section various others,

1560
01:25:25,320 --> 01:25:27,280
Speaker 2: but the core of the Purple Rain Band had become

1561
01:25:27,320 --> 01:25:30,080
Speaker 2: more and more isolated through tours and releases of each

1562
01:25:30,160 --> 01:25:32,519
Speaker 2: new project. And this is where a Sign of the

1563
01:25:32,560 --> 01:25:35,080
Speaker 2: Times comes in. This was originally supposed to be another

1564
01:25:35,160 --> 01:25:39,200
Speaker 2: Revolution project, and I don't know what percentage through the

1565
01:25:39,200 --> 01:25:42,760
Speaker 2: process that Prince pulled the plug, but it.

1566
01:25:42,680 --> 01:25:44,360
Speaker 1: Was a solo Princes album when it came out in

1567
01:25:44,400 --> 01:25:48,000
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven. Drummer Bobby Z told Yahoo in twenty

1568
01:25:48,080 --> 01:25:51,519
Speaker 1: seventeen that Prince was quote starting to become finally after

1569
01:25:51,520 --> 01:25:54,280
Speaker 1: being a superstar all these years, kind of like, you know,

1570
01:25:54,400 --> 01:25:56,760
Speaker 1: I kind of want to do this myself again. I

1571
01:25:56,800 --> 01:25:58,400
Speaker 1: was kind of getting the sense that we had become

1572
01:25:58,439 --> 01:26:00,880
Speaker 1: such a huge part of his everyday life that he

1573
01:26:00,920 --> 01:26:03,800
Speaker 1: may have, well, we don't know that he was growing

1574
01:26:03,800 --> 01:26:06,360
Speaker 1: a little tired of it. But we're a handful. I mean,

1575
01:26:06,400 --> 01:26:09,000
Speaker 1: we weren't just side men. We were the Revolution, and

1576
01:26:09,040 --> 01:26:11,720
Speaker 1: we opened our mouths often. It's a great as that

1577
01:26:12,200 --> 01:26:14,840
Speaker 1: we became more of a satellite. Lisa Coleman told Spin

1578
01:26:15,080 --> 01:26:17,439
Speaker 1: it hurt our feelings. He used to travel with us

1579
01:26:17,439 --> 01:26:19,200
Speaker 1: on the same bus, but then he got his own.

1580
01:26:19,720 --> 01:26:21,640
Speaker 1: He would always be escorted ahead of us in his

1581
01:26:21,680 --> 01:26:24,160
Speaker 1: own car, and we were left behind. He had his

1582
01:26:24,200 --> 01:26:26,519
Speaker 1: big house, and when he got the guard at the gate,

1583
01:26:26,680 --> 01:26:28,479
Speaker 1: it was wow, dude, it's me.

1584
01:26:28,800 --> 01:26:31,040
Speaker 2: I did your laundry. I lived at them for a while.

1585
01:26:31,040 --> 01:26:33,080
Speaker 1: In his house. I'd fix him a sandwich, or we

1586
01:26:33,120 --> 01:26:36,000
Speaker 1: do laundry together. It was really brother and sister stuff.

1587
01:26:36,320 --> 01:26:38,360
Speaker 1: When it changed, I'd have to go through other people

1588
01:26:38,360 --> 01:26:40,880
Speaker 1: to talk to him. I was not into that. I'm

1589
01:26:40,920 --> 01:26:41,840
Speaker 1: still not into that.

1590
01:26:42,160 --> 01:26:45,960
Speaker 2: Such a bummer. Yeah, I knew something shifted our last

1591
01:26:46,040 --> 01:26:49,719
Speaker 2: night at Japan's Yokohama Stadium, Wendy Melvoyne told Yahoo, referring

1592
01:26:49,720 --> 01:26:53,479
Speaker 2: to the Revolution's final concert on September ninth, nineteen eighty six.

1593
01:26:54,160 --> 01:26:56,040
Speaker 2: We were on stage and he started calling a whole

1594
01:26:56,040 --> 01:26:58,040
Speaker 2: bunch of different people on stage with us while we

1595
01:26:58,040 --> 01:27:01,160
Speaker 2: were playing. He hadn't done that before, and we knew him.

1596
01:27:01,240 --> 01:27:03,639
Speaker 2: I knew him so well. He wasn't looking at us.

1597
01:27:03,680 --> 01:27:06,040
Speaker 2: I could feel it. And then we played Purple Rain

1598
01:27:06,120 --> 01:27:09,160
Speaker 2: and he destroyed the guitar. He destroyed it. I looked

1599
01:27:09,200 --> 01:27:11,639
Speaker 2: Bobby and I went it's over. I looked at Lisa

1600
01:27:11,880 --> 01:27:15,680
Speaker 2: it's over, and it was over. Prince fired Wendy and

1601
01:27:15,720 --> 01:27:18,679
Speaker 2: Lisa first. At the end of the nineteen eighty six tour,

1602
01:27:19,479 --> 01:27:22,400
Speaker 2: he brought Wendy and me over to his house for dinner.

1603
01:27:22,560 --> 01:27:25,559
Speaker 2: Lisa Coleman told Spin we always called it the paper

1604
01:27:25,600 --> 01:27:28,559
Speaker 2: wrapped chicken dinner because it was wrapped in pink slips.

1605
01:27:29,560 --> 01:27:33,400
Speaker 2: Who Yeah. In the same interview from twenty sixteen, she

1606
01:27:33,479 --> 01:27:36,840
Speaker 2: also suggested that Prince's Jehovah's witness faith had come between them.

1607
01:27:37,479 --> 01:27:39,840
Speaker 2: He has hinted to Wendy and myself recently that he

1608
01:27:39,880 --> 01:27:42,600
Speaker 2: can't condone who we are or be friendly in a

1609
01:27:42,640 --> 01:27:46,040
Speaker 2: certain ways. We both have kids now with other partners,

1610
01:27:46,200 --> 01:27:48,960
Speaker 2: so that hurts, especially because he liked that element in

1611
01:27:49,000 --> 01:27:52,720
Speaker 2: his band Back then. Bobby Z would be replaced by

1612
01:27:53,080 --> 01:27:58,040
Speaker 2: Sheila E or he left out of solidarity with Lisa

1613
01:27:58,160 --> 01:28:01,719
Speaker 2: and Brown Mark, but Prince Magna adamously supposedly kept Bobby

1614
01:28:01,800 --> 01:28:03,960
Speaker 2: Z on the payroll for a couple of years out

1615
01:28:04,000 --> 01:28:07,439
Speaker 2: of loyalty classy move. Doctor Fink stayed on until nineteen

1616
01:28:07,479 --> 01:28:12,040
Speaker 2: ninety one. But the Revolution had made an impact on Prince.

1617
01:28:13,080 --> 01:28:16,720
Speaker 2: Bobby Ze said. Prince called us Mount Rushmore. He knew

1618
01:28:16,760 --> 01:28:19,240
Speaker 2: that this was something unique. So, with the sound of

1619
01:28:19,360 --> 01:28:23,400
Speaker 2: Dove's crying ringing in your ears, join us next week

1620
01:28:23,640 --> 01:28:26,360
Speaker 2: as we leave the sonic world of Purple Rain and

1621
01:28:26,560 --> 01:28:30,840
Speaker 2: enter into the visual world of Purple Rain as a kicker.

1622
01:28:31,000 --> 01:28:35,760
Speaker 2: Whatever I liked it, I loved it. I'm spent. My

1623
01:28:35,840 --> 01:28:37,879
Speaker 2: name is Alex Eigel. This has been too much information.

1624
01:28:38,360 --> 01:28:39,640
Speaker 2: Thank you folks for listening, and.

1625
01:28:39,720 --> 01:28:41,840
Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Runtagg. We'll catch you next time.

1626
01:28:47,080 --> 01:28:50,200
Speaker 2: Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio. The show's

1627
01:28:50,240 --> 01:28:53,040
Speaker 2: executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtogg.

1628
01:28:53,240 --> 01:28:56,200
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June.

1629
01:28:56,360 --> 01:28:58,240
Speaker 2: The show was researched, written.

1630
01:28:57,960 --> 01:29:00,080
Speaker 4: And hosted by Jordan run Tag and Alex.

1631
01:29:00,439 --> 01:29:03,639
Speaker 1: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

1632
01:29:04,000 --> 01:29:06,040
Speaker 2: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1633
01:29:06,080 --> 01:29:06,559
Speaker 2: us a review.

1634
01:29:06,840 --> 01:29:11,200
Speaker 1: For more podcasts and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

1635
01:29:11,400 --> 01:29:13,120
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.