Bandsplain - SOUNDTRACK: 'Purple Rain' With Anthony Anzaldo

Episode Date: June 18, 2026

Yasi is joined by musician and producer Anthony Anzaldo (Ceremony, Anthony Family) to unpack 'Purple Rain,' the soundtrack that took Prince from rising pop star to household name. They discuss the making of the film, the role of The Revolution, the live recording that became the title track, Morris Day and The Time (and of course, Jerome), and how Prince blended rock, funk, and pop to create a wholly new sound, turning a soundtrack into a blockbuster event and the biggest album of his career. CREDITS:Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuest: Anthony Anzaldo @anthonyxfamilyProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Hello and welcome to Bansplaine. I am your host, Yassi Solic. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. But today's episode is a little different. Today's episode is about the soundtrack to the major motion picture, Purple Rain.

by a little guy called Prince. Might have heard of him. If you've never heard Purple Rain, I never meant to cause you any sorrow. I never meant to cause you any pain. That was pretty good, right? Heard worse. Thank you so much.

My guest today, you guys, Anthony Anzaldo of the band's ceremony and Anthony family, has walked up in this bitch fucking maugging me to hell. Like, on my own show, the disrespect, brutally frame-mogged on my own podcast by Anthony Anzaldo of Ceremony and Anthony Family. Welcome to the program. None of us could ever attempt to mock you.

You're unmogable. It's fine. I'm not superficial and I've moved on. Anthony, I'm so delighted to have you here. Thank you for having me. I was so speaking of being delighted. Your intro delighted me. Being able to see you do it in person.

Right. Like watching like a professional athlete. Yes, exactly. Like on the court. It was like watching Michael Jordan warm up. That's exactly what I was going to say. Yeah. Thanks many people have said that about me reading a paragraph that I read every week on the show.

Sports. Ceremony's fantastic new album, Tell Me Your Dream, Come, out August 7th. We're very excited. Anthony, before we get into it and keep it short, but can you tell me about... You invited the wrong guest. I know, I know. Your relationship with Prince and maybe more specifically with the soundtrack album, which is obviously also a Prince and the Revolution album, Purple Red. My relationship with Prince started when I was about eight or nine years old.

My father worked in radio growing up, and so we were lucky enough to have a house full of compact discs. And whenever I would hear of an artist, I would go to my dad and say, hey, I've heard of this artist, which album should I start with? And he would tell me, and I would go to our CD collection, and I would start with that album. So I found out about Prince, however, just through living in life and MTV. I can't remember how I first heard his name, but it was just, you know, this omnipresent sort of pop, you know, figure. And he said, oh, start with Purple Rain. I go to our CD collection and he didn't have Purple Rain. We had 1999 and the greatest hits records.

And I said, Dad, we don't have Purple Rain. And he was like, what? What? And I was like, yeah, that album that you told me to check out is in here. He goes, let's, and so he drove me to backdoor disc and tape at that moment to purchase Purple Rain. I could elaborate further in my introduction to Prince, but to button it up, that was my introduction to the soundtrack album. Okay, how old are you again? Eight or nine.

Eight or nine years old. Yeah. And what were the feelings and emotions? when you first heard that bitch, slammed it on the tape player at home? Or your Walkman, I guess. It was, it truly altered my life forever. Prince has been by far my favorite artist. He is somebody that I think about every day.

He is somebody whose music has impacted me so much from every age. And I think about this all the time about why that is, Because it is like, it's not lost on me that it's like, might be kind of weird to like have to like make somebody part of your identity. Well, I think it's quite common. Sure. But like, you know, for someone, for a lot of us, you know, like I wasn't this person that, you know, found, you hear these stories of people who are like, I found punk when I was 11 years old. Right. I first heard like Green Day.

And like that's, that wasn't me. But I always knew that I'll try not to go super deep into this. It's okay. Don't hold back then. But as a, you know, as a young child, even then I knew that, you know, sort of, you know, Western values and like societal norms, like didn't totally make all the sense to me. But when all you know is pop culture, you don't know where to sort of like funnel that energy. You know, and my dad, again, was in radio. So we were a big music household. Yeah.

But it never, nothing ever was below the surface or at all left of the dial, right? Like, music was so present in my life, but only popular music. Yeah. But all popular music, right? So when I found prints, I was like, it was my first reference of subversion. Yeah. or otherness. Yeah.

And I think that's why it made such a profound impact on me where, you know, and I guess one could be listening to this to be like, you're doing an episode on one of the biggest albums of all time. How is that all subversive or, you know, but like. But as a kid, seeing someone who look like that and hearing like that, that music does not sound like Madonna. That music does not sound like Michael Jackson. This music does not sound like Huey Lewis or any of the other giant.

and pop things at that time, not to discount any of those artists or their work, because they are incredible, but Prince, to me, was subversive and was extremely different. And I'm like, and it was it was the first time that I realized that there were things outside of sort of societal norms and standards. Well, I think to help contextualize for your, for you, sorry, to jump in. But like, when you're eight or nine, it's the mid-90s, right? Is that about right? Yeah. So I think people do forget that as much as, like, the mid-90s were very, like, alternative

culture is now the mainstream culture. It was still very heteronormative, you know? Like, it was very, like, pearl jam, sound garden. You know, these are, like, sure, in a way subversive in the sense of, like, the emotions of the music and stuff. But these are still just, like, dude bros, kind of that you're looking at. And, you know, Kurt Cobain obviously had a slightly different thing. And, like, you know, seeing him in a dress and stuff probably was, like, pretty, you know, hit a certain same type of emotion.

But, like, even, like, you mentioned Green Day, like, by the mid-90s, it's, like, there might have been nerdy guys. Sure. But you're not really seeing anything like Prince. And it's much past the heyday. So, like, you know, it would have been, I understand that you would have been like, what the hell am I looking at it? at here, you know? Totally. And the alternative stuff didn't hit me then.

Like, I got into guitar from Prince. Sure. You know, we were a very, you know, R&B and pop household. Yeah. So, you know, the nirvana's and, you know, the grunge and alternative scene, like, did not, did not land with me. Yeah. I didn't even, like, kind of give it. I didn't even really even look over there because I was like, I don't even, I don't know.

I don't know what that is. So, so. Yeah. So that's why Prince was sort of my reference for otherness. Because, of course, like you said, like the nirvana of the world, like, were sort of left of the dial in the context of mainstream culture for sure. Yeah. That's so interesting. Well, great.

I love that little back story. And then we saw them, my dad, myself and my mom on the Jam of the Year tour in 1997 in Oakland. And then it was on. You were just, that was it. It was on. That's all that. There was only one guy for you. That's right.

That's right. It was Prince Rogers Nelson. That man. That's right. Prince Rogers Nelson. Before we dive in and I just wanted to say that this is like part of our sort of potentially ongoing 80s soundtrack series. This is not a Prince episode. There might be Prince episodes, you know, like I don't, I'm not.

I think I've. I've probably said many times on this podcast when it's been brought up, like, oh, that'll never happen because it was so scary. Not because Prince is scary, but because just the largesse of the catalog and the body of work and the scholarship around it. But, you know, I just emerged from six weeks of Madonna Month and I didn't die. You could do anything. Prince is obviously a whole different bag of chips. Sure. Sure.

We have talked about this off-camera many a time. Yeah, a whole different value position. But now that like I got into the Madonna of it all, I was like, oh, it would be kind of a fun challenge. Sure, sure. But this is not this and it won't be anytime soon because I'm still recovering. Okay, well, why don't we take it lightly from the top? I'm going to tell a story. I'm going to weave a story and I'm going to jump around.

We've. We're going to actually start on August 3, 1983 with a performance by Prince. The Revolution, our First Avenue in Minneapolis, $25 tickets to benefit the Minnesota Dance Theater. 1,500 people are in attendance, including one Albert Magnoli. He has a recent graduate of the USC Film School. He's in Minneapolis to prep the feature film that will star Prince, based loosely on his life.

During the set, Prince performs a new song. It's 13 minutes long. It is called Purple Rain. this is Wendy Melvoin's first ever show as a new member of the Revolution this is something I want to ask you about later but so this show was recorded sort of a fly

made on the fly decision not a lot of forethought the band thought they were just like recording it for posterity and maybe they were but they do end up using these recordings anyways as a story goes Magnolia goes backstage and he's like what was that 13 minute long just gorgeous, devastating piece of music.

He didn't say that. I'm editorializing. And Prince is like, oh, Purple Rain. That's not done yet. And he goes, well, it's a good song for the climactic moment in our film. And can we also call the film Purple Rain? Let's back up even further. April 1983, Prince has returned home from the 1999 tour.

Let's back back even more up. Ooh. Let's go back to June 7th, 1958. The birth? The birth of Prince Rogers Nelson, a Gemini. Uh-huh. In Minneapolis, Minnesota named after his father, John Lewis Nelson's most popular stage name, Prince Rogers, which was used while he would perform with his mother, Maddie Della, in a jazz group. It's pretty sick.

It's also really sick that two of the... I'm going to get into this later, but someone actually did point out that, like, I, during the Madonna episodes, I keep sort of pointing to there being three pinnacles of 80s music, being Madonna Prince and Michael Jackson starting at a certain time to a certain time, and they keep being like, oh, you're leaving out Bruce Springsteen. And I, like, I think that's correct, except that I was kind of speaking pop music, and I think Bruce Springsteen was still making rock music. But yes, to be fair, Bruce Swinstein is Titanic in this group as well.

Of course. But Madonna, Michael Jackson and Prince all born in the same year. Within a like seven, eight, nine hour driving distance of each other. Insane. What was I saying for that? Why did I even say that? The three pinnacles. Oh, because Prince and Madonna, those are their real names.

Mm-hmm. Which I think people, a lot is made out of like, oh, those crazy artists with those crazy stage names. It's like, no, those are their birth certificate names. Yes. Prince and Madonna. Yes. Destined for greatness, honestly. Yeah.

Michael Jackson also, his. real name. Is Michael Jackson? Yeah, not, maybe not as... I actually don't know if that's true. I assume that's true. I think it is, yeah, not quite as exciting, not quite as Justin for greatness. We're going to skip a fucking shit ton now, okay? I'm sorry, I'm not going through the child. This is not a Prince episode. But I just wanted to mention where he's born. And also that he said, this is important to the movie and also that's the soundtrack because they're sort of inextricably woven. Prince said to Tavis smile in 2009, my father was so... hard on me. I was never good enough. It was almost like the army when it came to music. I wasn't

allowed to play the piano when he was there because I wasn't as good as him. So when he left, I was determined to get as good as him and I taught myself how to play music and I just stuck with it and I did it all the time. And sooner or later, people in the neighborhood heard about me and they started to talk. Come on. Come on. Origin story, babe. See, it really made me want to do. Now I want to do that episode. I'm like, oh, so many little strings. Treats. Okay, now we're getting back on our time machine. Fast forward, 1978.

Prince puts out his very first album. What's it called? For you. That's right. Recorded in Salisolito. California. Yeah, that's where it was famous. Near where I grew up, that's the only reason why.

I believe Pearl Jam also recorded an album there. Fully unrelated. It's just because we mentioned Pearl Jam earlier, and I love Lamped that right now. Okay, so according to the first. for you album notes, Prince wrote, produced, arranged,

composed, and played all 27 instruments on the recording of his first album except for which song?

Oh, see? I wanted to see soft and wet. The lyrics were co-written by Chris Moon. Yes.

The producer who had helped him make the demo tape. Incidentally, as far back as the making of those first

demo tapes, a guy called David Z. Cliff Siegel, who was around. He was a former bandmate of the businessman Owen Husny, who was Prince's first manager. He recalls that Prince's goals from very first demo tape were to do films, be number one,

and produce other groups. And when did he accomplish all of that? Seems like 1984. That's right, babe. Well, he had probably, yeah, yeah. Okay. We do okay with the first album, right? Soft and Wet hits number 12 on the Hot Soul singles, number 92 on the Billboard Hot 100.

It's not incredible. In 1979, Prince releases his second album. What's that one called? Self-titled. It hits number three on the Billboard top R&B black albums and number 22 on the Billboard 200 and was certified platinum. This is important just to point out that,

once again, we are still living very much in a timeline where there is black radio and there's white radio. And the Twain do not mix. So obviously his music is being serviced to black radio, urban radio. The two hits were Why You Want to Treat Me So Bad And I Want to Be Your Lover.

That's right. Why I Want to Be Your Lover sold more than a million copies. Hit number 11 on the Billboard Hot 100. That's good. Really? Yeah. Really good. 1980 is the third album.

Dirty mine. That's right. Certified gold. What was the big single? But you're probably thinking Uptown. That's right. Yeah. It hit number five on the Billboard dance chart.

And number five on the Hot Soul single chart. Then in 1981, this man is just fucking grinding it out, which not even close to actually what his work cadence will be in the future, but it puts out of the fourth album. Controversy. That's right. R. R. R. R.

R. BARTON-R-B album's chart. Certified Platinum. We're fucking cooking here. Okay. We are cooking. We're cooking. Yet to have a single as big as I want to be your lover, but.

Yeah. Also. It's coming. It's coming together. Frankly, not that famous. No. Yeah. No.

Like could not be picked out of a lineup, basically, at this point. Yeah. He's essentially a cold artist. Yeah. Yeah. In 81, he forms a side project. It's called The Time. That band released four albums between 81 and 1990.

Mostly written by Prince? Mostly written by Prince. Yeah. Mostly leaning into exclusively. But we'll say mostly to give Jesse Johnson and Morris some props. Under the pseudonyms. Jamie. and the star company.

Lead vocals at the time, of course, the one and only. Morris Motherfucking Day. Morris Day. His childhood friend, right, from high school. Okay. In October of 1982, Prince releases a double album, 1999. Sold more than 4 million copies. This is something you pointed me towards,

but I wanted to talk about it because you were so right that it's so interesting, that when 1999 came out, the amount of black music on the Billboard Hot 100 was down nearly 80% from 79. So that's for years. Almost half of the Hot 100 back in 79 could also be found on the Urban Contemporary Chart, and that was not the case anymore. And not one record by a black artist was in the top 20 on the Top 200 album chart or the Hot 100 singles chart for three weeks of that October until controversy comes out.

this had never happened yeah sorry and 1999 came out this had literally never happened since the creation of top 40 yeah and it just shows you i mean obviously we're going to get into the you know purple rain but prince is very much regarded as a black artist and within the industry and within the popular culture at large so to have your album come out the month where there is the least amount of featured black artists on the chart to then only two years later have purple rain is like such an incredible mountain to climb. I'm saying. Also like just to like paint a picture like the biggest, the number one albums in 1982,

it's ACDC for those about to rock, we still love you. It's foreigner. It's the Jake Isles band. It's the go-goes. It's Paul McCartney, Asia, Fleetwood Mac. men at work do you see through line

in the theme um um 1999 the title track that that's a song about

the apocalypse but like maybe more specifically around nuclear war right because it was sort of like the threat

of nuclear war loomed kind of large in the early 80s um prince really likes to write about the apocalypse. Yeah. Makes sense.

It's biblical. It was Prince's first top 10 hit in countries outside of the United States. So a bit of more of a global reach. Also, this is very important. Little Red Corvette. Let's fucking go. Come on. Come on.

Can you believe it? No. I honestly can't, but we're going to have to leave that from the Prince episode. What's important, we talked about this on the Madonna episode, too. It's one of the first two videos. The first video to everybody, played on MTV, which had started in 81.

The first video to be played on there by a black artist and not like first ever, but to be put into actual rotation, was Billy Jean by Michael Jackson. And famously the story, it's very funny this year I've been thinking about all three of these artists for various

reasons, Michael Jackson, because the film came out. But it's also, it's depicted in the film where Walter Yantikoff, oh my God, thank God, it came. I thank you so much. The head of CBS records, he basically,

like, they came to him and they were like, we want to be on MTV, or if you don't put us on MTV, we're leaving your fucking label. Michael Jackson and his, in the movie, his lawyer, but I assume it was also his manager.

And Walter Endicoff is like, played by Mike Myers, in the film, incredible, calls and is like, if you don't play Michael Jackson's video, I will pull all the rest of our artists and they have so many huge artists.

And so I'm too, was like, fine. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. How much strong arm. But it shouldn't be unbelievable. It wasn't more to live in a fucking racist society and have since the dawn of time. Of course.

But like Michael Jackson is regarded. Like that era of Michael Jackson, those videos are regarded as the greatest music videos of all time. So they had to threaten a music video channel with the best music videos ever. I think it's like really That's like I don't want to be reductive or oversimplify And I'm not like You know, a race studies person

But like The fact that racism was like literally Basically stronger than capitalism At that point They were like we don't care How popular it is We don't play black artists Or like maybe it was

It might I mean they were interwoven They didn't trust that They didn't think that They also didn't They thought they would lose The other part of their audience And so it was still money

driven because everything is money driven You know But anyways God bless Yentukov Because he put his bolt on the table And said Okay I'm taking all my artists away And they were like

Okay right on top of that Rose Let's throw Billy June right in here And then Thankfully also prints So things are going good But not good enough For our friend He gets a Grammy nomination

For International Lover A month after 1999 which is obviously groundbreaking in its own way, thriller comes out, which is going to overshadow pretty much anything. Tell me about, like, the sort of origin of the revolution and how it dates back to 1999. So the Revolution, Prince's band,

the inception was obviously in 1979 when he needed a band to start. So a few of the members, are already present by the time 1999 comes. Okay. Bobby Z. And Dr. Fink are in Prince's first inception, right? By the time 1999 rolls around is the first time that the term the revolution is used.

Prince hid that within the album cover, Prince and the Revolution. Yes, he hid it, but like... Yeah, Wink. Like, I assume that that was not sort of his attempts to soft launch. This is the name of the band. I think that was, because there's so many little Easter eggs within that drawing and within the album cover of 1999. I could be wrong. But he didn't use the revolution in the way he did with the next three albums, right?

Right. Where he, where it was very present. But all of the revolution by 1999 that we see in Purple Rain is there except. Wendy. Wendy Melvoin. Who replaces Des Dickerson as the guitarist. So we have Lisa Coleman. We have Dr. Fink.

We have Bobby Zion drums. Yep. We have Mark Brown. Mark Brown on bass. He replaced Andre Simone. Okay. And Des Dickerson, like you said, on guitar. And then also Jill Jones was doing backing vocals. Not really like an official capacity

of the revolution, but she was sort of there. Yes. As she did throughout, you know, many, even many years later, he would use her often, yeah, for backing locals. So there's mixed, mixed, uh, reasonings around why does Dickerson left the band, right? Yes. We don't have to like get the, totally into it, but, but he left the band. He left, he leaves the band. He was unhappy and left the band.

Yeah. Not, maybe necessarily didn't, like, want to, but wasn't fired. It was more like, it wasn't working for him the way as, as it was going. Yes. And so Wendy Melvoin. was Lisa Coleman's girlfriend at the time. Also, who is Wendy Melbourne's father? Mike Melvoine, famous studio musician,

Wrecking Crew, former president of the Recording Academy, I also think. I'll believe you, because I didn't, I don't know that. A very, a regarded extreme talent in studio, in studio musicianship. Yeah, the Recing Crew, just like iconic on so many, on so many. Like, we don't have time to listen to all here, but look it up.

Wendy Mulvoyne's edition is important for, like, a myriad of reasons, but she was a stronger, this is why I read, that she was a stronger rhythm player than a lead guitarist, which sort of cleared the lane for Prince to kind of be the solo guitar hero of the band. Correct, at least, you know, in the public facing. I mean, and Prince, you know, he let Des play the solo on Little Red Corvette. And that's where Guard is one of the greatest solos of all times. Des was a lead guitar player. Yeah. But as you said, you know, so Prince was kind of letting him sort of exist in that lane.

Yeah. But with now Lisa, he... Wendy. Yeah, I apologize. But now with Wendy, he's able to show that I'm actually the greatest guitar player. Yeah. I mean, I read a lot of... Which is so a part of the Purple Rain thing.

Totally. Him being a guitar god is just really baked into the success and the aesthetic of the entire Purple Rain album movie and tour. I feel like I read also some stuff that was like Wendy also brought like a totally different vibe. Oh my God. Like he like something about her presence made him different. Or like I don't have the quote in front of me. Someone was like, oh, because. because there was this woman that had no sexual availability to him because she was a lesbian.

I mean, he had that with Lisa too, right? But still, they had this kind of charming interplay. And maybe someone was saying that he, like, kind of saw her as, like, a counterpart to himself. Yeah. And was able to, like, kind of, you know, obviously one of Prince's greatest things is that, like, he sees, he thinks 360. Like, he sees everything from every angle and is like, I want to present this band in this way. And her music, she was into music that he didn't really, she was really in the classical music. And she was kind of one of the first people within the revolution and who could show him things.

And because his guard was down, he wasn't trying to impress her sexually. Totally. You know, it sort of allowed this sort of dynamic and relationship to develop that was peer to peer. Yeah. And so then he, and then in turn could hear these classical records and here, you know, I mean, he was a huge Johnny Mitchell fan, but she was also a huge Johnny Mitchell fan. So he now had someone to bond. I mean, that's probably his greatest lyrical influence is Johnny. So to have someone to share that love and bond with only, you know, kind of glued them even more together.

Okay. I have a quote. I found the quote. Yeah. I want to read it. I think it's from Jill Jones. you can see that it just worked. His behavior, Prince's behavior, on stage lightened up a lot more.

The nuances, the eye contact, the interaction between those two specifically. There was something a little more human and charming and cute because Wendy used to dot on him all the time and tell him how cute he was. Maybe it was because there was finally a girl around who didn't want to like shag him. Somebody's saying wonderful, feminine, nurturing things, but there's no payoff. Like, what can I get from this sexually? I think it was a nice little bit of a break for him. It was like a sanctuary to be on stage. It makes sense.

as someone, especially for someone who is so sexually charged. Yeah, and who positions himself like that towards the world all the time. Yeah. Yeah. I did also read something. There was a quote from Morris Day in 2012 where he said that he would have been a better drummer than Bobby Z. And that maybe that was like a potential. Did you ever read anything?

I don't know. Everyone says that Morris Day is one of the greatest drummers of all time. Prince loved him behind the kit. But Bobby, no one has said that Bobby's the greatest drummer of the world. Right. Like, that's just simply not part of the lore here. Of the lore of the revolution. And much love to Bobby Z.

But he was a utility player. He was perfect for the role. And you needed someone like Bobby because Prince programmed most of those drums on drum machine. Right. So to have, I don't know if the revolution would have worked with someone that had flare or whatever. powerhouse drummer because they would have felt slighted by the fact that they had to, Bobby had to learn how to play the Lin-1 drum machine. Yeah, yeah.

You know what I mean? And like, there aren't very many drummers who would say, okay, yeah, like, cool, like that's part of my job. You know, most drummers would be like, are you fucking kidding me? You're allowing me to be equal to this machine where Bobby sort of embrace that, you know, part of his role. So I don't know if you get, I think Bobby, and that's what. why Bobby was essential to the revolution.

Was Morris a better drummer? I just, I thought it was funny because, like, it was brought up in the sense that maybe he was a bit resentful about it, but then it seems to me that honestly, just from standing back, like, Prince had bigger plans for you, you know? Like, he knew that you were like a frontman, you know, and he put you in front. Morris always saw himself as a drummer until, you know, when Alexander O'Neill leaves the potential scene of the vocalist of the time, and Prince says, why don't you do it? Morris was like, what are you talking about?

He goes, dude, you're the coolest. Yeah. The coolest do I know. Like, how can't, you can do that. Yeah. See? So I don't know. Yeah.

I don't, maybe in the, maybe in, in the beginning because, you know, Morris was the drummer of Prince's band before the Revolution. So I'm sure there was some part of just a natural feeling of like, well, I'm already your drummer. Yeah. Why am I not your, why am I not playing drums anymore? Yeah. You know.

Well, just showing the seeds of. We're stowing seeds, baby. Baby resentment starting out. Lisa said, Lisa Coleman said that of the revolution that his dream was that we would be Fleetwood Mac mixed with slime the family of stone. She said from the very early days, we were controversial. We were black and white. We were girls and boys and we were traveling together. We go to truck stops in Bible Belt country and people would look at us like they wanted to kill us. Crazy. I'd deal with that. Right, right. You know what? You know what? It's not crazy at all. No, but just like thinking, like, just the fact that it was like a mixed gender band.

Yeah. That was like, you know. So the tour for 1999, we're still laying the round work. Yeah. Triple threat. The time opened as well as. Theny-six. Van 96.

There's a little drama, right? On this tour with the time, do you want to tell us about it? Well, there was this sort of, and people's accounts of this is different. Right. There is a sort of lore of, of. the competitiveness between Prince and the time. Right. And.

Well, the time is really fun, right? The time's really fun. What a fucking good time band. And like they truly are as players and performers one of the greatest R&B bands of all time. They smoke. So they're so good and they're so fun where Prince is so weighted. So, but this is all to say that. You know, the time went out every night trying to, trying to kick Prince in the Revolution's ass.

So, yeah, it was like, there was like a healthy competitive spirit. Yes. But, but everyone has a different account. Some people say that that was like, was more friend, was friendlier than certain people give it credit for. And once they were offstage, that competitiveness was was absent from their relationship. And also, of course it was. Ultimately, the time was Prince's, Prince created his own competition. So with that being the dynamic and the structure, it's like how competitive could they really be with each other? Right. If they win, Prince still wins.

Yeah, exactly. Having said that, because there were nights where the press and sort of like public at large did feel that the time did do better than Prince on multiple nights on that tour. and certain shows, Prince would take off the time. Oh. I believe it was L.A. I believe it was the forum. He like benched them. It's like you're not playing tonight.

But check this out. The time Sands Moris Day were Vanity's backing band behind a curtain every night. So they already had to be there regardless. So if the time were removed from the show, they still had to play behind a curtain. So I understand. That's rough. I understand their feelings of resentment. Yeah.

Also, Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. Okay. Missing the flight. Tell me about that. So they were, they had taken a production job on the side, which they were doing. They were getting, they were starting to have a career takeoff as producers. And this was, we don't have to get into the Janet Jackson. Yes.

Thank God. Thank God they got fucking fired. Thank you, Prince. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. Miss you much? Love will never do without you. Escapade?

Mm-hmm. I saw Prince. Together again? in 2011, and he had this moment where I believe, I can't remember which Janet song. He did like a little. Like a medley. He did a medley and threw in a Janet song in there, and he says to the crowd, you know who really wrote this one, implying that. It was him?

No, I don't think. Or that it was Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis? That it was Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis, but you know who taught them everything that they know. Oh, okay, okay, okay. was sort of the tone that I sort of... I'm like... I'm like... Well...

God, obsessed with this man. Well, regardless. Regardless, they... They got snowed in. They couldn't make their flight. And Prince was like, okay, amazing. You're fired. You're out of my fucking band.

He didn't say it that way. I don't know how... I don't know what he was saying. He probably went like this. There was a meeting with them and Morris. And this, that was really, that was the beginning of the end for the time. Yeah. Because other members of the time, probably namely Morris Day, but not just, were like,

you don't have the authority. Presumably, I mean, he obviously did have the authority. It was the exemplification that he did in fact have that authority. And it was a stark reminder to everybody that, hey, this is actually my band. Right. regardless of who's singing in it, regardless of who's who the front person. And that, maybe, you know,

there were some subtext of that all along, but that was the- Made it really crystal clear. That's what made it crystal clear. They were replaced. Also, a third member left in protest, right? Monty Moyer, the other keyboard player left the time. Okay.

And had a protest. And they are, they finish out the tour with the new, they finish out, no, no, no. So the replacements came at the after the tour ahead of Purple Rain and Ice Cream Castle. Got it. Got it. Great. Fucking got to your album.

Okay. So around this time of the 1999 album, Prince had basically completely stopped speaking to the press. He did one interview for 1999 with Robert Hilbert of the LA Times.

Did he walk out? Okay, yes, but I tried to like, I mean, he walked out in the sense that you always walk out at the of an interview, but I couldn't, like, I can't, I read the piece and it has no real indication that he was like, fuck you, I'm leaving, because there's plenty of material in it. So, maybe I didn't look hard enough, and so I'm not really sure what, I don't know if he just like, again, you know a lot more about Prince and I do, but just from like my readings of Prince, like, it could have gone totally normal as far as Robert Hillworm was concerned,

but in Prince's mind, he was absolutely disrespected straight to hell and he's like, I'm done with this forever. I have no idea. Yeah. But I do want to read a couple quotes from the piece because there's... Please. Just gorgeous. Number one.

My goal is to excite and provoke on every level. Number two. Let me clear up a few rumors while I have the chance. One, my real name is Prince. It's not something I made up. Two, I'm not gay. And three, I'm not Jamie Star. He is Jamie Star.

But the other two are true. Hello. This is really two truths in a lie there. The third one. The most important thing is to be true to yourself, but I also like danger. That's what's missing from pop music today. There's no excitement and mystery. I'm not honestly show me the lie.

Then, I'm not saying I'm better than everybody else. I just don't feel there are a lot of people out there telling the truth in their music. Next one. This is maybe my favorite. I always compare songwriting to a girl walking in a door. You don't know what she's going to look like. But all of a sudden, she's there. And then this last one is more just to inform back to our story.

When I first got started in music, I was attracted by the same things that attract most people to this business. I wanted to impress my friends and I wanted to make money. For a while, I just did it as a hobby. Then it turned into a job and a way to eat. Now I look on it as art. I realized after a dirty mind, I can get away with anything I want to get away with. All I have to do is be true to myself. I can make the records I want to make and still be okay.

I feel free. And that's the thing about Prince that he's just, you just can't fuck with him. He made, after Dirty Mine, he said, I could do whatever I want. Yeah. Where Dirty Mine was not as successful as self-titled. Right. He's not saying, fuck, I went too far. I need to reel it in.

No. He said, oh, I could do whatever I want. Right. Which another artist could have easily been like, shit, there was no. You know, Uptown was a great song. I went this far, but it was not well, commercially well received. I better like. I better, no.

Do it. He said, oh, I could be, I could totally be myself. Yeah. And I feel like the Prince career, I always, dirty mind, I love self-titled, but dirty mine is really when Prince, like the Prince that the public sort of envisions. really starts at dirty mind. Like his real self. Yeah. Yeah.

Around this time, he's still, according to the book, Let's Go Crazy, which I read for this. Thank you. Let's Go Crazy. He was shrouded in mystery surrounded by rumors about his ethnic background and sexual preference. Except he just said, I'm not gay to the L.A. Times. For the record, both his parents are black. Mm-hmm. though he definitely misled the press at various points about this.

He has been quoted as saying his mother was white, that she was a mixture of a bunch of things. He told Rolling Stone he was the son of a half-black father and an Italian mother, which Jill Jones was like, that's really interesting. I told him I'm half-Italian and half-black, and then suddenly, anyways. He just hears Jill Jones. Yeah, and he was like, that's me now.

Catherine, he goes, oh, that sounds nice. Well, two things. I love when people lie to the press. Yeah, totally. We need to bring that back. Yeah. I think the greatest liar of the press now is Robert Pattinson. No one's doing it like him.

Never have read one interview with him where I'm like, I don't know what this man is on about and it's wonderful. He's a true, he's a true legend. But we need to bring back more lying to the press. But also, again, I'm sorry I keep tying it back to Monano, but I think it's a it's a good comp because it's around the same time period and they were like both massive figures Madonna's early career they sort of didn't show her picture because her songs were being serviced to black radio and they were like we kind of want maybe people to think so it's like there was a lot going on then that Kenny G. Kenny G they were they were obscuring his

his images because they thought that that would service better on black radio yeah and like and you know, and I think Prince also just like to fuck with people, you know? Totally. Okay, so here's where things really fucking pick up. According to former manager, Bob Cavallo, father of Robert Cavallo, producer of many Green Day albums, famously a jawbreaker album, My Chemical Roams. What a family. What a family. His management contract was up for a no.

So Bob Cavallo had come in and they had him and, I think it's the three managers, had signed him away. They bought out his contract with his first manager for like 50K or something. And Prince was like, yeah, I'll resign. But I need to be a star in a major motion picture. And you need to make it happen. I need to make it happen fast. Oh my God, I love it so much. It's so great.

Meanwhile, they're like, you are not that famous. You have two hits. You have two hits. You've been on TV like three times. Bob Cavallo said, I thought we did an incredible job. We had a creative relationship. I'm sure he's going to sign another contract. And he says he won't sign with us until we get a movie.

A major studio movie. Yeah, not just like some little art house film. No, he said, I don't want any jewelers or drugged. Yeah, I'm mafia. He can't be like, I don't even mafia. And Bob Kahl was like, I'm not in the mafia. I'm just like a big Italian dude. Like I don't have.

Yeah. He said that. He said that. He's like, I'm not, okay. I love that. Prince, just like not knowing the background of his own. manager just be like, I don't know about your mob shit. And he's literally not in the mob.

Jill Jones said about Prince that they used to watch tons of old films together. He loved the original Swapped Away, back to the Madonna of it all, much better than the remake. I don't know if you've seen the remake of Swipped Away. I haven't. Should be buried under a bridge. That's the consensus there for. Old Carrie Grant, he got into David Lynch at some point. He loved Eraserhead.

Love that. Really into like Elizabeth Taylor, obviously. Marilyn Monroe. That makes a lot of sense. Apparently he had attempted a film project. Do you know about this during the controversy tour? Okay. It was called The Second Coming.

Okay. You heard anything about this? It sounds like it was more of a, like, not honestly, wildly different from performing, but, like, it was a concert film but was going to have, like, fictional and distichal. Like the Times. Yeah, exactly. They filmed a March 7th show at the Met Center in Minnesota in full. but then the director Chuck Staler, I think his name was,

Prince drove him insane, trying to do these interstitial narrative segments. And he was like, I'm not doing that. I'm not doing this with you. Never mind. And so it was abandoned before I was even edited. And then also there's this lore of Prince throughout the entire 1999 tour scribbling furiously away in his purple notebook. What was maybe, not a script per se, but.

scenes and ideas and narrative thoughts for a film. Yeah. Yeah. No one's ever seen this notebook. Correct. Yeah. But the purple notebook is infamous. It's lore.

Yeah. Bob Cavallo was like, it was right out of the blue, but it didn't surprise me. And it was worth so much money to me because if he didn't resign, it would have been a tragedy. We had such a big fucking hit with this guy, and I knew how big he would be. I knew that in person he was unstoppable. He was so good. He worked so hard. He said, it's got to be a major movie.

He can't be one of your gangsters with one of your gangster friends or something. I don't have any of those. I went to Georgetown University. Georgetown. And he also said, my name above the title. Like, presents, prints. And he goes, think how carefully he thought this through. The confidence that you must have in yourself.

If I could write music and perform music like that, I would have that confidence too. Of course. Well, that's the thing. It's like, is it even confidence at that point? It's just reality. Meanwhile, every day I'm like, they're going to find out that I'm bad at this. Someone's going to come and take me away with a cane like in vaudeville and be like, she's an idiot, actually.

But I live to fight another day. So each of the managers are like, we'll put up 500K to get it going. That doesn't enough to make a major motion picture. Including prints, right? I didn't read that he put up money. But I don't know. Maybe he did. I believe he did.

Yeah. So first they're like, we need to find someone to write the script. Purple Notebook, notwithstanding. I guess Bob Cavallo had some experience in the film world. So because he had worked with Love and Spoonful for that man. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They had done music for Woody Allen's first movie, What's Up Tiger Lily? And there's a soundtrack album that's just them.

So he had sort of worked with that. And also John Sebastian from Lovin Spoonful had written all the music for the Francis Ford Coppola movie. You're a big boy now. So he had been involved. He knew some people in Hollywood. but he's like, I don't know how I'm going to get someone to write a Prince movie. First of all, nobody knows who this man is. So someone recommends this guy, William Blin.

He had won an Emmy for his work on the Roots miniseries, and he was like an executive producer and writer for the TV show version of fame. This is my favorite. I'm sure you've read this many times, but this was my first. Actually, I think it comes up in the Madonna one, too. He and Prince had dinner. What did Prince order? Oh, spaghetti?

And orange juice. And orange juice. That was his favorite meal. Those two things. Spaghetti with tomato sauce and orange juice. And the guy was like, okay, already, this is weird. Acidic. So much acid.

Also, just like, I mean, it's not that weird. There's weirder meals, but it's just, it's interesting. With Madonna, apparently he rented out Yamashiro and took her there for dinner. That's what you were telling me. So good. I don't think they have spaghetti there, so I don't know how that worked out. So, oh, she said he didn't eat. Right, right, right.

So over this dinner of spaghetti and orange juice, Prince begins revealing the ideas that he has for this film. And Blin is confused. Here's what he said. I went to Hollywood where Prince was putting together Final Touches on a video. I met him in an Italian restaurant. What I remember more than anything is that he was the only person I ever seen in my life who had pasta and orange drink. I didn't get it.

Then, and I don't get it now. But what the hell? He had definite ideas of what he wanted to do. A generalized storyline. Broadstrokes. It wasn't his life, but it was about his life. Not that it was a wall-to-wall docu-drama, but he knew where he'd come from

and he wanted the movie to reflect that. But he also said that Prince's attempt to define the movie's theme was, quote, inarticulate. He is not verbally comfortable, certainly not with strangers. He's a man apart in many ways. But his whole sexual attitude is positive.

This is good. This represents growth and life. He was semi-communicative about his dad. You could tell his father is very key in what he's about. It was as if he was sorting out his own mystery, an honest quest to figure himself out. I know. And to jump back a little bit when we're talking about the revolution, that was another, you know, another reason why he's so leaned on Wendy and Lisa.

Because Wendy did all the press for Purple Rain. Yeah. And she was very articulate and was very comfortable speaking and in front of the camera off stage. Yeah. And he said, you're going to, you're going to be that person because I'm not. I don't do that. I can't do that. Yeah.

In the initial concept, his parents were dead. And according to William Blinn, that was his idea. They were victims of a murder suicide. The father had killed the mother and then killed himself. So Blin starts working on this script. He tries to set up a follow-up meeting with Prince in Minneapolis, but Prince canceled several times. And then finally, they go to the movies together, and Prince gets up and leaves after 20 minutes. Yes.

And Blin is like, you know what. It's just so amazing because Prince really wants this movie to happen. Sure. One would think. But not, but. Not enough to stand. It's like, is it a test or was he, or did he just really not feel like that this person was the guy? I'm dying to know what film it was.

Like me, it was just so horrible. He couldn't stand the side of it. Yeah. William Blinn was like, I know he's very gifted, but frankly, life's too short. And he goes back to L.A. But then Prince calls him up and is like, please come back. And he's like, okay. So he writes a first draft of this script.

It's called Dreams. Bob Cavala said, it's a little TV. It's a little square, but it's a good idea. And I figured the director will read it anyway. But I can't get a director because nobody's interested. Awareness of Prince in Hollywood was not high. Not very known. So this is where I get excited because everything's connected.

Someone is like, to Bob Cavalala, you should go see an early cut of this new movie, Reckless, starring Aidan Quinn and Daryl Hannah, which I've actually never seen it now. I really want to see it because I don't know if you guys know this about me, I love Aiden Quintan thing is one of the hottest men to ever exist. Anyways, this movie, that's not relevant to the story, but this movie is... It's relevant to you.

It's relevant to me and my personal lore. This movie was made by a young director. It was actually his first movie called James Foley. Do you know who that is? He would later go on to be like an incredible Hollywood filmmaker. He did Glenn Gary again, Glenn Ross. That's okay. That's what he did.

Yes, yes, yes. But in my interest set, the next movie he directed was called At Close Range with Sean Penn and Christopher Walkin featuring the song Live to Tell by Madonna because at the time, Madonna was with Sean Penn and James Foley was Sean Penn's best friend. He's an incredible director.

Actually, it's a wonderful exercise to be like, what if James Foley had directed Purple Rain because we'd have something very different, I think. Maybe not better, but like... Sure, we'll get into that point in a moment.

So at this screening, Bob Covalho said he was the only one there, but then afterwards a young man came up to me. I was like, movie. He was like, oh, I thought it was pretty good. I thought the editing was good. And the guy was like, oh, good, I did that part. His name was Albert Magnoli from the beginning when I remember him. Recent graduate of USC film school had won all these awards for his final film project, which was about music. It was a short about jazz. Yeah, about jazz musicians. And Cabala was

like, do you think James Foley would be interested in getting involved in this Prince project? And Magnoli said, I was excited to continue editing alongside Jamie. That's what he called. I'm James Foley. So I told Cavallo Jamie was a massive Prince fan. I ran across the parking lot and called Jamie in New York and said it was great. I had found us our next film. And he said, who's Prince? You didn't know who fucking Prince? People did not know who Prince was. Yeah. That's where we were. Yeah. Again, this is this is 83, summer of 83. And maybe in 85, well, obviously, in 85. Like maybe if he already knew Madonna, you know, like. Sure. But he was not in the music world. He didn't know. And again, the segregated. of Oh, of the, of radio. Of radio and, yeah. I'm sure he was bump in ACDC or whatever and foreigner. I don't know, actually James Foley may.

He'd rest in peace he passed away, but I don't know what he liked to musicly. Magnoli is like, I'll send you the script, babe. According to Magnoli. And just like a quick, according to Magnoli's side note, Bob Cavallo said that he, quote, completely makes up shit and sometimes he's very flattering to himself and sometimes he's just wrong. So grain of salt. I don't know if that's true. I don't know if any of this is true.

Of course. I'm reporting the quotes of people. But he said that James Foley was like, have you read this? It is terrible and I will not do it. And Mennolly was like, no, actually I didn't read it. And then he read it and he was like, Jamie was actually being very nice. The script had no relevance to the audience the film was intended for. It was not musical.

It was cerebral. Blin says in an oral history, I think we had a better first draft, more mysterious and offbeat. the character of the father was a suicide, not an attempted suicide, and he was gone. The overall thrust of the picture was the kid, played by Prince, being torn between the dark allure of death,

what it does to a kid when a parent commits suicide and music and sexuality. That's kind of interesting. I would have liked to... It is interesting, but his father being present throughout the movie, and you actually see his relationship with him, is kind of like the only stake of the movie.

Totally, totally. So if we went into it, to the movie. Well, he could have done that with flashbacks. Of course, but like, obviously. Yeah. But I feel like, you know, like the real time and also that is he, is he going to live? Is he not?

The other thing is this movie is cartoonish and it's meant to be, and that's part of the charm of it. Yes. And you can't really make murder-suicide cartoonish. Totally. Yeah. It would have made it, it would have made it just kind of, it could have made it just bad. Pretty, yeah, it would have made it kind of bad. So Magnoli's like, look, let's have lunch.

There's two different stories now of what happened. According to Bob Cavallo, he was like, I'll give you $75,000 to direct this movie. Like, he just wanted to get someone to direct it. And Cavallo goes, now he didn't have a glass to piss in. He says, I pass. I went fucking crazy. I lost my cool. I said, how the fuck do you pass?

Why? And he said, oh, it's so square. I said, I know it's square. Can you do something about it? Do you have any ideas? And he said, give me a week. And then in Bob Cavallel's story, a week later, he came back. He had this whole new script. Or not script, but like a plot. And he like acted out for him. And he was excited. And they were like, okay, we made a deal. Magnoli says he had it right there on the spot. He didn't need a week. It was just one meeting. Regardless, literally who cares? Not important. I thought it was really funny because Magnoli said in elementary school and high school, I was a drummer. So that was enough to give me some insight to the truth. troubles and tribulations of a performer. This man was in jazz band in the sixth grade, and he was like, I get what it's like to be Prince, actually, and I can write from that place.

And maybe he did, I don't know. In fairness, and Blin has a writing credit still, because he already had all the characters were Blin's, you know, like it was all there. So he's like, okay, I'm going to go to Minneapolis and meet Prince. But the thing that really sold Cavallo, which I thought this was interesting, was that he was like, and Magnoli was like, take the ending of the godfather and make it the opening of our picture. And we had talked about, we watched the movie together the other night,

we talked about how great the opening sequence is. It's actually not the ending that he's referring to. The ending is the last thing of the godfathers, when Michael Corleone is like saying, I'm not in the mob to his wife. He's talking about the penultimate scene. You know what I'm talking about where it's... The baptism sequence.

It's going back and forth between the baptism of his god son. Yeah, the montage of the murder. and the baptism, yeah. And, I mean, it's not exactly that, but, like, yeah, you, you point out all we're watching. It's, like, how amazingly they're able to, like, show every character and, like, kind of situate them without really any dialogue. Yeah, everyone's back, like, almost everyone's backstory is almost. Right, because Prince is, like, he's at the club, he's putting on his makeup. You see he's a performer.

Yeah. You see that, like, he's on his bike. You see the time. You see Apollonia trying to pull the scam to get in. You see how much money she has to her name. Totally. She's arrived in town. Yeah, yeah.

Morris. Morris, babe. Morris getting into the limo to no crowd. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Again, this is Magnolia. I have no cross-reference for this, but he said in multiple stories that he went and told Prince the whole new plot. And Prince said, what do you know about my life? And he was like, nothing.

You know, I've heard 1999 or whatever. And he goes, then how is it that in 10 minutes you told me? my whole life story. I don't know if that happened. Yeah. But maybe. He must have liked it because it got greenlit. Then the next day, this would you, what would you do to be able to be there for this?

He went, Magnolia went to Prince's house and Prince played in about a hundred songs. That had not come on. I mean. And he was like, he was like, just pick 12 of them. Magnolia was like, okay, I'm going to come back about that. If I may. Yeah. This is a part where I've always.

I don't think that Albert Magnoli is lying. But for him to be like, I went to his house, he played me 100 songs, and I picked 12 of them. And those were the 12 that we were going to sort of use for the movie. I don't think he did pick the 12. No, but that was his original. Yeah. No, I'm sorry, Prince would not let Wendy pick her own eye shadow. That's what I'm saying.

I'm making that up, but I don't think I'm making them. And that's probably true. If you follow, sorry to get granular. If you follow, like, the, the studio sessions and the studio logs from 83 and the 84, it's like... If you follow the studio sessions and the studio logs from 983 and 1984, like, we all do, then you might know a fucking thing or two, bitch, okay? Yeah, it's like, how would that have... How would that have worked?

It's obviously not true. Prince is the greatest control freak of our generation and every generation before that. And to good end. Yeah, to good end. Thank goodness. preserve his vision. But he's certainly not letting Albert Magnoli recent graduate of the USC film

school who played drums in the sixth grade pick the 12 songs that go on Port Horeen. But that's fine. Magnolia Lewis and is like, I'll be back in August. I'm going to go research, work on the script, we'll make the movie. Meanwhile, the manager was like, we can got to find money.

So they go to Mill Austin, Warner Brothers Records, had a brother's records. I mean, they're like, Prince wants to make a movie. And if Warner Brothers cannot help us, we will terminate this relationship. A lot of threats going around here. And Mo Austin's like, okay.

And so they negotiate something I thought was really smart, which is a $2 million advance. Right. Against his royalty. So it's not, I mean, as long as Moe Austin thought Prince would make that much money, which he did, he was like. Well, they were already, you know, Mo says, yeah, we were, we were already, he was already in the, in the black.

Exactly. Like, we already, like, it was such a saint. It was such a safe bet. So they're like, you got it, but. And Moss and loved Prince and was like, I think he's incredible. And I know he's going to, you know, bust his ass and make it happen. They went to David Geffen. Oh, that's later.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll get to that. Don't you worry. But we need to go really back to Prince right now because to your studio logs, we're going back to June where he sets up the band. for rehearsals in a new space, which is a warehouse off Highway 7, as you already knew.

Flying Cloud Drive. That's right. I was in the studio locks. Susanna Melvoin, who is starting to be around at this time, the sister of Wendy Malvoin, who will... Twin sister. Twin sister, importantly, yeah, who is straight and will soon be dating Prince, but not quite yet. She said, Prince was such a structured boss. There was no real fun in it.

If you were five minutes late, he'd docked. your pay. You might work on the same groove for five hours nonstop, some three bar thing over and over. It was like the army. And she also obviously had her own experience with it after this when she was in the family. So the first three songs they work up in this warehouse, do you know what they were? I would die for you, Baby I'm a Star, Purple Rain. It's Baby I'm a Star, which had existed since 1981. Uh-huh. And it's first, yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yeah, solo piano version. I would die for and Computer Blue. And Computer Blue?

Oh, right. Yeah, right, of course. Which Dr. Fing said had sprung from something he had been playing around with when they were jamming on the 1989 tour. Prince was like, oh, I like that. Like, what can we do with this? Interestingly, I wanted to get your opinion on this. Wendy said, the songs weren't as funky to me. They were pop songs.

They were definitely watered down. It was really white and it felt that way. I remember reading that whenever I read that book, too. And I was, I mean. Because it's like, to your point about Dirty, Mind. While he did say, like, I can do anything I want now, he did go a little more pop. I mean, I think Head on Dirty Mind is like maybe the funkiest song he's. So, so, like, I mean, but there was no, you know, there was no when you were mine on the

previous albums, which is just a straightforward, you know, just major pop song. Yeah. So I understand where Wendy's coming from. and I can only go off sort of like the finished product or like any of the sort of, you know, demos that have leaked or live performances. But they sound, I can't unknow how dense the finished songs are. So to say that they're watered down to me is like I simply disagree with that. But I could definitely say that. Maybe as they were forming.

They're less like, funk, you know, like driven. Well, Lisa said, I think. think Prince felt that way too because then he went into Darling Nicky, which was not necessarily funky, but it was full out angry energy, which is something we were missing. So these are the songs that are taking place in the warehouse at the time. He's also working on a song called Electric Intercourse. Did not make the cut. But it's on the... It's on the deluxe, the 2017 deluxe. You know what I like on there? Possessed. Wonderful ass.

No, possesses on, oh, wonderful ass. I love it. Possessed is on the 85 VHR. Wonderful ass. Great. His version of Dance Electric. It's really good. Really good stuff on there.

Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about the initial. We can fuck. We can fuck. It's amazing. That was the last song I listened to before I rolled up into this procloth. Let's talk about Purple Ran and it's initial germ of inspiration.

Is this a question? Yeah. Is there a question mark? Yeah. It's, it's, well. Well, are we talking about Stevie Nix? Are we talking about Journey? We're talking about Bob Seeger.

We're talking about, oh, when... We're going all the way back. When he was asking, was it Dr. Fink? Yeah, we're going all the way back to the 19-A-N tour where they're playing all the same cities as Bob Seeger who is playing arenas. And Prince is like, why is this person able to... And he had a great respect for him.

I wasn't even that. Why is this... No, it was, yeah, it was just a factual objective observation. why is this person able to do these large rooms? Ballads. Ballads. He was like, you heard we've got tonight, babe? It's a fucking jam.

I got to say it. Why don't you stay? Give it to me. Deep in my soul. I'm not going to do it, but it's a great song. I wonder if our young listeners are like whomst. In 2004, actually, they were both inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Prince and Bob Seeger, and Prince said that Seeger, quote, had a lot of influence on me

at the start of my career. He certainly influenced my writing. Aw. That's nice. Yeah, true. So basically, Prince was like, hear you loud and clear, doctor. Thank you for the prescription. Starts to write some chords for this new ballad by December of 1982. And he showed it to the band at Soundcheck in Cincinnati.

And Wendy said, I remember him coming in and he had this idea. He made it clear. I need to find this thing. It needs to be this and it has to have this tempo. And then you picked a key and we started jamming and came with that opening chord sequence. and it just started to happen. That song is where the revolution really shines. Yeah.

Like, you could hear each one. He let them. They had the space, like the figurative and literal space to do that. And he let them kind of like write their own parts. I mean, Wendy's, when her inversions and her voicings of those chords, this may sound like gibberish. to you. I've heard your dunking on music theory talk on this podcast. I've not dunked on it. I have said, I, a moron, smooth brain, do not understand it. I have a great deal of respect for it.

And the entire guitar center and its staff. To make it a bit understand, more understandable, as you would say, Prince's chords were very were simple major minor chords and the chords that Wendy brought were suspended and and we're we're different versions of the same chords that Prince brought and those versions sort of like up the like emotional like like like the drama of it kind of yes yes those chords sounded are more dramatic and sort of a motive. Got it. Yeah.

Okay. I can understand when you put it into like stupid dumb dumb, simple spelling. I have actually more facts about this, and I know you do too. We'll talk about the song in full

when we get to the soundtrack, but I just wanted to, I'm sort of... Yep. Okay, back to the movie. So these are the songs that are being written at the warehouse. So the script includes the characters,

the kid, the revolution, the time and vanity six. Why? And vanity. Because it's vanity. It's supposed to be vanity. They all take acting lessons and dancing lessons. Jazz hands. Don Amidula, a medolia, that's his name, was an actor. It appeared on Cheers. He's later on Twin Peaks for my Twin Peaks heads. He is teaching them acting. Lisa said, imagine Jelly Bean doing pirouettes. So it was basically very funny. Wendy said it was ridiculous, but it was loosening and it was humbling and it was humbling and it was. was funny. Dr. Fink said, the acting coach was mandatory, whereas dancing was not. Prince hoped that everybody would stick around to do the dance stuff. At first, he kind of required it for about three weeks, and then people fell off. I personally stuck through it the whole summer. Sometimes

it would just be me, the dance instructor, and a couple of gals from Vanity Six. I got in great shape. We were doing the Jane Fonda workout and like Broadway dance moves and routines. I love him. How sweet is that? I love him. He loves a routine. Also, he was like, I studied acting in summer school. Yeah. And I had done voiceover work. And he also, fun fact, grew up down the street from Joel and Ethan Cohen. Right. And he kind of theorized that Barton Think was named after him. Was named after him.

I hope it was. Yeah. He told Wax Poetics Magazine later. One day Prince was like, we're making a movie. I was like, okay, fine. So I started going to acting classes and dancing class and all these sorts of silly stuff. I got kicked out of acting class because I kept clowning around. And the guy said I was disrupting it for everybody.

they did realize that he was very funny. Yeah. He was in character. Yeah. Or he is that character. That's, yeah. Susanna Melvin said in acting class, they weren't working on dialogue. They were working on like pim walks.

The band was like, why are we doing this? Can we go to rehearsal? I thought that was really funny. Prince took the acting classes too. He did not need the dancing classes. He's a trained dancer. Don Emondolia said Prince was very, very good. He'd flip right out of his persona and be whatever character he had to be.

He's very shy, as most actors are to a degree. He took direction well, probably the best. He asked a lot of questions. He was very serious about this film. About his work, very serious about his work. But those acting classes did reveal a lot, like, how funny Morris Day was, how funny Jerome Benton was. And I think maybe that, like, informed that part of the script that maybe wasn't in there before.

And also, the part that Wendy plays in the film was supposed to be Lisa. But they kind of realized that Wendy is just more naturally. outspoken and comfortable on camera. So they swapped them. That's what we said we watched a movie the other night. Like, Wendy's very good in this movie. Yeah, she's good. She could have, I think she could have been an actor.

Yeah. This I thought was so interesting. I guess like during this time, Dr. Fink remembers him just randomly mentioning something about his family and being like, oh, we had a tough time. And then he goes, then he suddenly realized what he was doing and clammed up. This was in 84. He said that was two and a half years ago. We never heard about his personal life again.

Just one time said one thing. It was like, I've said too much. A moment of comfortability. Yeah. Guard was down. It was probably the acting classes that really get you into that zone. Jill Jones remembers around this time, and again, informing the script that he was visiting his father all the time because his father was basically a recluse, right, to come out much.

And she would go with him but sit in the car and wait. And she, just by not being inside, said, I think they started mending some pens. Prince did later say about his father. He's full of ideas. It'd be wonderful to put out an album with him, but he's a little bit crazier than I am. Yeah. Well, and he started, you know, giving him writing credits on songs. He had writing credits on Purple Rain and parade and around the world in the day.

He was clearly wanting to collaborate and help his father starting at this point. You get a sense of it from the film, although it's obviously really opaque in the film. But like, from what Joel Jones said, his father was basically like, if you can even imagine it even more uncompromising and like more eccentric and more like it's maybe unwilling to play the game. Yeah. And so was really never able to like be part of the music industry and in any meaningful way. Yeah.

And maybe Prince saw that and adjusted himself a little bit. I don't know. Okay. Guess what? The summer is nearly over. We have no script. We have no budget and we have no shooting schedule. Just vibes, babe.

What a recipe. Just vibes. August 1st. Magnoli comes back to Minneapolis. He's like, okay, I'm going to interview everybody so I can really get the script down. The Revolution, the Time, Vanity Six. This time, things are a little emotionally tense. It's weird.

It's bad. Desdickerson's gone, so everyone's adjusting to the new Wendy of it all. We talked about the firing of the Time members and everyone leaving the new people. A little weird. Also, Prince is allegedly, supposedly, perhaps dating some combination of Jill Jones, Susan Munzi of Vanity Six, and several other unnamed women, and as well as beginning to pursue a relationship with Susanna Melbourne. And don't forget about vanity. And how could you? How could you?

Lisa said, we were all in love with each other anyway. And then Prince met Wendy and was like, well, I can't have her because you. you have her, and I can't compete with that. Then Susanna showed up and twins. He thought she's like her, only available. I don't know if that was exactly Prince's thought process, but I liked that. No, yeah. Lisa, you know, Lisa's maybe taken a caricaturistic approach, but there's surely a

germ of truth. Totally. Anyway, this helps Magnolia find the dramatic tension, if you will. He wrote the script longhand on paper, which was crazy. And someone would type it up for him. Apparently, as a story goes, Prince in his little purple notebook maybe, had really intended this to be an ensemble film. Like, there's no lead. Which I don't, this is just what I read, but I'm like, once again, I'm like, oh, Prince told you to pick 12 songs and Prince wanted an ensemble movie where he's one of many.

I don't know. Yeah, I mean. Maybe. Well, here's what I do think. I do think that he saw the value in being the front person of a. band, as opposed to a solo artist lives on an island. Yeah. Where so when it's funny because when he became part of an ensemble, then you could then now see him as the leader.

Right. Or the one in front. Where if you're just you, what are you in front of? Totally. You know, so I could see him being like, yeah, I want it to be an ensemble and have me portrayed as the head of the ensemble. Right. Well, what happens is it becomes that this is a movie starring prince. And maybe there was some tension around that too.

Jill Jones also said that he always knew that there was going to be this like storyline of the rivalry between him and Morris Day, which did exist. But maybe that rivalry existed more in the film. It played up for the things. All right. It's time we have pretty much have a script, September 15th. It's time to hire. and do six weeks of pre-production, they do need $7 million that they don't have right now.

So while they're doing pre-production, this is when we go out on the road, try and ask for money. First stop, David Guffin. Who didn't say no? He said, I'll make it for $6 million, but you can't start now. You have to start after he does another tour.

And Bob Quahal was like, I already know Prince is going to say, fuck that, fuck you. So he's like, I'm not going to take it to him. I get it. Okay, sorry, no David Geffen. I believe David Giffin quoted saying, whatever, I work with Michael Jackson, so this isn't. I don't know if he said that or that was just the tone or the vibe.

That was what Bob Cavallo kind of got from like he didn't need anything he had Michael Jackson, which fair. I mean, in 1983, yes, you sure do. And then they went to Richard Pryor's production company, Indigo Productions. Jim Brown. Yes, with Jim Brown. This is the ringer. so it's a good time to talk about sports,

former football Hall of Famer. Many different... Star of Mars attacks. Totally. I mean, one are really a legend on every level.

For various reported reasons this didn't work out, in the Spike Lee documentary about Jim Brown, which came out in 2002, he remembers that actually Jim Brown or Jim Brown says,

I wanted to make the film, but Richard Pryor didn't know who Prince was and like wasn't down. And so that didn't happen. What actually ends up happening is Bob Caballo gets Hollywood super agent Mike Ovitz to get Warner Brothers films to help fund it with help from Mo Austin, which makes sense. I mean, it's like they're not the same exact company, but they are the same company, you know? It feels like we really took the long way.

The long way. I know, I know. Because this also happened with Madonna. Like when Madonna was kind of at their height, she also got Warner Brothers to like help her, you know? like, of course they want to nurture and keep their artists. But they are a little bit separate. So it's like, I'm sure the film people are like,

stop bringing us your fucking music people and making us fun movies for them. They suck. You know? Yeah, yeah. According to Magnoli, the Warner Brothers VP they met with first. Mark Canton was like,

I don't like how anti-woman this script is. And also what if John Travolta plays the lead? Also, what was the movie? What if John Travolta plays the league? I get it. He was in Saturday Fever. I know, but like the whole crux of this movie, as Prince wants to be in a movie.

Like, you can't just be like, we recast it. The, a non-negotiable was, my name is above the title. Yeah. But starring John Travolta. Presenting Prince in starring John Chavolda. Also, what was the movie with Paul Simon?

There was a, Paul Simon did a movie that tanked. So there was all this trepidation about a musician doing movie when. One Trick Pony. Well, yes, one trick pony. He did one trick pony. So there was sort of a stigma of, you know, that flopped. And so there was just, you know, stigma.

I mean, is it even a stigma if you could? It was just like we don't want to. It was the most recent attempt. Yeah, we don't want to do that again. There was someone else, too. Whoie Lewis? Someone else had made a film that also didn't do well. Yeah.

So there were, there was some trepidation. Yeah. And that Paul Simon movie was rather close to this. So I feel like there was a recent example of it failing. Therefore, the mountain that they had to climb was quite steep. Quite steep, yeah. Obviously, they were like, no, John Trulta is not, that's not happening. But that's a non-starter.

And then they met with Bob Daly and Terry Semmel, who ran Warner Brothers pictures. And they were like, okay, we're down. We're going to keep Warner Brothers name off of it for now until we see the finished product. And then we'll decide if we want to be publicly associated with this. But we'll give you the money. So they're greenlit. Let's go. Yay.

But guess what? We have a problem. Don't we always? Yeah. Vanity? Bye. She doesn't not want to be in the movie anymore. Denise Matthews.

Magnoli said when I met Vanity, I was at First Avenue in the mezzanine area. Before anyone even said a word, I felt a quickening within the air. Within seconds, people started buzzing. Vanity's here. Vanity's here. I saw her coming through one of the most beautiful women you would ever lay your eyes on, packed into latex looking exquisite. She really was one of the most beautiful men. She was

Like unbelievable She was a magnet I mean in all I mean she had like So much Fucking charisma And like Untangible

I mean tangible and untangible You know And it's like I could see why she would Because she Didn't she get the Scorsese offer Okay so here was what happened She

Obviously nasty girl Comes out in 1982 It's a massive hit So she's kind of riding high Um She had not been actually the story was that she had been offered the role of Mary Magdalene in Scorsese's Last Tentation of Christ, but it wasn't totally true. There had been talks. So it wasn't like nothing,

but it wasn't an offer. So however, she had other offers like Barry Gordy had come and been like come to Motown. Some other things were going on. And actually the role, by the way, went to Barbara Hershey in Last Invasion of Christ. Vanity herself said it wasn't about any of that. It was about the money. She was like I was basically, I'm paraphrasing, but I was offended by how much they were paying for like being the second lead in the film. And she also said, this is a quote from her, basically I wanted to let the wild animal come out and I needed to write my own songs. I needed to see if I could do something without the help of others. Now, Purple Rain was really his big dream. So I had to decide, do I do his or do I do mine. Makes total sense to me. Oh my God.

Given what we know about Prince and his level of control and vanity was like, Like, if I stay here, I'll always be successful, but I will be a product of Prince, you know, but I wanted you my own thing. And so she left. She also left Vanity Six for the same reason. So they're like, okay, we need a new leading lady. And they auditioned a ton. Did you know that Gina Gershont auditioned for it? Yeah.

Is that not crazy that Gina Gershon could have been the lead role in Purple Rain? I think she would have killed it. How about that? Amazing. How about that? She would have been amazing. I mean, all love to Apollonia. Sure, but not a good actress.

Love, respect. Oh, my goodness. Everything. Not a great actress. Kind of a bad actress. If I'm being keeping at 100. But what was this? There was the scene.

But also Gina Gershant too good of an actress. Maybe. I think so. Let's talk about the levels of acting of the rest of the people in the movie. And then all of a sudden you have Gina Gershon. It would be a little anything. I skirted by this earlier. But I, but in.

when we were talking about Albert Magnoli, I think the thing that makes this movie work so well is the fact that everyone is brand new. There's a real naturalistic quality to most people. I mean, again, to varying degrees of success. As I point out to you, to me, Prince does this almost 80% of the movie. So well, though.

One of the best to ever. He's got some good cry. He has some great. Cry scenes. If you guys are only listening to us, sorry, I'm doing Prince Face. Yeah. Great cry scenes. He smolders. So, yeah, there's, they're smoldering. He's reflective. But, but, but, but, but to your point about double G, um, as we call her. Gina Gersh. Um, I think part of what made this feel, this movie feel, what made this movie work is its natural sort of feel. And yes, that, with that comes some, poor acting performances, but it also humanizes everybody.

And then I think in turn and sublimity makes you a bit more invested because it's a world that they're creating of like a real... You love it so much. I love it so much. That you have maybe just like a lightly skewed. And that's so fine. But here's what we do have to actually ask ourselves. This movie was a giant hit. Yeah, I think it's successful because it's camp.

Of course. Which is great. Like, it's camped. But they're asking you to go on this ride that has very little stakes, you know? And so you do have to sort of relate to it in order to sort of go on that ride. And I feel part of that relation is the fact that, like, there's probably a part of us that's like, I could do it. She's not that great of an actor. I could do that.

Right. But you couldn't play the solo. So then that. You could. So then that brings us into the juxtaposition. To the actual reason why it's so successful is that the music performances are unparalleled. Well, Gina Gershawne did not do it. She did not.

As we mentioned, a woman named Patricia Cotero shows up. Magnoli says she walks in. She came from the gym in baggy sweats, no makeup. Everyone else came in in leather and spandex and athian shills. She was the polar opposite of vanity. Vanity was danger. Overt sexuality. Sin.

Apollonia with sweetness and light. men really have a mother horror complex it's so funny and they always show their ass with it they're just like this woman the devil this woman sweet as cupcake and you're like they're just honestly probably not that you know like but it is very funny

when men talk that way because you're like oh you really do see the world that way so it's just really so easily tricked by like a little latex a little bit of eyeliner smudge so like bad girl the special features the other night and Bob Cavallo is talk about meeting Apollonia and he's like, yeah, she's really beautiful.

That's pretty much. Wonderful. Okay. Sweetness on light. Yeah. So Patricia Cotero, soon to be known as Apollonia, was from San Pedro, just down the last night I dreamt of some Pedro. Hmm.

She dropped out of high school at 16 to pursue modeling and was Miss San Pedro. And she had a little bit of acting experience. Would you know it? No. She did have a little bit in a miniseries called The Mystic Warrior. She said, I was a starving actor and singer. I saw the listing, called my agent, and had an audition within seven days. Prince took me to First Avenue.

I wore black spandex and a gold mesh thin top. I'd heard a little bit about Prince before I went to Minneapolis, but I'm not in awe of him. So we got along just fine. She says Apollonia was her middle name, though it's not on her birth certificate. That's fine. You can have a middle name on your birth certificate. Other people say Prince is the one that was like your name is Apollonia, no? Because of

The godfather. The godfather. Which was already referenced Yeah. As in production. I'm not a forensic scientist. Okay, whatever it is the case, she becomes known as Apollonia. I believe changes her name?

I don't know sure. Maybe. Regardless, one crisis solved. Now, Prince is still working on music this whole time. Jill Jones recalls them listening to a lot of English music, Roxy music, Gary Newman. We pointed out a bit of a Gary Newman moment when we're watching, and we'll get into that. It's, okay, this is one of the fun one.

It's speculated that this is around the time that he writes the beautiful ones. Because, depending on what time you ask people who this is about, you'll get different answers. But I think we have a definitive one now from the horse's mouth. For a long time, people thought it was about Susanna Melvoine. Susanna said, I can't say that song was exactly our story, but he wrote it during that. time. He wasn't always specifically writing about what he was going through because he also had to be consistent with the Purple Rain storyline, but he was

drawing from things that had happened in his own life. Our relationship was definitely very intense. So she goes into the relationship, which I can get into later. But Susan Rogers also said it was about Susanna Melvoine back in this time, 84, 85. But in 2015, Prince

came out and said, actually, no, this song was about vanity. He said, I was talking to someone about the beautiful ones. They were speculating as to who I was singing about, but they were completely wrong. If they look at it, it's very obvious. Do you want him or do you want me? That was written for that scene in Purple Rain, specifically, where Morris would be sitting with Apollonia, and there'd be this back and forth.

And also the beautiful ones you always seem to lose. Vanity had just quit the movie. It's not about somebody human that I'm looking at right now. It wouldn't have worked if it was. This was literally for that character, and that's why it worked. So it was about vanity, but it was about vanity as the character. in the film. Here's the thing.

I'm going to call a little bullshit on that which I'm going to be like, but you had to tap into something. Is there a song that you've heard that's more tapped in? That's what I'm saying. That's more fucking tapped

the fuck into the emotions. So it's like, and maybe it was about all of that. Maybe it was about the character, but it's also about his new feelings for Susanna Melvoin, who had a boyfriend at the time that he was trying to woo her away from and about vanity leaving

because this is a song that's very clearly about loss. And like Vanity and people close have gone on record being like that was perhaps the greatest love of his life. I think he was very affected by Vanity's choice to sort of leave. Leave Prince Incorporated. Yeah. Including their relationship.

Yeah. And also to just kind of like push that more home. So Vanity passed away in 2016. She had kidney failure after years of being kind of. being kind of a gnarly crack cocaine abuser. During the first show of the Australia tour around this time, he dedicated the beautiful ones to her. And this was like three days after she had passed away.

And on stage, he said, her and I used to love each other deeply. She loved me for the artist I was. I loved her for the artist she was trying to be. And then when he got to the line, I'm begging down on my knees. He said, I'm begging down Denise. My arm hair stuck.

straight up. I could cry. We'll talk more about that song later, but oh, my fucking God. Even if I had one ounce of influence on that song, even if he had just seen me that day at the post office, the day that he wrote some of that song and was like, that girl was weird. I'd be really proud. Also, he writes, let's go crazy around this summer at some time.

Jill Jones said, when Prince wrote, let's go crazy, he came and picked me up. It must have been three in the morning. You just knew it was a really different kind of record for him to make. He'd never composed anything with that much energy in the hooks. He found his voice with the talk singing and he knew it. Susan Roger later said that Prince always had like a core of every album, that he was like, these songs are like the heart, the core. And for Purple Rain, the songs that represent the core, the album to Prince,

were beautiful ones, Purple Rain and Computer Blue. Yeah. Okay, well, it's time to get into production. Let's do it. Let's go. We began filming Purple Rain, October 31st, Halloween, 19, 83. It was quite cold. It's Minneapolis. It ended up being quite cold. Yeah, I guess the first like week or something it was fine. They were like, oh, beautiful fall, foliage is all that stuff you see.

And then everyone is like, it was fucking goddamn freezing the whole time. Like, Apollonia famously had to like drink alcohol to get in that water in not like Minnetonka. They had someone under, they had someone underneath to make sure that she would, that she would be able to rise up out of the water after she. Yeah. And the shooting was mostly frantic because they were almost always behind. have a lot of money. Alan Leeds, who was the tour manager and kind of de facto production manager, said Prince was unaccustomed to not being in complete control of things. And he was in a situation where he didn't have the knowledge or the skill set to assume control over certain aspects of it. And you could see that frustrated him to no end. He had absolutely no patience for the time it

took to set up lighting, to set up shots, even though he had done music videos. I thought that was really funny. I also hate being on set and I hate how long it takes for them to set up lighting and Yeah, and a music video, and if you watch the, the music videos for the 1999 album, they're just on a stage performing, you know what I mean? He could tap into that easily. But was so, the thing I love about what, how the Purple Rain sort of shooting schedule, how that worked out was when they got there and it was nice for a little bit of time before it became ungodly cold, they were like, well, we should do something.

Like, we can't do dialogue yet. Like, let's film all the, all the helicopter shots and all the, and if that, if they weren't able to do that, and it was that cold two weeks earlier, they probably would have had to do all that in L.A. And it would have felt like. I looked so different. Like, that feels like Minnesota. Totally.

You know, and it need, that made you, like, there are a few, you know, a pickup shots that are in L.A. where, like, there's, you know, there's a palm tree and, like, one short thing. But, like, for the most part, they do a great job in making it. feel like it's set in the place that's actually set in. And so much has been filmed in LA, obviously, we would have been able to tell. And the fact that they were able to do all of the, you know, all the bright fall, you know, foliage stuff in Minnesota was like, what a blessing. No, yeah, it's so great. It's really some of the most beautiful parts of the film. Leeds also said that there was drama with Magnoli and the crew.

because Magnolia was so brand new and the crew was like journeymen and they were just like, what the fuck is this guy? I mean, makes sense. Yeah. Also, it was very funny to me, though, the idea that Prince was like not tolerant

of waiting and all this stuff kind of caused continuity issues, which as we were watching, I pointed out, and I was like, did you not just rip that poster down? And then like in the next shot, it's back up on the wall and I was like, it's continuity issue. It's fine. That's why he uses so much drum machine.

Right. Because a drum machine doesn't take time to set up. Yeah. And he, if he has an idea, he needs to lay it down right now.

Yeah. And it's like, that's, that's how you're able to record a song a day for, you know, 50-some-odd years.

Bro. Bro. Also, maybe adding to some complexity and craziness and chaos on the side is that princes I'm constantly changing the script.

Susanna said, he took everything away from Magnoli. He was writing the script himself. He would be like, nah, that's not what I had in mind. there are no rules here.

This is my movie so I can do it myself. He would read something and say, it's not popping enough. It doesn't say what I'm saying, and the next thing he's sitting on the floor, rewriting it, he'd give it to Steve Farnoli, one of the other managers, to take to his office and the next day it's changed.

It was always his way or the highway, and you just facilitated it. Great. It's his movie. Worked out. You talked to me about this earlier, but off mic, so all the music was shot

after everything else. Because they were so, rehearse. It was like the one thing they were so good at, right? Like, that they caught up all their time. Like, they were a month behind and then they finished early. Is that right? Yeah, they had, they had three, three weeks or a month to record all the music sequences. They did it in between seven and ten days. Yeah, because they were just so tight. And it's funny because Magnolia was like, I want to do as many takes of each song as possible. And Prince was like, I want to do one per song. And then they had to compromise on three. Yeah. Prince, to his credit, he was just like, it's going to

look different, like each three, but he did it so perfect in each one that actually doesn't look different. He knows that I'm, he's, he knows that he's so, that he's so proficient at that thing that they could do it once. And being precise and like hitting the mark and whatever. Magnolia also said that one thing, and just a further complication is that Prince insisted on using only clothing conceived by his personal designer, Sorbonne graduate Marie France, as every day wear for everyone on the set and that was a great challenge of production. But boy, did that pay off. It really did.

They all look amazing. I mean, is that one of, that's one of the, besides the musical performance, the second star as the outfits. That movie, like, the characters just look incredible. And trend set. Sure. I mean, that movie feels like, we know it feels like the 80s now. Yeah.

You know what I mean? but like those were clothes that they were making. You know, those, those looks and that feel became part of culture. Totally. Also, all the extras look so cool. Like, they had cast such like cool looking like perfect. Speaking of the opening scene, like those close-ups on those people and their makeup and you felt like you were entering into a scene.

Yeah. It's really great. Princess Stand-in, this guy Byron Hector, was fired because he had told a newspaper that Apollonia, quote, can't act to save her life. It's not cool. It's not cool. He shouldn't have said that. Not professional.

Not professional. Also, you're just the stun double. Yeah, what do we? The body double or whatever. But a third of her scenes did have to be reshot and take from that what you will. She did get the Razzie that year for the worst new star. Razies. Critics.

Critics. And as you point out, they end up having to do seven days of she. shooting in L.A. at the end because of the weather, which is why there's one palm tree. It's in the one dove's crime montage, if you want to look for it. There's also a bunch cut, right, from the final product. Jill Jones, you were talking about this earlier. She had an entire arc in which Prince gives her a puppy. And she has a song called Wednesday.

Yeah. Which actually made it, right? There's a test pressing that the first track listing of, the first test track listing of Purple Rain features Wednesday, Jill Jones song. Yeah, but it didn't make it. And that has, that song is still yet to be released. We've never heard it. It's crazy.

The only evidence of the Jill Jones arc is that random shot. That makes no sense where she's standing in the hallway, holding the puppy crying. Yeah. And you're like, okay. I didn't like totally think it was that weird because the whole movie is fucking weird. But now that I read this, I'm like that is kind of weird. Yeah. And everyone is so impressed with him after that performance and so moved.

That she's just crying with a puppy. That you're just like, oh, she's also really moved. Like five seconds later, Apollonia is crying. It's like, everyone can't believe what they just saw. So as a kid, I was like, oh, she's just emotion. That just got her. Wordlessly crying at the door. There was also, obviously, the sex scene, the second sex scene in the barn.

A lot of sex scenes and barns in the 1980s in films. Standard. That involved a shower of almost literal purple rain. Some of it is in the trailer. And in the Wind Doves Cry music video. But according to someone that worked on it, they said that Apolloneo was playing it a little bigger than she was supposed to. And Prince was awkward and uncomfortable. And you could see it on his face.

And they were like, we can't include this. It doesn't look good. But you pointed this out and Apollonio said it that they never dated. Yeah. Which I believe because they actually don't have any chemistry in this film. Respectfully. And we would just know. Yeah.

We would just simply know. I watched this interview with Apollonia and they asked if her prince ever dated and she said no. And he was really? Why? And her answer was you'd have to ask him. Oh, he didn't want her. That was her answer. Oh.

She apparently was dating David Lee Roth at the time? She was dating David Lee Roth at the time. She was dating David Lee Roth. She was maybe married and then was dating David Lee Roth? Not sure. Apollonia claims that princes jump and split off the piano. Yeah. Which is, you know, infamous.

Yeah. Stem from her. I'm sorry, stemmed from him mocking David Lee Roth to her when they're by themselves. Like, oh, you know David Lee Roth, huh? That's very funny. Oh, what's like... That makes a lot of sense, actually, because that's very...

It seems in line with his personality, given his competitive nature. Right. Well, we wrap this shit up, babe, right before Christmas. A few days after shooting ends, December 30th, Prince is like, oh, sorry, just need to make two quick songs.

She's always in my hair in erotic city. As a B-side. I mean... What? If you... I know it's not on the album. Well, we're going to talk about it. It's a B-side.

But many people point to this era and this time of Prince being less, less funky. We can funk until the dawn, babe. Listen to Erotic City and then tell me that with the straight face. The first two B-sides, 17 days and Erotic City are two of his best songs. Couldn't agree more, honey, sister. If not, I mean, if someone said my two favorite Prince songs are 17 days in Erotic City, I would fully accept that. Full respect. Yes.

We're not in the clear yet, babe. Okay, because they have some studio meetings and they're like, what the fuck is this, babe? What is going on? It's not done. It's still being edited. And Mike Ovitz is like, okay, you don't like it? We'll take it to Paramount. They'll make it a big hand.

They're like, hold on a minute. Wait, wait a minute. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, let's not get hasty. Prince did not sit into these studio meetings. He does not, you know, the lion does not concern himself with the studio meetings. because he also had to make more music somehow because they needed a song to reinforce the romance,

the romance between him and Apollonia, right? So he takes back a song, is this correct, that he had already written for Vanity Six? For Apollonia. For Apollonia. Yeah, take me with you. To be on her album.

Because they literally just swapped her into the exact role of vanity in every, like, you're playing the movie, part, you're in the band, Applonia 6, the whole thing. So that song is called Take Me With You. His first proper duet. Proper duet. I do feel

Lisa said something along the lines of like, Appalonia was an actress. Playing a singer. She could not sing and I sing on that song and Applonia was like, I don't remember that, but I'm sure she's on the track. We have a new person playing on this.

Who is it? Well, we kind of brushed by her a few moments ago with her first vocal performance, but we have the one and only missed Sheila Escovito, as you all know, as Sheila. The daughter of Santana band member, Pete Escovito. That's right. So she had come in for Erotic City. Where did Prince Find Chile?

They met when he was on tour in Oakland years prior. Got it. Respected her very much as a musician. Her father was a musician. His father was a musician. So they connected very much on that. And Purple Rain, he started. you know, using her.

Yeah. And not to get too far off this, but it was within the Purple Rain sessions and then making Erotic City and Take Me With You, where he said, you should make your own record. She's like, I don't, what do you? I don't say it on to this. He goes, no, it would be great. And of all the records he did in 1984, the Apollonia 6 record at the time, Purple Rain and the Sheila E album, the Sheila E album came out.

first, but all that material was the most recent material. It was only January, February, where he had the idea for her to do a record. Right. And her record came out in June. Wow. He believed they could do it that fast back then, too. That's like, would never happen now. But that shows his need to get his newest stuff.

Yeah. Like out there. He's like, this stuff is old. I don't care about it anymore. But anyways, she'll use right on there, drum drum. Being on the drums. Unparalleled. There's still one final piece missing.

Perhaps the most important piece. Do you think so? Well, I mean, you can't argue first number one, first number one single, biggest hit of the album. I know. Probably the most original song. Yeah. Definitely, I would even say to this day,

the most original number one hit song, maybe ever. No baseline. It's so funny because that's such a part of When Doves Cry's sort of history and its story. But like when I first heard that song, you wouldn't notice that. I was, you're so wrapped up in the greatness of the song. But like everybody around him when they first heard said, what are you thinking? Honey. Like he had to fight for When Doves Cry.

I know. I know. What are we talking about? You know? Sure. Yeah, the point of this was like, basically a Magnolia is like, I'm cutting a montage showing like the kids struggling with all the forces swirling his head is about the father, the mother, lost, redemption, salvation, all the themes. And the next morning, Prince is like, okay, I have two songs for you. And at that same time, the label is saying, we love Let's Go Crazy and it will be a single.

but it's not a first single. So we need another song to be the first single, and that song has to be a smash, while Albert Magnolia is saying, hey, I need a song that's exactly like this. Yeah. And Prince says, both. Here.

I got you, babe. Apparently, did you read that he, so he wrote this, I guess, or recorded it after going to the Grammys, and he said that, It was inspired actually by his relationship with Susan Munzi. Mm-hmm. Although, obviously, the lyrics do touch on the movie. Like, maybe I'm just like my father.

That's all. It's very interesting. It's very interesting. Well, I think it just shows that I don't think many songs are simply about one thing. Totally. And you fall and they start with an initial feeling. Yeah. And you sort of like, when you're,

able and then when you're able to branch out of maybe that initial subject and use your imagination, the world opens up. So not everything is meant, it means not everything is obviously tied to the initial idea or inspiration because you allowed yourself the permission to deviate from that. And when you do that, then everything, everything now is an option. Or as I learned from my ex-boyfriend, sometimes people just put words places that were they sound good.

I can never unknow that. Because we have all these new songs. Also, we'll go back to your point about it being the single. They actually didn't want it to be the single, though. Of course, sure. But they were pressuring him. That's what he was thinking. But they were saying, we need, like, that was what he...

That was his response. He was like, I got you. Because he had written so many new songs. songs, the soundtrack, which was originally meant to have everyone on it, right? Like, it was supposed to have songs by the time. It was supposed to have Apollonia 6. Depends on who you ask. Oh, interesting.

Well, there are versions, like, aren't there versions of track lists that do show other, other, well, I know the Wednesday one. Sure. I don't, are there versions? I don't think Prince ever intended the soundtrack album to feature other artists. Not even Jill Jones, because there was a test. Besides Wednesday. Okay. Besides Wednesday.

Because that was kind of more of a joint. Right. But you think he always had it in mind. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. For a few reasons. One being, and I think the main being is that only Prince's music follows the story of Purple Rain. Totally.

It wouldn't, yeah, it doesn't fit. And also, like, I would assume this is a total assumption on my part, but like, one, Cavallo has that experience with Love and Spurs. Spoonful where they did kind of a similar thing where there it wasn't that similar, but it was like in the sense that like the soundtrack to that movie is a love and spoonful album. It's not a it's not like a comp. And it's like if Prince makes this a comp, it's not a Prince album. Whereas Purple Rain is both the soundtrack of a film and a Prince album. Exactly. And it wouldn't have been so if it. Yeah. And he made, he he he had records for like when he took away, take me with you for. Apple I'm 6, he was like, okay, well, we need, you know, a mid-tempo pop song. So here's Blue Libizine. Like, he was always thinking about their albums. Yeah, yeah. He had things to if you follow the, uh, the studio notes, the studio logs. Yeah. If you follow the logs and the work orders, that, that directly contradicts that sort of idea that that there was once

supposed to be a soundtrack featuring all the artists. Got it. Well, that makes a lot more sense. And also, regardless, thank God, because it wouldn't have been as good. Okay, so now we have all the songs. The final cut is there. They have to go show it to Warner Brothers. Bob Cavallo calls Howard Bloom, who is Prince's tireless publicist and is like, I need you to come here because we're going to show it to Warner Brothers. And you got to sell it for us because I don't know how to sell it to them.

And Howard Bloom comes out and he's like, here's what he said. When the screening and the exact advisors all filed into the conference room, they started getting opinions and they were funereal, timid guarding their speech. But everything they were saying was this film is dead. When my turn came, I got up and gave the Moses parting the Red Sea speech. I said this is one of the most important movies in the history of film. And if you fuck this movie over, you were committing a sin. then he told them

old time in Hollywood is so funny he gave him the history of movies like Wizard of Oz which had been done offset and everyone was convincingly of failure and see what happened he basically really went like and they were like okay okay like he just sold the fuck he pared the fuck out of it now we're going to get into starting to release some

the stuff starting to come out into the world real quick I want to paint a picture we've been talking about 1984 but like just to like put the landscape. We talked about MTV launching, talked about the first black artists being featured on MTV, just a short year. During the Super Bowl at the top of 84,

Apple Computer ran their Ridley Scott directed advertisement where a blonde woman in athletic where runs into a gray dystopian setting being chased by stormtroopers and puts a sledgehammer through the screen and the voiceover says on January 24th, Apple Computer

will introduce Macintosh and you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984 the daughter will. But also like look where it got us. I wish they would have fucking taken it back. I wish you were going to time machine kill Hitler?

No, we're going to kill Apple Corporation and be like, get that phone out of my fucking life. And we'll kill hell or we'll do both. Yeah, yeah. things are changing. Also, the first commercial compact disc players have been put on the market. That was 83, but it was really in 84 when the first portable players were sold and the CD players started putting into cars.

So it's a real, it's a real sea change, you know? A real shift, yeah. Also, in fall of 84 is the very first MTVMAs, which huge. Did you cover that last month at all? A little bit. I might have seen my gorgeous video, my beautiful reenactment, where people were like, is that Madonna? Oh, no, it's Yossi. That's, wow, I had to blink because she looks just like her.

All right, it's May 16th, 1984. The doves, the doves be crying? Dig if you will, a picture. You and I engaged in a kiss. Can you believe? Dig if you will, a picture? one of the best opening lyrics to a song ever put pen to paper. It's nothing short of remarkable.

I can't just. What a turn of phrase. Dig if you will the picture. That's how he, that's how Prince was trying to say, check this out. Imagine. Yes, imagine. Yeah. Say imagine without saying imagine.

Dig if you will. The picture. It's the picture. Doves cry. You hear that. You're like, chiching, let's go. Art, Picasso, hanging in the Louvre. Kavala was like, yeah, I was like, this is the obvious first single.

It's fucking amazing. The urban department at Warner Brothers was like, actually we want to put out, let's go crazy. It's less than experimental. And Kavala was like, what? Am I wrong? And so he goes to the gym with Clive Calder. who would later become insanely successful because his label, Zomba slash Jive, was the home of Britney Spears. And in sync, he did very well.

He made $2.7 billion when he sold it. Anyways, he picks him up the hotel. He's like, I'm going to play these two songs. Doesn't tell him the context. Which one do you think I should go with? And Clyde Paller's like, is this a joke? And he's like, what? You don't like, Doves Cry?

He's like, no, that's fantastic. Put that one out. And so obviously they do it. Here's what Prince said in his virtual liner notes from his first website in the 90s. Okay. Studio logs. Come on. Originally recorded with bass, backing two sets of keys and guitar.

Frustrated with the mix. He referred to himself in the third person. Prince Rogers Nelson sat discouraged in the studio. Jill Jones came to visit and saw the long face and asked what was wrong. PRN said. P.R.N. was said to have said. If I had my way, the song would sound like this. He then shoved down the bulk of the instrument faders and left up only the drums and the xylophone when the voices began to sing the chorus. Jill then asked P.R.N. why he thought he couldn't have his way with the mix. There was no reply. Everyone who passed by the studio was enthralled by the strange sound coming out of Studio 3 that day. The next time Jill heard the song, it was on the radio and it was baseless and stark. Pierren had his way. you're a little short story um

Morris Day did not have the same reaction he didn't like it Prince played it for him in his car Morris Day got out when Prince was dropping him off and he goes next time playing me something funky slams the door in his face wow

well isn't it funky people could not well this is when I suppose that becomes a subjective phrase but the lack of baseline, again, it's, I cannot, I can't put myself in that, in that headspace of hearing that

song for the first time, you know, without it being released and already hit. But it really, it bothered a lot of people. Yeah. I mean, funk, I mean, bass is the sort of like, I don't, I don't mean funky in a sort of like, cool, like the term, like a, like a non-meaning term, but like funky in the sense of like being of a funk song. Yeah, bass is, is sort of the primary is what drives a funk tune. Yeah. For sure. I mean, I think it's so the starkness of the coldness of the song is what makes it so impactful.

And it's one of the few songs where it wasn't a standard of his life, like after the Purple Rain tour. It was not in every show, especially later. And when it was, he was always reworking it. to find the perfect way to play it live because because the studio version is so unlively as I guess a better way to put it. And the way that for me it always worked best was when he did it on the piano and a microphone tour and he just pressed play on a backing track and sang over the song. It's the only print song that I would say works best with that live and with that

instrumentation because it's not it's just simply as a live band song yeah yeah that that's okay yeah this is but it's again it's perfect it's perfect it's you know not not to repeat myself but i do think it is um one of the most original and strangest hit number one hit singles ever um subject matter the instrumentation, the vocal approach. Can you say more about that? The first time you hear voice in that song is so abrasive and aggressive that sort of, and he hasn't really did that. He never did that again, really, but that opening right after the guitar and the beat

starts to kick in. You know, I don't want to imitate. it because it's it's the do it but you know it's it's not the it's it's not the it's it's non-liarical and it's like right like what so cool it's so cool but it is again it is quite odd and subversive for pop radio yeah and like ahead of any of and that's the first thing you hear

So it's so sick. And guess what? People loved it. Mm-hmm. Not just us. It hit number one, like you said, in six weeks. First single they hit the top spot, stayed there for five weeks, kept Bruce Springsteen's dancing in the dark, also a Godtier song, from reaching the top spot, became the best-selling single of 1984.

Sorry, Bruce. Number one. This song is in the key of A minor. Okay, but even I, with my limited knowledge, know that A minor is like God-tier. for making you feel some type of way. Sure, yeah. Yeah. So I was interested to learn that.

Yeah. Even amongst the cold metallic production of it or whatever, there is an emotional component to the key. There's a, and it's a common key. So within all that, there is a familiarity. Right. He didn't make everything weird and different. Whether you know anything about music theory or notation or chorus at all,

like you say, but you do, you hear that key enough and whether you could point to it and say that's that, it is subliminally familiar to you. Totally. The royal you. The royal me and us. The B side to this song is called 17 days. Actually, it's called 17 days parentheses. The rain will come down, comma, then you will have to choose if you believe, comma, look to the dawn,

and you shall never lose in parentheses. It is the longest um titled flip side of a hot 100 number one.

Just so you know. Um, what a tune. It's, it's one of my favorites. It's originally intended for Apollonia 6. Okay.

This is I was confused. Was it for Apollonia 6 or for vanity 6 or for the Brenda Bennett solo project that never transpired because I also read that it was for that and that's why Brenda Bennett still has a harmony vocal on it. The first recording of it has Brenda on lead. Yes. She has sung lead on, like, she's the lead.

She's the lead on Blue Limousine. Okay. So I don't think it was for her solo project. Got it. But the Vanity and Apollonia 6, like I'm using those kind of. Interchangedly. Yeah, yeah. Because they basically became.

Right. Right. Because the second, because the Apollonia 6 album very well could have been the second. Right. Had she not left. Yeah. Apparently the her, so her vocal is still there. It's just buried in the track, right?

That's what I read. She's present on the track, yes. But you can't really hear it. Yeah. Yeah. What do you love about this song? It has a sparseness, but different in the way that when Doves Cry does. it's a perfect representation of letting the melody be the star of the show.

And the vocal hooks, especially in the verse, I feel like when you can make the vocal melody and have that the verse vocal melody be the star of the show is really hard because the course is meant to then elevate the song. Right. This in this song, it still does. But Prince has this, Prince does this very Prince thing where he will allow the chorus to do everything the chorus is supposed to do while yet making the verse the best part of the song. Little Red Corvette. Yeah. I think he does that there where the chorus in Little Red Corvette is a perfect chorus.

It does everything a chorus is supposed to do. It does lift up. It does have a line in it that you could see, that you hear once. and you could sing back to you much like 17 days. Right. But the soul and the pain and the tone and the performance is all within the verse melody for 17 days. It's so funny because if you just read the lyrics,

it really comes off so similar to like a country song, which is kind of important right to talk about like what princes maybe interests were in some ways around this time because we'll talk about it a bit with Purple Rain too, right? Also, LOL to me that he has so many songs about being like left and lonely and down in the fuck out for the man that dignitized the entire town. He's like, but nobody's calling.

And I'm like, yes, they are. Maybe spiritually they don't feel it, but I promise they're probably beating down your door. So that's where you can still be alone when you're surrounded by people who want to fuck you. He's a character. He's a character man. This was the first piece of commercially released music credited to Prince and the Revolution.

Not when doves cry, but this. Yeah. Interesting. Living Color covered this song in 1993, and it's quite cool if you haven't heard it. Yeah, I have. It's great. And also used in queer. I didn't know that.

Yeah. Okay, great. Well, pretty strong start to the purple rain. promotional cycle leading up to the film because we have a number one single. The soundtrack is released shortly thereafter a month later about June 25, 1984. The whole thing is credited to Prince of the Revolution. Until the last minute you read this too, that the members of the Revolution were not aware that this was going to happen.

Bobby C. said only when he saw the test pressing that he was like, oh, that's cool. Yeah. They got the chills. Yeah. We're a part of this. Yeah. Again, he saw the benefit and the value and the pros in being an ensemble. Yeah.

Well, it worked. The sequencing of this album changed up until the very last minute. Most notably that Purple Rain, the titular track, was moved to the very end, which makes a lot of sense. Because otherwise, am I wrong that the songs are pretty much in the order that they come in the film. Yes, it's just that Purple Rain is before I would die for you and Baby I'm a Star. Yeah, but he obviously wanted the whole thing to build up to the big way. Totally. And genius, I mean, like, those two songs had to come after Purple Rain in the movie, but the album has to close the Purple Rain. Do you think that if he was not dealing with the limitations of

length of recording material how it had to fit onto CD or LP or whatever at this time that he would have made this like 17 songs? I think that 1999

though his greatest success I think there are people in the camp who thought that it could have been one album more effective as as one album so I think there was a lot of discourse about

Purple Rain not being a double album and that's why we get a you know a very much abbreviated version of Computer Blue which the original is 12 minutes so at the very least if there was no concern over LP length we would have had longer versions of the song especially computer blue because he looked at that song as an anchor which is kind of funny to think about that now because that song is and I say this as a compliment is barely a song. You mean in its final form? It's one verse, one chorus, and an instrumental section.

That's not the basis for an anchor of an album, right? So that song took, and so there, it's interesting to see that that was the song that kept suffering loss when it was sort of initially sort of envisioned and viewed as an album anchor. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's just the parts that were cut don't, like, would. they were all basically spoken work right yeah it was yeah and and there was a uh the um the initial like sort of um sections doubled so there was a nut you know um but but yeah i mean it was a long

it was a jammed it was a very jam adjacent tune tune yeah but no i think we could have seen possessed on the album i think we could have seen electric intercourse on the record um But wouldn't it have been strange to have songs that weren't in the film? Yes, for sure. So I guess Father's song. Father's song, which was originally closed the album with the Wednesday version. God. Yeah.

We probably would have had God. Yeah. So at least I could definitely see a world where without those sort of time restrictions, we could have had the hallway speech version of Computer Blue, God, maybe. possessed and father song. Yeah. It's crazy because when I listen to this, one of the things that I'm always left with is how tight and perfect it is and how short it is. Because you're just kind of not used to a 44 minute. It's 44 minutes, right? And it's like just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It is the most like no moments of like sagging or weakness, you know? Like, I think it was it

Chris Rock who was like everyone says through the best album of all time, but Thriller has skips and Purple Orin doesn't. It's simply true. No lies detection. Okay. Let's talk about the promo before we get into things. As we said, Prince did not speak to the press for two and a half years that just happened to coincide with the entire promo cycle around this film and soundtrack. Think about that. I know.

Think about that in context of like now where someone having their biggest moment. Yeah. They're on every show. They're doing everything. saying you're hearing their voice in a humanizing way all the time. I like wonder, yeah, I wonder. The only thing comp I can think of maybe now is like Beyonce. Yeah.

Because she doesn't, for a long time, has barely done promo. You know, it doesn't need to. She earned that. Yeah, yeah, totally. We all now, like, are so familiar with her. Yeah. Like you said, a few months before this, Richard Pryor did not know who Prince was.

I know. But it was a different time, right? Where, like, you really could. People were invested in intrigue and mystery, you know? They, you exit, you beat me to it. They stumbled upon, or maybe not stumbled, but they realized that everyone in the camp realized that the sort of, that the mystery was part of the story. Like, let's lead with this because it's one of the most compelling parts of Prince. Exactly.

And I think Howard Bloom said that. I said, we didn't need to have Prince to interview anymore. This is like, this also, I was like, Jesus Christ, we humans have very little memory. It's not until you repeat something 15 times that it rises to the level of consciousness. So I worked on a Pavlovian philosophy almost, getting Prince's name repeated as frequently as possible. Doing publicity of this kind, you're like Sisyphus, rolling that big roundstone at the mountain, except when you're building a prince, if you're moving that stone by repeating his name over and over again in every context possible, when you get to the peak, gravity takes over and the thing keeps moving with the momentum of its own.

We had passed that peak. Prince had his own momentum by the time that movie came out. He said he had a relationship with Liz Smith, who was like a big gossip columnist, and he was like with a gossip column, you can get somebody's name out every single week. So by the time you went to see the movie, his name had been trickling around you for a long time. This couldn't happen anymore. We don't have that kind of press. It's just simply not how it works.

You have to do front-facing camera content. and humiliate yourself like a fucking goddamn clown. Myself included. Interestingly, when the album came out, because the album predates the film, right? A month. About a little... Single album, movie, all about a month. Roughly, yeah.

Because the movie comes out in August, right? It's not a July 25th for whatever reason. That date seems... July 17th? Like it means something. Yeah, genius. Yeah, so about a month. You're right, three weeks.

Bruce Springsteen's born in the USA came out just a few weeks before this, and it was like a huge deal. So kind of a little at the beginning overshadowed Purple Rain. Like Rolling Stone gave him the cover of that reviews section instead of whatever the featured lead spot or whatever, not the cover. And they gave born in the USA five stars and gave Purple Rain four stars. Kurt Loder. Yeah, but if I'm, I may be mistaken at the end of the year, didn't they reverse that? Well, at the end of the year, they were like, the album of the year is Purple Rain. Yeah.

They gave the top honor. Right. And they gave, right, they gave born in the USA number two. Yeah. Kurt Loder said that he didn't see a song on Purple Rain being as big as Little Red Corvette in his review. Meanwhile, Purple Rain would like to have a word with you. Purple Rain has like, I don't even know however many billion, not, actually I don't know if it has a billion, but it definitely has like 800 million streams or something. And let's not forget, it didn't join streaming until after he passed.

Exactly. So imagine if it had been on since the beginning. Also, there's many versions. So it's like people are spreading it around. Here's what curleader said. The spirit of Jimmy Hendricks must surely a smile down on Prince Rogers Nelson. Like Hendricks Prince seems to have tapped into some extraterrestrial musical dimension where black and white styles are merely different aspects of the same funky thing. Prince's rock and roll is as authentic and compelling as his soul and his extremism is endearing in an era of play-it-safe record production and formulate him mongering. That was good. For so long, Prince, especially as a guitarist, has been compared to Jimmy Hendricks.

Yeah. I saw a video recently of Paul McCartney speaking about Prince as a fan and with admiration comparing him to Jimmy Hendricks. And I simply don't... You don't see it. I don't agree. I don't hear it. And he is...

His guitar playing is Carlo Santana. Interesting. What's... The color of his skin. Me is stupid. No, no. I know why people make his, but me...

What is the meaningful difference that you see that's like, okay, it's more like Carlos Santana because it's like this? Totally and like the scales and the sort of... I, know. It's hard for me to...

I'm just really sorry because, unfortunately, what immediately came to my mind is, you know what came to my mind. Give me your love, make it real, and then forget about it. I'm sorry that's smooth, but by Santana and Rob Thomas came into my mind. There's a...

It's a good song. There's a more... Hendricks's lead playing was like really nasty in your face, and Santana's was a bit more sort of like, I don't want to call it hook driven, but more melody, more, more melody forward. Got it. And although Prince was his sort of tone, like, his sort of lead tone is very like loud and gaily and like harsh, but the actual, but after that, the actual music he is playing

from his guitar, those are, that's far more informed. by Carlos Santana. And I don't think really very much by Jimmy Hendricks. That's kind of at all. That's very thoughtful. I think, I think obviously you pointed out, it's like Jimmy Hendricks having been one of the early,

kind of the like held up example of like, this is a black guy shredding on guitar. Sure. This other black guy must be just like the other black guy shredding on guitar. And they like, you know, have similar, like, there's a similar look, you know. Yeah. And like, you know, I don't think you could maybe discount with that purple.

Hayes probably had a touch to do with Prince's preoccupation with purple, you know. Sure. And again, a touch. I don't know about all of it. This is pre the era of Carlis and Tanna that you just referenced. Yeah. Carlos Santana, not a household name. No, you mean before Smooth featuring Rob Thomas? Yeah, that really broke him right through the main stream. Or you could say Jimmy Hendrix and everyone on Earth knows what you're talking about. Totally. Here's what Greg Tate, may he rest in peace, one of the greatest rock critics or music critics, said in the village voice. No album since Funkadelics, let's take it to the stage, has so amorously bedded down black and white pop. The record Prince has been wanting to make all along since the music sounds like the kind of mulatto variation he probably was piecing together and performing in Minnesota before he got his deal.

That word has been used a lot to describe Prince in the era. And it's just like every time. Well, we don't say that anymore. But yeah, no, no, no, no, no. Oh my God. Of course. But, but. But that's just like an aside. High praise. None. Nonetheless. I know. Okay.

So even though born in the USA by Bruce Sinkstein had held the number one spot in the album chart for four weeks, just a few days after the film came out, Purple Rain took its slot and became the biggest seller in the nation. It was an enormous success. 24 weeks on top of the Billboard 200 was on the chart for 167 weeks. When Doves Cry, like we said, hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100, Let's Go Crazy. Number one, Purple Rain, and I Would Die for You, were top ten hits. By 1996, this album was 13 times platinum. First, only by the Beatles and Elvis Presley, to have only artists to have the number one single, movie, and album.

Oh, sick. So sick. What are we talking about here, folks? One day, he came to Bob Cavallo, and he said, if you don't get me a movie, I'm leaving. And they were like, okay, and then look what happened. Exactly. Okay, let's go song by song. We're coming to it now.

Let's go crazy. Let's go crazy. I'm sorry, this song fills me with a joy and a splendor that I cannot explain. It is divine. It's divine. Literally. It's literally divine. Dearly beloved.

We are gathered here today. If you are a DJ, if you're a club DJ and you play this song, play the entire intro. Oh, you have to. Because oftentimes I've heard it with the abbreviated version. And the anticipation for when the beat kicks in, when you're on the dance floor, it always lands. Because DJs, you know, they have short, they have, they have edit brain. Let's Go Crazy is just an unbelievable song.

And it immediately establishes him as this sort of like, as what we were saying earlier. Like, I'm the leader of a rock and roll band. Look at my guitar. While being a 10 out of 10 pop song. As you know, I think every song is about God, but this is actually fully explicitly about God. He told Chris Rock in 1998, this song is about God and the devil. He said, I had to change the words, but D-Elevator. Which, by the way, I was like today years old when I learned that it was not the elevator, but D elevator.

Okay. But D. Elevator was Satan. I had to change those words up because you couldn't say God on the radio. Let's go crazy. It was God to me. Stay happy, stay focused, and you can beat the elevator. The beautiful thing about Prince is he says all of that is true. And yet evangelicals during this time think this is the work of Satan.

Yeah. Well, I was thinking about it with you because I was like, Oh, I wonder, like, as a fan, how you negotiate with that. Like, it's a thing that I think, it's a thing I do think about. Prince is a very godly person and always has, since the beginning, right? Like, even before he obviously later on in his life became kind of more extreme and became a Jehovah's Witness and renounced cursing and that's kind of stuff. He was always, like, kind of a practicing Christian and you see it in his songs. But you're not a religious person.

No, by no means. But you connect with this music. I think the fact that you could hear, given that you could sort of hear his struggle and his being pulled in every direction within his music is what makes it relatable. And is actually the thing, because as like the purple banana and the elevator, how like, you know, surreal, like those, like when you get into the weeds, how surreal the actual words are. But the sentiment of I feel many things and I believe many things that he contradicts himself so much within his lyrics. And I think to me that's what makes him so.

I don't want to say relatable because he's Prince. Like how can you how can one? But like you could hear when you could hear like the conflict with with with someone to me it allows for intrigue and it allows you to be like a. allows you to go deep into what they're actually trying to say and how they actually feel, where if every song was saying Jesus is God and he loves you, because that's not what he's saying. No, no. He's saying, like, the song that scores the sexy and a purple rain is God. I know.

You know what I mean? Yeah. Well, many people have, many people have done a great job of showing religious ecstasy or like the, like, the, like, sort of intersection of spirituality and sex. Madonna did it with like a prayer. Like it's it's a thing, you know? Totally. And for many people, that's blasphemy.

100%. And because of that, because honestly, because everyone makes up their own rules regarding God and religion, it allows me to not take their beliefs very seriously, if I could be honest. Yeah. I mean, I think that's fair and fine. And I think like, I think I agree with what you're saying just from like a different angle or like, I feel like ideas of God and the devil are archetypical, right?

So there's a reason that everyone can relate to them that sentiment because that sentiment is an archetype created by humans about humanity. Right. It doesn't mean I'm saying it's not real because obviously I'm a believer in a different way. But like I think it makes complete sense that whatever your religious beliefs, these are like such human experience ideas while they might. play into your life in different ways and you might call them different words, it's the same structure, if that makes sense. Also, when a prince or Madonna, these people that reach a peak

that you could count on, you know, two hands, the amount of humans that have like received that much real time sort of admiration, I understand how you then have to be like, well, there has to be something greater than this. Right. And I think Prince always thought that, you know, like he was always a spirit. But also in that interview that you referenced earlier with Chris Rock, he says the only thing he ever got from going to church is how to sing in the choir. Right. And that he and that what they were teaching in church did not align with his, with his beliefs and his values.

Yeah. Four years later, he became a Jehovah's Witness. So I think that coming into Prince Land later, around that time, you know, when he did that interview with Chris Rock was right when I got into him. Yeah. And I was like, oh, this person is a bit confused. Well, yeah, and I think that's what all the songs are about, right? And how can you not? They're about seeking.

They're about trying to find answers. And though the specific thing that you're trying to find answers to, you know. So the specific thing that you're trying to find answers to is not necessarily what I'm trying to find answers to. I very much can relate to seeking. Totally. Of course. Totally. Yeah.

I think that makes so much sense. All right. Next song is Take Me With You. It was actually the sixth and final single. I forgot to say this on Let's Go Crazy, but it applies to Take Me With You too. I just love this backstory of the Lindrum. And I'll make it short because we did it on the Madonna episode. But this is the second, the LM one, like you were talking about, made by Roger Lynn.

Do you know that it was the suggestion of Steve Procaro, the keyboardist of Toto, that Lynn recorded samples of real drums? And you know the samples were mostly played by a guy named Art Wood. So almost all of the songs that you hear with a Lind drum are drums paid by Artwood. And the handclaps are by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. So cool. So in every Lind drum machine, you're hearing a little Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. You think they got a little cauliflower from that? I don't know, actually. Probably not.

Probably not. Okay, take me with you. God damn gorgeous, beautiful song. We talked about it already a little bit earlier, so we don't have to get into it. But what a jam. First duet, you said. And this song is so, like, effective in the album within the sequence. Because it's kind of, it's the album,

sweetest moment. Yeah. And it has that like kind of same upbeat feel of let's go crazy. Like they've kind of flow into each other nicely. Yeah. And let's go crazy is like is so loud. And this is the kind of the only this song allows you to kind of feel within the record like it's not all so bad. Yeah. It's not all so heavy. Right. You know, because the record it is so weighted. Totally. There's a there's like a sweetness to that first love and that like romance. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And just like the start of something.

The beautiful ones, which we, we've talked about a bit. What a God, just a God tear. It's my favorite song. Of all time. It's my favorite song of all time, probably. Maybe on certain days it's if I was your girlfriend by Prince. Really good. But the TLC version.

Really good. I love that they don't change the gender. Change the gender. But the beautiful ones, I don't know. what genre of music that is. There is a type of Prince song, and it kind of mostly happens with Prince for me, where I'll be listening to a song,

and every once in a while, I'm like, the ballad of Dorothy Parker, the beautiful ones, I don't know what genre of music this is. And there's not really a chorus. Totally. There's, but the climax and the vocal performance is, is you want to talk about hair standing up and chills.

Yeah. I don't think there's any example in popular music that does that better than the beautiful ones. It's insane. It's insane. It's like a psychedelic trip to listen to the song. It's psychedelic. Yeah. Yeah.

Fun fact, which you already know, I'm sure, but that Mariah Carey covered this on. With Drew Hill. With Drew Hill. And it's a great version also. It's a great version, but you got to have that, like without that, scream and without that anguish, without that like... There's a real fucking... That aggression?

Yeah. It's all over this album. That's probably why it's like a pinnacle album for him because it's so naked and raw and in its emotion. Okay, so we talked a bit about Computer Blue, but let's talk more about it in detail because it is anchor, even though the truncated version is on here. So that was something that we talked about. Dr. Fink had been jamming and he was like, oh, I like that.

becomes a full-blown collaboration between Dr. Fink, Lisa and Wendy, Prince, and then, like you said, Prince's father, who wrote the main melody for the bridge section of the song. And it had gotten up to 14 minutes when there was

all that extra stuff. Obsessed with the intro. As was the nation. Wendy? Yes, Lisa. You also even see here how good of a voice actor Wendy is. Because she puts so much pizzazz on her With every

Because she says the same thing over it's yes Lisa Yes Lisa yes Lisa Yes Lisa Is the water warm enough? Yes Lisa shall we begin Yes Lisa That final yes Lisa Wendy said in 2012

I wish there was something more interesting behind it But Prince just gave us a piece of paper and said Say this We didn't even think it was a weird Psychosexual lesbian thing I had no idea Lisa later said, I have a Facebook page and I can't tell you how many people post, is the water warm enough on there? I don't know what it means. Is it tea? Is it a bathtub? Whatever you want to think. It has to be a bathtub. I love how they have. He's obsessed with bathtubs in this area.

No idea. They just like said what he told them to say. Is the water warm enough? Yes, Lisa. Shall we begin? Yes, Lisa. flashing back, though, it's 1984. You know, like, we talked about this a lot in the Madonna episode, but, like, people were not, they did not feel the way about

gay people that, I mean, I think there's still struggles, obviously, with how people feel about gay people, but, like, in 1984, it was a whole different ballgame. And so to kind of lead with that friend's under it, and even though, like, it's not that, like, Lisa and Wendy were super, like, were girlfriends, like, they didn't hide it, but

they weren't, like, closeted. They just weren't trying to be, like, bring down the fucking, you know, but they were together for 20 years. You remember for 20 years and though they never said on camera, we are a gay couple. Yeah. I don't think you had to sort of use your imagination very much to see what was happening. And he knew that. Yeah.

This song is about AI. Mm-hmm. Where is my love life? Where can it be? There must be something wrong with the machinery. It's about someone falling in love with AI, but the AI doesn't love them back. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

It was a four, it was. Yeah, it sure came out in 1984. It's foreshadowing, baby. Foreshadowing, big time. Yeah, tragically, foreshadowing. I'm just kidding, but also still hits. Oh, my goodness. What is wrong with the machinery?

Share voice, what's going on with my career? Just because I think it's interesting, the two more spoken word parts of Wendy and Lisa are, poor lonely computer. time someone programmed you. It's time you learned love and lust. They both have four letters, but they're entirely different words. Poor lonely computer. Poor, poor, poor lonely computer. Do you really know what love is? To me, this song, obviously you have the composition by John L. Nelson, but is so Gary Newman to me. That's what we were saying when we watched the, and you, and musically and thematically. And he was a huge Gary Newman fan. We talked about it, right? We were

Jill Jones saying they would fall asleep listening to Gary Newman, I'd take the bet that that was a direct influence. 100%. It's a great song. You can still listen to the extended hallway speech version. It's on the purple rain. 2017. Deluxe.

Darling Nikki. Beautiful ones into computer blue into Dargin Nikki is the what kind of music is this block? Totally. But Darling Nick, it's like he was able to

makes some because when you really hone in, I don't want to get too in the weeds with like production or like sounds, but the way Prince mixes his music, like a normal mix to like a pop song would be like you sort of have your lead instruments on top. It's sort of mixed like a, like a pyramid, right? Like that makes sense where he sort of mixed everything like a globe or like a kaleidoscope where it's changing throughout. It's kind of up to the listener. Okay. To what they're paying attention to to get the treat that they're looking for. Interesting. And darling Nikki, it's like you don't even realize how smart, how minimal the instrumentation is. Right. It feels so big and grandiose.

But if you, if, but if you are someone that listens to drums, you're going to realize there's nothing happening on that song for much that song. especially in the verses. And the way that he was able to sort of like make these really like human sounding mixes and recordings, like that, that approach allowed for Darling Nikki to be so effective. Totally. You know, what I think about when I hear it is like his vocal performance is obviously so singular on this. And so like I was like, okay, Axel Rose in like the best way of possible.

But then what sets the song apart from like a Guns and Roses song Exactly what you're saying. It's like if it's so Spartan and sparse in the in the instrumentation and it wouldn't I don't think it would have worked if it had Your norm that extra right because it wouldn't have been it would sound small wouldn't have been a Prince song It wouldn't have been a Prince song it's like it hits you so hard because of that juxtaposition The lyrics were insane I knew a girl named Nikki I guess you could chase was a sex fiend, men are in a hotel lobby masturbating with a magazine. I mean, this song quite literally changed music. They never were really clear about what that meant, though.

The lyric? Yeah. Well. Is it like, it's open for interpretation? Is it? Well, was she just looking at it? Or was she using it? Okay.

Do you know what I mean? Yes, I suppose. She's a sex fiend, babe. Yeah. Okay? Paper cuts notwithstanding, you don't know what she was doing. Sure, sure. I knew a girl named Nikki.

I guess you could say she was a sex fiend. I met her in a hotel lobby, masturbate. All that being said, this song was partially responsible for the parental advisory stickers that went on to be on albums throughout the rest of time, which we don't have albums anymore, really, so they don't exist. I'm sure they do maybe out there still, but I guess Tipper Gore had, here's, I'll read it straight from the horse's mouth. I purchased Prince's best selling Purple Rain for my 11-year-old daughter. When we brought the album home, put it on our stare and listened to it together, we heard the words to another song, Darling Nikki. She reads the first lyrics.

The song went on in a similar manner. I couldn't believe my ears. The vulgar lyrics embarrassed both of us. At first I was stunned. Then I got mad. Millions of Americans were buying Purple Rain. and had no idea what ticks by. It is a bit much for an 11-year-old,

but that's kind of like, you know, you're bad. So don't buy it. What a moron. Yeah. Can we just say it? The lead single is when doves cry, the sweat of your body covers me. Like, is that what you want your...

Also, who cares? What's going to happen to your daughter if she hears about masturbation? Yeah. Heaven forbid. It holds the number one spot in the, what is it

Parents' Music Resource Centers Filthy 15 Yeah These songs are insane When you think about what's out now When you think about how Trent Resiner wrote a song called I want to fuck you like an animal Or whatever with lyrics

I want to like the kind of lyrics that we hear regularly On the radio unbleaped Now And then they have Dress You Up in My Love by Madonna on here I'm like Fucking Judas Priest, Sheena Heistin, Black Sabbath.

That's a sick ass laugh. You could get this. And Sheena Easton, that Prince wrote that song. Sugar Walls? Yeah. Well, there's also a vanity song in here. So Prince, technically, I think technically Prince has three of the top four slots. Our fucking man.

That's my guy. So that's what Bobby Zee had the best quote, though. He was like, I thought she was kind of late. Where was she during head? For real. Honestly, such a good question. real. Like the fact that that song didn't spark the parental, you know, advisory music board or whatever was called. Right. And it's like, it kind of goes, this is a man who, um, has three of the 15

dirtiest songs and is this God guy. Like, so as to answer to kind of further elaborate on your question earlier, it's like, how aren't like the intrigue? Right. You know, that that sort of like, invites. Although he doesn't... He stopped performing Darling Nikki, right? He stopped performing a lot of songs. Yeah. It was very interesting, which I don't know if I never really noticed this before.

The, and which you obviously know, but like that backward recitation that's at the end of Darling Nikki, because on an LP that was the end of Side 1. And what a fun thing. We don't have this anymore because we're not a proper country anymore, but that people used to bury in CDs it became something different, but like with LPs, it was like you had to play it backwards to hear it. And the Beatles did it, a bunch of people did it. But his was, when you played it backwards at the end, it said, hello, how are you? I'm fine because I know that the Lord is coming soon, coming, coming soon.

At the end of darling, I'm masturbating with a magazine. The Dirtyest Song in America. Okay, we already talked about when doves cry animals, they be striking, furious poses. It's one of my favorite lyrics. It's, it's Like animals are striking curious poses Yeah, they are Yeah, we're the animals

I would die for you The fourth single Can you imagine this is the fourth fucking single Yeah, this is most Most band's best song If they're lucky If they're lucky

Most artists' best song It's kind of your first You know, breath Breath of Fresh Air if you want to call it that, sense, take me with you. It kind of rounds back to like the, there is an optimism. Okay. A little bit.

Okay. And it's like tonally. Yeah, totally. Maybe not thematically. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. But not, but like he's. It's upbeat. It's upbeat. It's major. It's kind of, it's fun. I think if it's one of those songs that if you don't,

think too much about it. It's a fun song. It's a fun romance song. But if you look at the lyrics, it's an absolute God song. Oh, no. I mean, that's objective. But I get what you mean. Like it lightens the tone of like the like the sonic. In the sequence, it's kind of perfect. And also make sense in the film. Like we got to a place where Des Dickerson said to Prince's biographer Toure in 2013, I think Prince experienced something with respect to the idea of who Jesus is or was. and he wanted to express it in a song. It's not a very cloaked lyric. It says what it says.

He's saying he's Jesus. The lyric, obviously, being, I'm not your lover. I'm not your friend. I am something that you'll never comprehend. No need to worry, no need to cry. I'm your Messiah, and you're the reason why. I guess there's no more televangelial. Yeah.

You know, like, that doesn't, the tele. Like Bob Baker and or Taylor's a. And what would you call the sort of like YouTube internet version of that? Oh, yeah, I guess they're kind of the same thing. mega, mega church pastors or whatever. They were talking about that song, saying that he's a, they are theorizing that he's admitting that he's the devil.

With, with the, with, and that. That's true. Yeah. Hence, hence me just simply, if you're like a super God person, I just, I,

it's hard for me to like put that much sort of, I think of anything, I'm super presuming here. I think of anything, he's doing the thing that a lot of great artists do, which is their, they're they're writing as if yeah of course like nick cave p j harvey style where like he's like i'm writing from the perspective yes of what i think jesus is you know 100% and in that sense it's

kind of cool yeah for sure but just in thinking about like you know perception right and what what something wouldn't mean to you you know some people that means that he's admitting he's the devil It's so clever what he did Because like again If you're not reading into that So much of it can be read into In a different way like especially as it pertains to him Like I'm not a woman I'm not a man

Mm-hmm Like for Prince in particular It's such a canny It's so can't Yeah Wise playing with people's perceptions lyric Um I'm something that you never understand

Which is true of him and Jews Um Yeah it's a fucking It's a God tier song I did read that Um Years like later, he would still perform this song post Jehovah's Witness, and he just changes the lyric from I'm Your Messiah to He's Your Messiah.

Yeah, he did that with, I feel for you. It's mainly a spiritual thing as opposed to it. I think all songs are about God. So you could have played all of them if you wanted to. Baby Amistar. Okay, if I was going to say there was one slightly weaker point on the album, I would say it was Baby Amistar. I think it's a great song. But compared to all the rest, it's, it's a lot. feels like it sags a tiny bit. That's just my, that's just my. I mean, if, if, if we have to, um, say that there. Gun to your head, you have to pick one. To leave, you know, um.

I wouldn't even want it to leave because I think it's such a great. But it's so essential to the story. I love it. And like the, the title. It serves a purpose perfectly. It's just as a standalone song. I'm not like, oh, this is. the fucking banger, you know?

I would be... But it's a good song. I think why I can't fully just like, you know, dive into that water with you is where it's... And not Lake Minnetonka. Yes, is where it's sequenced. It's like...

No, exactly. He's showing... Like, the fact he's like, I fucking did it. Watch this. Like, I have to give it up. No, it's great. And also, like, those two songs in tandem, so great together. Like, what played together. and then also like hitting that high and then going to purple rain and it's great. And I kind of look at it more like all the songs that could have been taken out were taken out.

This song was old. He had started working on it in 801. It's the oldest one, yeah. Yeah. Like we talked about earlier. But it was also in the original cut of Tim Burton's 1889 Batman. Right. And the Joker's Parade scene.

And then he wrote, I believe it was 200 balloons. That's right. Yeah, for it. And then later, that was replaced with trust. Yeah, because they rejected it. It was on the B side of Bat Dance. Yeah. Apparently, we can't get into it, took the whole other soundtrack,

but did he not write the soundtrack in like two weeks or something crazy like that? He was, our mind was fast. Yeah. I mean, all these songs, like, prints did not write music in the way that most artists do, where it's like, like, even him revisiting a song from 1981 was pretty rare. Right. Like, that was very out of character. Yeah.

Like idea, performance, recording, mix master done was his standard. What he wanted to do. Well, here's the last song. The third single released after the film, September 26th, or boring. B-side was God, the song God that you mentioned that is instrumentally heard during the sex scene. We talked about the genesis of this song, how everyone was God. was kind of like left to do their own things.

And Dr. Fink was like, oh, like, I recall the first time jamming on that song, I played that line on the piano that he sings at the end when he goes up to his falsetto for that big peaking line that came from me just by sheer accident. And he latched on to it and sang it. Right, Dr. Fink. Hell yes. Essential. This is something interesting that I wanted you to maybe explain to me all about.

But he said that Coda piece on Purple Rain where I play that. little piano riff, I have to give Lisa a lot of credit for that because she showed me this trick she had where the left hand is doing one part and the right hand is doing this other thing against it in counterpoint. It's kind of a weird rhythmic thing that she knew. And I said, that's really cool, show me how you do that. And you, that's something you can hear in the piano riff, like a counter. Sure, yeah. It kind of sounds like there's two. Got it. Two separate parts happen. But he's just playing it, it's just him playing that. He's just doing it like counterintuitively on each hand or Yes, yes. And like sort of kind of like the more common purpose of each hand on the piano is like, you know, bass,

bass in one like melody and write and sort of like playing with those, you know, like like break like sort of breaking the foundation, you know? To like, okay, to go somewhere new. I never really heard this until I read this and then I was like, oh, I guess I could hear that. while it was being written, Prince recognized that it was similar to Faithfully by Journey. Yes. It should come out in 83. And he called Jonathan Kane, who was Journey's keyboard player who had written the song

and played it to him over the phone and was like, is this? Like, were you guys going to be mad about this? And I guess he was like, I don't really hear it. It's fine. I don't know what he said, but whatever it was, it was fine. But I thought that was cool that he didn't want anyone to come and be like, that's my song. Totally.

Totally class. Yeah. I mean, it's such, like, if I had never read it, it would never have heard it. Yeah, like the sort of like the framework of like the main melodies and like the performance and the tone, like it's so different. But, you know, it's one of those things where it's like if you looked at like the sheet music, you'd probably see similarities. I wonder if Jonathan Cain kind of wishes he had said something different on that phone haul. I think he's fine. That's right.

It's journey. Yeah, yeah. They're doing. Okay. Yeah. Now this I loved the Stevie Nix of it, or the lack of Stevie Nix of it. Sure. So as the story goes, the music is in place for Purple Rain, and Prince turns to his new friend for a little help.

His new friend, Stevie Nix, who had recently, before this, called him up and said, hey, I wrote a new song while I was like humming along to your song, a little red corvette. I'm going to give you a songwriting credit, and I'm going to invite you to play on the session. and that's stand back. And so Prince sent Stevie Nix's cassette of the work in progress Purple Rain was like, can you write some lyrics? And Stevie Nix later said it was so overwhelming that 10-minute track that I listened to it and I just got scared. I called him back and I said, I can't do it. I wish I could.

It's too much for me. And I'm so glad I didn't because then he wrote it and it became Purple Rain. What do you think it would have been like if Stevie Nix had contributed lyrics to Purple Raine? Purple Rain, I think, is the best example of popular music. So it only could have been not as good. Right. I see. It is so perfect that any alteration would have made it more imperfect.

With love and respect to Stevie-Niz. Yes. And you can't. There's so much space in that song that I cannot see how the composer of the music and the lyricist could not have been the same person. Right. Well, I mean, again, to echo Steve Phoenix, thank God, because I think something that is so important to the success of Purple Rain, if you will, as a song is like how much a prince is all over it. I mean, it's like those, it's the film, it's the idea, it's like so, it gets so meta, right?

It's like the film, but the film is the story of me trying to understand myself and this is the titular song of the film of me trying to understand. myself and my fictional character, am I a real character? It's, and it just comes into this life. And you kind of can't have that without Purple Rain, the song, obviously. And honestly, no matter what she did with it, I believe he would have took it back. Right, because he would have like, it's all right. I'm actually going to, I have this part and this, I have this thing that I needed for. Like he did with Kiss.

And it worked out perfect. It worked out perfect. Lisa and Wendy, I loved this story. They remembered that the band was rehearsing Purple Rain, the finished version in the warehouse. a bunch, obviously, as they were rehearsing a bunch, and a homeless woman wandered into the warehouse and just sat and listened to them and played it for hours. And then when they took a break, they found her outside weeping.

I get it, sis. Yeah, with her bike. I get it. Yeah, they called it with Purple Rain Lady. George Clinton said about Purple Rain that it always reminded him of Jimmy Hendricks singing country music. And there were some other quotes. from other members that were saying like,

oh, we felt that this was like had a country feel to it. Do you hear that in Purple Rain? Absolutely. Can you point to like what, where that is or how that is? Chord structure is inherently common to country music.

Right. To like, just first and foremost. Love Lauren's sad country tunes, three chords in the truth. Exactly. Much how you like reference A minor, like I don't totally know what that means, but I do know that it does this.

like pornography. You know when you hear it. Yes. Yes. But also, country music, like, the way he sort of, his lyrical approach to this song, it's such a shame our friendship had to end. Like, the fact that he's clearly talking about, or it feels like he's talking about someone. Yeah. You know, and it's not this sort of like ethereal thing until the chorus you know purple rain like what does that mean you know of course but it has it has this sort of

personal this sort of like direct personal sort of theme to it that is often present in country music yeah it's funny because like given what we learned about beautiful ones and the story of vanity

when I hear this now I can only here, like that it must have been at least partially inspired by vanity. I think so, too. Right? Like. But I never meant to cause you any sorrow. I never meant to cause you any pain. Like, those, like, that's a country music song.

That's a country music. Totally. You know what I mean? Like, honey, I know, times are changing. Honey, I know, times are changing. But then the way he does it is. It's his. He, you know, I saw an interview with Matt Fink one time where he, where he's like,

that song is just, is. pure arena, white arena rock. And I don't... I don't totally agree. His vocal approach is so soulful and steep and rooted in R&B. And R&B and country music are very similar. Totally. Totally.

So I don't totally agree with that. But if you simplified the song and like kind of omitted a lot of like the runs and and didn't use those suspended chords and someone played it for you for the first time like I I think that it would it could definitely resonate as a country song it's God tear

I think of all the children of purple rain like Jeff Buckley like there's just so much stuff that I hear in the world that I'm like oh this is like patient zero like this yielded yeah it created a genre a subgenre a subgenre really

the purple of it all also is just so I mean obviously this is not Prince's first you know, lionizing of purple. Yeah. Like he had a song called Purple Music that he had written in 82, right?

That never came. Amazing song. It came out later. It came out much later. But it had one of his best songs. I listened to it. It was great. Yeah.

And then a song I read about but could not find tale or tell of called Purple Shades. Okay. Do you know of this song? It has, it's, there's only tale. Okay. So maybe it exists. Maybe it doesn't, but you can't hear it. Also, 1990 is a purple album, and that's when he started wearing the purple.

Totally. His father said purple had always been his favorite color. In 1999, there's the lyric, the sky was all purple, which I love because then I think about how Courtney Love would later write, the sky was all violet. Hey now. Which is a shade of purple. For those that are not possessing a color wheel in their home. I like the theory, like 1999 was about the world.

ending. Yeah. And purple rain is about it beginning again. Right. And purple is the color of dawn. Yeah. And there was something also about like there's a lyric about a bed of violets is that when does gray.

I want to lay you down in a bed of violets or something. Which that, there's some biblical allusion to that about rebirth or something. I might be completely butchering that. But also speaking of the Bible, that in the King James' Transatlantic, Translation, immediately prior to the crucifixion, Jesus is prepared in the following ways, and they clothed him with purple. And platted a crown of thorns and put it on his head and began to salute him. So a lot of meaning in the purple of it all. And if it ever gets a little hard to remember, just if there's blood, the sky, it rains purple.

It rains purple. Purple is also the color of royalty. Rough for me because I don't like purple. I know. It's not a color that I do well with. I'm really sorry. We'll talk off camera. We'll fix that.

Okay, let's wrap it up because it's been 50 hours, but I just want to talk briefly about the film. Obviously, the film does amazing. This is not a film podcast, so we're not going to, like, rehash the thing. But, like, there's great parts of this film. There's the Abin and Costello ass humor of Morris Day and Jerome, my king, my king, Jerome, about the password. He told Prince told Oprah in 1986 That the most autobiographical scene In the movie was probably the scene with me looking at my mother crying

It was very Albert Magnoli claims that Prince told him that his father Told him to never get married Right And that's written into the movie Jelly Bean Johnson said that Prince and Morrissey Actually got into a physical fight on set

Although Albert Magnoli said he never knew about that So there was that tension there. I mean, this was around the time that they were breaking. Like, they broke up very short after filming. Yeah. When Ice Cream Castle came out, the time was broken up. Yeah, that's why the Purple Rain Tour doesn't feature the time. Yes.

But I think by and large, we can all agree that the masterpiece of this film is the live performance. Without a doubt. It's so artfully done. Even, I mean, all respect to Magnoli for being such a new film. and really being able to capture the feeling of being in a club and seeing a band, like, which many people could not do that, you know? You saw the faces, you felt like there was like a real intimacy to the way that those performances are shot.

And they shot them in a way that allowed the A story to move. Yeah, it's, and for that reason alone. And it's not like Minotanka. Mm-hmm. And several other outfits. It's worth watching. Without a doubt. Yeah.

It does, it did. Many, you know, what was the Mariah Carey movie? That and Eminem's 8 Mile are simply Purple Rain. Glitter. Glitter and A Mile. Camp. Yes. Yeah, at 8 Mile, yes.

Are kind of structured around. Yeah. I also did like just a fun tid for the performance of Purple Rain in the film. He made Apollonia come to be in the audience. even though they don't film that part, she was wrapped for the set because he wanted to method basically sing to her. And then also that he consciously or unconsciously wandered over during the solo

and gave Wendy a peck on the cheek, which is exactly what he had done at their first show at First Avenue, which I started this podcast right. That was cool. Real sweet. Yeah, I thought that was really sweet. Her reaction to the kiss is so,

I mean, it's out of place. Like, she seemed really bothered by it. Yeah. Which, I mean, I understand why she wasn't expecting it. Why that character would be bothered with that character. But I'm like, that's not what you're trying to showcase here. She was acting. That's sure.

So July 17, 1984, Purple Rain opens in 900 theaters across the United States, makes back the $7 million in the first weekend, goes on to clear over $70 million at the box office, which in today's numbers would probably be like upwards of... It's like $300 million. maybe even more four or five hundred movies were 250 then

they're 20 now you know yeah yeah so I think that's probably a factor of 10 times like a 700 million dollars right it replaced Ghostbusters

the top grossing film in the country just a few notes on its influence because they relate to me Tori Amos she recalls the first time she saw Purple

ran on a date in Rockville Maryland she said I was with somebody who did not get it and that was that if you don't get this I have nothing to say to you next

It completely changed how I saw life performance. His energy, how he was able to put his hands on this force field. It was almost like a new language. I had never seen anything except possibly Led Zeppelin and maybe McJagger, where the front person had such power and they were completely present without almost staring you down. Dory Hamas. Another very compelling performer.

Totally. I believe she covered Purple Rain. That would make sense. She really did a lot of covers. And then pertinent to my interests. Darius Rucker, the late singer of who did. in the blowfish, remembers the first time he saw Purple Rain on a date in Charleston, South Carolina.

He said, for us living in the black community, here was his kid from Minneapolis, and they were letting him make a movie. For us, it was like, wow, this is really happening. Up until I saw Purple Rain, I wanted to be a solo artist, but after I saw it, all I wanted to do was be in a band. It really changed what I wanted in my career to be part of something rather than going at all by myself. And then we got a hooty on the motherfucking blowfish.

Thank God. You got the blowfish. Let her cry when God tear song. I believe it's like the song. 16th or 17th highest selling album of all time that cracked rearview. People liked it a lot. Yeah. Cracked rear of sold more copies than Purple Rain.

So check this out. Just by a little bit, I think. Purple Rain tour wrapped April. Right. Around the world in a day came out April. Hair was cut. We're done with purple. Right.

No more Purple Rain. Didn't let it kind of continue to build the momentum. Did not tour Europe? Did not do a victory? trip-el-out tour in the States, you know, Michael Jackson, like, thriller, a bad came out five years after. Yeah, he gave thriller it's real time to shine. Prince turned down the Coca-Cola deal that he wanted, so it's like.

This is very, I'm glad you realized so, because I wanted to mention one other person who saw a purple rain and had maybe a different reaction. And his name was Michael Jackson. According to the journalist Ronan Row, Michael Jackson attended one of the Warner Brothers screenings of Purple Rain, and he left 10 minutes before the, the end. He said, reportedly said this to someone he was with. The music's okay, I guess, but I don't like Prince. He looks mean, and I don't like the way he treats women. He reminds me of some of my relatives. And not only that, the guy can't act at all. He's really not very good.

I know Prince was very competitive with Michael Jackson, as reported by the people around him, he obviously never said anything. And according to Michael Jackson's lawyer, John Bronco, when they first met Prince freaked Michael Jackson out by giving him a voodoo amulet. The word is that, I forget who it was, but who had worked with both. But I said, like, I never heard Prince talk about Michael. Michael talked about Prince. It's even in the new film that's actually the funniest line of the whole film where he says the quote that he actually did say, which is that like if he doesn't follow through on ideas that he dreams of God might give them to Prince.

Yeah. I think he was way more threatened of where... I don't think Prince was threatened, but I think he was competitive. He wanted to make sure he beat him. But I do think that the thing that gets twisted a bit is that Prince was like that with everybody. With everybody, totally. Yeah, totally. Not just Michael Jackson, yeah. And you're right, he turned down that Coca-Cola deal, which was in response to the Pepsi deal. And he could have made, I mean, Michael Jackson made $91 million, but he didn't want to. And his tour got like $17 million that year. he became a movie star and Michael Jackson never did. And he really wanted to, I think. Totally. So if you had prints on every Coca-Cola commercial and the Purple Rain Tour going two years longer, which his managers wanted and to not release and to wait on releasing new music, like, it ain't sound less than hooting and blowfish. It's very interesting to me because I think

like in so many ways I do see the parallels with him and Madonna at the very least, like, in the sense of their ambition. And, and the ambition being sort of divorced from money. Totally. And which is, which is quite interesting, right? It's like, obviously they're very different kinds of artists

and like I wouldn't purport to like place Madonna as an artist maybe in the same category as Prince. But I mean, in some ways, yes. There's for sure similarities. There's definitely similarities. And I think obviously,

you know, she's not like as being musically gifted as Prince, but I do think she all, she had a singular vision and sought out. But anyways, we don't have to get into that. But more that like, the decisions they made were not rooted in,

I need to maximize the money I'm making. They were rooted in their artistic vision. And Prince was like, I don't want to fucking go around song and dance, Purple Rain for two more years, because I'm not about that life anymore. I'm done. And so he moved on and left money on the table,

and he doesn't care. And he was fine. The movie got mixed reviews, but largely good. Siskin Ebert loved it. The New York Times didn't. The guy compared prints to a poster of Liza Minnelli of one which someone has smudged a mustache.

Oh, my God. That's mean. It's unnecessary. Also points out that the women characters are supposed to be strong and independent, but they're suckers for the men that knock them around with brutal regularity. It's true that the women characters are not very fully formed. I will not defend the depiction of women in this film. But honestly, no character is fully formed in this film.

And so equal rights on that. I'm not part. And then, yeah, that's the Purple Rain story. Like you said, there was a Purple Rain tour in a sense, but not the impactful one it could have been because there's no, the time had broken up. I mean, it was a huge. Yeah. It was a huge tour. But it could have gone on longer.

Could have gone on. They could have done more. Yeah. Yeah. And he cut it short, like, mid, right? Like, it was like, he was like, oh, I'm not doing it anymore. Well, that's why they did the last. in Syracuse thing.

Right. That was his compromise in touring Europe. Like, let's satellite this to Europe so I don't have to go there. Which ahead of his time. It's really amazing. And that,

my friends, dearly beloved, we will ungather here today. Anthony, thank you so much for coming. Thanks for having me. To talk about what I feel.

One of the greatest soundtracks of all time. Probably the greatest soundtrack of all time, as it's also one of the greatest albums of all time? If I may. Yeah. Of all the subjective stances that one could take, I think the most objective of those is claiming this as the best album of all time.

It represents... The best album full time. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It represents rockability. There's funk. There's R&B.

There's rock and roll. There's country. There is subversion. There is synth pop. There is all things left of the dial. All things represent. in American and popular music and yet still sounds incredibly original

and unto its own. Okay. Well, I'm not going to argue with you, babe. That's why you're here. That's what I have to say about Purple Rain. Thank you again for coming on. Thanks for having me. Come back next week for a new episode of Vance Plain. If you liked what you heard today,

subscribe for more episodes of Vance Blaine. Our guest today was Anthony. Anzaldo. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges, with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Jacob Cornett. Executive producers for Bansplaine are Gina Delvec and me, Yossi Salih. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Dela Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fennacy and Costco. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandspland.

on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. How well you're able to sit there without moving is actually impressive. It's my job. You can shred on guitar and I can sit in the same place look at a laptop and talk.