Paean to Prince: 15 Fascinating Facts About His Purple Majesty
Juicy secrets from a legendary music career, collected by an infatuated fan
Like most of white America, my Prince infatuation began in 1983 with his transcendent, still-awe-inspiring early 80s hits: “Little Red Corvette,” “Delirious,” and “1999.” (I had no idea he’d released four albums previously, and I’m sure I owed my Prince exposure to MTV finally playing videos by black artists). I vividly recall sitting in a tree in my front yard with a fellow Prince fanatic, trying to calculate how old we would be in 1999, the age of 27 so incomprehensible to our fifth-grade selves we nearly fell out of the tree.
When the album Purple Rain came out, it was so unbelievably good that it was almost more than my 11-year-old brain could bear. Prince was my entire life for the summer of 1984, during which I completely wore out my cassette tapes of the Purple Rain soundtrack, plus The Time’s Ice Cream Castles and Sheila E’s The Glamorous Life (both of which were written, produced, and performed by Prince).
I never stopped loving Prince, and I cheered for him every time he scored a hit in the post-Purple Rain years (although I worried about him too, since his terrible films and “Artist Formerly Known As” phase made it seem he’d lost his mind a bit).
Then Medium published an excerpt from Alan Light’s Let’s Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain. Light blends his ample skills as a music journalist with the fervor of a hardcore Prince superfan, albeit one who can examine honestly his hero’s less admirable moments and hubristic missteps, and in reading his book I fell right back down the purple rabbit hole. It was 1984 all over again.
At this point, I’ve worn out the patience of my friends and family with my constant Prince-raving, listening, and quoting. But I just can’t stop. Prince’s story is perhaps the most amazing one ever told in the history of American music, and the ending hasn’t even been written yet.
The below is a far-from-complete list of fascinating Prince facts (I could go on ad nauseum, but I’m throwing a Prince tribute party this week and I’ve got to turn this in before it goes down.) Most of these facts were recounted in some fashion by Light in Let’s Go Crazy, as well as by Jason Draper in Prince: Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution, books any self-respecting Prince fan must own.
Happy Prince nerding, everyone. May U live, love, & learn from all this purple trivia.
1.We may owe the magnificent “Purple Rain,” Prince’s most famous song, in part to Bob Seger. In 1982 Bob Seger and his fabled Silver Bullet Band were owning the shit out of America. Prince, who was touring for 1999 and following Seger’s sold-out tour into various arenas, grew both frustrated and fascinated by Seger’s massive appeal. Revolution keyboardist Matt Fink explained it to Prince thusly: “Well, it’s these big ballads that Bob Seger writes. It’s these songs like ‘We’ve Got Tonight’ and ‘Turn The Page.’ And that’s what people love.” (Another account has Fink telling Prince “It’s like country-rock, it’s white music. You should write a ballad like Bob Seger writes and you’ll cross right over.”) “Purple Rain” is essentially Prince’s version of a Bob Seger country ballad. Prince even gave the Michigan native a shout when both men were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: “Seger had a lot of influence on me at the start of my career; he certainly influenced my writing,” he said. (Since discovering this fact, every time “We’ve Got Tonight” comes on the radio, all I hear is Prince singing it in falsetto. And yellow assless pants.)
2. “From the heart of Minnesota /Here comes the Purple Yoda” is an actual lyric in a Prince song (“Laydown,” 20Ten).
3. Prince is a longtime, hardcore Joni Mitchell fan. He thanks the iconic folksinger in the liner notes for Dirty Mind, included her name in all caps (JONI) on the album artwork for Controversy, and claims Mitchell’s influence taught him “about color and sound.” When he presented record executives at Warner Brothers with his completed Around The World In A Day album, Prince brought Mitchell with him for support (and still to this day lists her as one of his favorite musicians of all time). The love between this amazingly odd couple is mutual: Mitchell, who’s notoriously critical of most contemporary musicians, adores Prince, describing him as “the most amazing performer I’ve ever seen,” and told the LA Times she remembers seeing a then-teenaged Prince at her Minneapolis shows in the 1970s (he stood out because he was the only person of color in the audience). “Prince used to write me fan mail with all of the U’s and hearts that way that he writes,” Mitchell said fondly.
4. Roots drummer Questlove taught a Prince class at NYU in 2014. “Topics in Recorded Music: Prince” explored “the joys and contradictions of Prince’s music and business practices.”
5. Prince once painted a $11.9 million rental property purple.
“You know how most rental agreements have that clause that requires permission to pound holes in the wall or apply a fresh layer of paint? Prince must not have read his lease very closely, because in 2006 he painted the exterior of his rented 10-bedroom, 11-bath West Hollywood mansion purple, installed purple carpeting, and painted his symbol on the outside of the house.”
— Andrea Gussman, City Pages (The landlord sued.)
6. Prince is not only partially responsible for Stevie Nicks’s “Stand Back,” he plays on the track.
Stevie Nicks goes so far as to say that “Stand Back” really belongs “to Prince, who inspired the entire song.” A newly married Nicks was driving to Santa Barbara for her honeymoon when “Little Red Corvette” came on the radio, and she was so enthralled she insisted on pulling over to buy a cassette player so she could record the melody she’d come up with. A few weeks later she called Prince from LA’s Sunset Sound studios and told him he’d inspired a new song she’d written:
“I phoned Prince out of the blue, hummed a melody, and he listened….I hung up, and he came over within the hour. He listened again, and I said, ‘Do you hate it?’ He said, ‘No,’ and walked over to the synthesizers that were set up, was absolutely brilliant for about twenty-five minutes, and then left. He was so uncanny, so wild, he spoiled me for every band I’ve ever had because nobody can exactly re-create — not even with two piano players — what Prince did all by his little self.”
7. Rick James hated Prince’s guts. You’d think these two superfreaks would’ve gotten along famously, but alas no. The problems began when Prince opened for James during a 1979 tour, and Prince and his band often outshone the headliner with their short, high-energy set (“We were young and hungry and we started kicking his ass,” said drummer Bobby Z). James was furious, accusing Prince and his crew of disrespecting his band and stealing his act.
According to the late Teena Marie, who sang backup on the tour, James took vengeance by swiping Prince’s gear: “Back then people weren’t really programming their own synthesizers… probably [Prince] and Stevie [Wonder] were the only ones really doing it. [Prince] was programming all his synthesizers and setting the presets with his own sound and… at the end of the tour [Rick] took [Prince’s] synthesizers.” James did return the synths, but only after he’d used them to record his next album (he sent them back to Prince with a thank-you note).
James achieved further revenge when he got to co-write and sing on Eddie Murphy’s hit single “Party All The Time,” especially as Murphy was an avowed Prince fanatic who’d even named his hit special “Delirious” after the Prince song. “There wasn’t anything I’d rather have done than write a hit for Eddie — and stick it in Prince’s ear,” James said in his memoir.
8. Prince opened for the Rolling Stones in L.A. in 1981. But it was such a disaster he never opened for another band again. He was, in fact, booed off stage after only 15 minutes: “He could only stay on for two or three songs because the crowd threw things at him,” Stones bassist Bill Wyman said. A furious Prince flew back to Minneapolis, and it took hours of pleading from his bandmates, his managers, and even Mick Jagger himself before he would return. Things only got worse at the next show, however:
“Rolling Stones fans turned up armed and ready for a fight… Fruits, vegetables, Jack Daniels, and even a bag of rotting chicken came flying through the air at the group. But Prince played on, completing a full set despite the hostile response, and gained a lot of ground with the LA press as a result.”
(Jason Draper, Prince: Chaos, Disorder, and Revolution)
9. It wasn’t easy being a Prince protege — he could be a seriously controlling dick. The Revolution were strictly forbidden to wear street clothes in public — they were required to dress at all times like glamorous, big-haired Edwardian rock royalty. In a video titled “Prince In The 1980s,” keyboardist Gayle Andersen claims that during one tour, Prince’s girlfriend showed up to her hotel room, dumped a bag of lingerie on the bed and said “Prince says wear this tonight or you’re fired.”
Prince’s original name for Vanity Six was The Hookers, and even Vanity balked when he wanted her stage name to be Vagina (pronounced Vah-GEE-na). Members of the The Time, another band created by Prince, were not permitted to play one note on their debut record, though they were all excellent musicians in their own right — Prince recorded all the instruments himself (which I’m sure we can all agree is dickish, but also so badass). So controlling was Prince of the sound that Jason Draper reported Morris Day “was at least allowed to sing on the record, but had to follow Prince’s guide vocals note-for-note.”
Prince later famously fired Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis from The Time because they missed a concert date due to a snowstorm (they’d been producing tracks for the S.O.S. Band in Atlanta when their flight was cancelled) and Prince reportedly told The Time’s Jesse Johnson “You’ll never hear from those guys again.” (The duo went on to produce No. 1 records for Janet Jackson, Usher, George Michael, Mariah Carey, and countless others, so we’ll file this Prince prediction in the “Carmen Electra” category.)
10. Speaking of The Time, Prince told Rolling Stone that they were “the only band I was ever afraid of.” That tension depicted between the rival bands in the film Purple Rain? It was all for real:
“During Prince’s Controversy tour back in the 80s, Prince had The Time as an opening act. The reviews for The Time were beyond stellar, to the point where newspapers and publications were directing more attention to The Time than the purple headliner. A fact that was not lost on Prince, as he then promptly pulled The Time from the opening slot on some of the bigger venues such as the Los Angeles and Miami shows.” — Funkatopia.com
11. Prince’s fabled recording complex, Paisley Park, is like the Versailles of the music world. The stunning success of Purple Rain enabled Prince to spend $10 million constructing a 65,000-square-foot facility in the Minneapolis suburb of Chanhassen. Completed in 1987, Paisley Park contains four recording studios, a video editing suite, a 12,500 square foot soundstage, offices, catering services, even a hair salon (and as Dave Chappelle fans know, a basketball court). The wardrobe department alone comprised 10 people, who made all of Prince’s clothing as well as costumes for his band. Every room is wired for sound, and Prince keeps the facility fully staffed 24 hours a day, so that he can record at a moment’s notice. In 2010, the U.K.’s Daily Mail also reported that Paisley Park features
“….a peaceful sanctuary on the first floor which [Prince] calls The Knowledge Room. Lined with shelves of religious literature, it’s where he contemplates the meaning of life, prays and studies the Bible for up to six hours a day, sometimes long into the night.”
Kevin Smith tells a hilarious tale about the surreal experience he had while trying to shoot a documentary for Prince at Paisley Park in 2001:
12. Prince is awesome at ping pong. He once played Michael Jackson and ridiculed him later for sucking at it.
13. Prince rings people’s doorbells and tries to persuade them to become Jehovah’s Witnesses. Shortly after becoming a Jehovah’s Witness in 2001 (Sly and the Family Stone bassist Larry Graham converted him) Prince told the UK’s Daily Mirror that he had starting going door-to-door to convert others. “Sometimes I go in disguise,” he said. “My hair is capable of doing a lot of different things. I don’t always look like this.”
The New Yorker reported on Prince’s evangelizing as well:
“He attends meetings at a local Kingdom Hall, and, like his fellow-witnesses, he leaves his gated community from time to time to knock on doors and proselytize. ‘Sometimes people act surprised, but mostly they’re really cool about it,’ he said.”
But not all of them:
In 2003, Prince and Graham knocked on the door of a Jewish family in Eden Prairie, Minnesota. “Then they start in on this Jehovah’s Witnesses stuff,’’ a member of that family told the Minneapolis–St. Paul Star-Tribune. ‘’I said, ‘You know what? You’ve walked into a Jewish household, and this is not something I’m interested in.’ He says, ‘Can I just finish?’ Then the other guy, Larry Graham, gets out his little Bible and starts reading scriptures about being Jewish and the land of Israel.’’ (Entertainment Weekly)
This all apparently happened, by the way, on Yom Kippur. (The matriarch of the family in question did assure the press that Prince “was very kind.”)
14. On his album One Nite Alone… Prince’s pet doves (who are named Divinity and Majesty) are given credit for “ambient singing.”
15. That stunning, chill-inducing, lighter-waving, tear-jerking rendition of “Purple Rain” we’ve adored since our youth? Not only was it was recorded live during a benefit concert Prince and the new lineup of the Revolution did at First Avenue — it was the first time the Prince and his bandmates had EVER PERFORMED THE SONG IN FRONT OF AN AUDIENCE. Just sit with that for a second.
If you’ve never endured the endlessly complex, Murphy’s Law-laden, seventh circle of timesuck hell that is a typical recording process, the complete insanity of this fact may not fully register, but let me assure you: it’s fucking nuts. It’s like Michael Phelps going for a casual swim and accidentally settling another world record. Bands usually spend weeks, months, even years recording songs, laboring and strategizing with engineers, gear, effects, laying painstakingly isolated track after track. And yet Prince and the Revolution recorded one of the greatest songs in all of pop history live — in one take? Sort of by accident?!
[Editor’s note: Watch the magical performance here, until Prince’s lawyers take it down.]
The Revolution didn’t even realize fully what was going on: “It was just another show,” Lisa Coleman said. And sure, there were a few edits; some strings and piano were overdubbed later. But still — Prince just randomly decided at the last minute to bring in a mobile truck to record the performance. Afterwards, director Albert Magnoli asked Prince about using the gorgeous new ballad as a conclusion for the as-yet-untitled film: “You mean ‘’Purple Rain?’ “It’s not really done yet,” Prince reportedly said, and then asked “Can ‘Purple Rain’ also be the title of the movie?” Take it away, Alan Light:
That recording of “Purple Rain” that we know so well, that we know every second of… That is the first time that they played “Purple Rain” to the world. Now, if there is anything that shows what kind of discipline and what kind of rehearsal Prince puts his band [through], the fact that they went out and the first time they played that song is the version that 30 years later we still know every second of… Like, to understand that they could just go out there in such perfect fighting shape that they could nail it like that. So it’s an amazing thing.
I’ll end this mile-long Prince paean with a quote that stopped me cold when I read it, that sums up why (for me) Prince stands alone. Everyone knows the famous credit written on the vast majority of Prince’s records: “Produced, arranged, composed, and performed by Prince.” But consider what that means in comparison to the artists he was sharing the charts with in his top-40 heyday, some of whom didn’t play even one instrument (I’m looking at you, Madonna) or write the majority of their own songs. All of them had teams of brilliant, highly paid hired guns to songwrite, play instruments, and produce for them. Michael Jackson and Quincy Jones went through 700 different demos to choose the 10 songs that made it onto Thriller (and only four of the final cut were written by Jackson). In Let’s Go Crazy, Susan Rogers, the brilliant sound engineer who recorded much of Purple Rain, contrasted Prince’s accomplishments with those of his chart-topping peers:
“Michael Jackson, Madonna, Bruce Springsteen, The Rolling Stones, Elton John — they all had producers and session musicians. They had the best players. Prince was one guy who was writing and arranging and producing, and he was competing with all of them on that level. One guy.”
Isolated in Minnesota from the New York and LA entertainment world, Prince developed numerous bands (The Time, Vanity 6, Apollonia 6, Sheila E., The Family, Mazerati) where he again wrote all the songs, played all the instruments, and produced all of the records (all while still in his early 20s). He did so partly as a release for the volcanic eruption of his creativity, but also to command the attention of the coastal entertainment elites: “[The Minneapolis sound] was a scene of one guy who created his own competition in order to be a scene,” marvels Rogers. “Who does that?”
Who, indeed.
Jennifer Boeder is Writer-At-Large for Cuepoint, as well as an editor, yoga teacher, and musician. She lives in Chicago.
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