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Apollonia 6, 1984

In a Spanish Villa

Prince’s Sunset Sound session on February 3, 1984 was highly productive, even by his lofty standards: After taking “A Million Miles (I Love You)” from jam session to finished track, he still had time to complete a second number for Apollonia 6. To date, his efforts to write for the group’s namesake had been dogged by her limited range as a singer. “In a Spanish Villa” was his most ingenious solution to the problem yet: Rather than spending another long night building Apollonia’s confidence in the vocal booth, he’d craft a song around one of the bilingual actress’ existing strengths–sounding sexy in Spanish.

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Ephemera, 1984 Lacunae

Lacuna: The Dawn

While shooting Purple Rain in the last two months of 1983, Prince had uncharacteristically little time to spend in the studio. But as production wound down in late December, he dove back in, returning to Sunset Sound to work on new material for his manifold projects. On December 27, he recorded the basic track for “The Glamorous Life”–originally intended for Apollonia 6, but later given to (and made famous by) Sheila E. The following day, he added vocals and cut another track that would end up on Sheila’s album, “Next Time Wipe the Lipstick Off Your Collar”; as well as a song yet to be released anywhere, “Blue Love.” The day after that, he completed his first version of “She’s Always in My Hair.” Finally, on December 31, he rang in the New Year with an enigmatic new number, listed on the studio work order as “The Dawn.”

As readers of Duane Tudahl’s Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions are no doubt aware, though, the last song Prince recorded in 1983 was not “The Dawn.” It was, in fact, “We Can Fuck,” a title deemed too explicit for an official Sunset Sound document; it would also be known by the euphemisms “Moral Majority” (not to be confused with the actual recording by that title) and, anecdotally, “Sex” (also not to be confused with the 1989 song later released as the B-side for “Scandalous”). But Prince clearly thought the dummy title was too good to waste on an act of self-censorship; because just a week later, on January 7-8, 1984, he recorded a new song bearing the same name.

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Prince Track by Track: “Life Can Be So Nice”

Over the weekend, I once again had the opportunity to appear on Darren Husted’s podcast Prince: Track by Track. The topic this time around was “Life Can Be So Nice,” one of my dark-horse favorite tracks from one of my dark-horse favorite albums, Parade:

Prince Track by Track:
“Life Can Be So Nice”

I was unfortunately too slow to get on Darren’s schedule for Sign “O” the Times, so the next time I appear on Track by Track will be next month, talking about another dark horse favorite from Lovesexy. In the meantime, you’ll just have to settle for hearing my voice on my own podcast–the next episode of which will be live by the end of next week.

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Prince Track by Track: “Condition of the Heart”

It’s been a busy week on the podcast front: as promised, here I am again with a second guest appearance on Darren Husted’s highly-recommended podcast Prince: Track by Track. This time we’re talking about a highlight from 1985’s Around the World in a Day–like I said, Darren is way further in his chronological Prince project than I am–“Condition of the Heart”:

Prince Track by Track:
“Condition of the Heart”

Tomorrow, I’ll have yet another podcast to post (one of my own, this time), then next week maybe I’ll give my voice a rest and write something for a change. See you soon!

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Podcast

Podcast: A Year Without Prince – Part 1 of a Conversation with Jane Clare Jones

Last Sunday, I spoke with writer, philosopher, and fellow Prince obsessive Jane Clare Jones about…well, a lot of things, which is why we ended up having to break our podcast up into four episodes. For this first installment, we talk about our stories as Prince fans and articulate some of the reasons why his music–and, to a not-insignificant extent, the man himself–continues to mean so much to us. In the weeks to come, I’ll post the later installments, where we discuss the two recent books by Ben Greenman and Mayte Garcia, and try to unpack some of our thoughts around Prince’s death last April. I hope you enjoy it.