Tag: witness 4 the prosecution

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Ephemera, 1979-1981

I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man (1979 Version)

Prince's original lyrics for "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man," 1979; stolen from the official Prince Facebook page.

The first promotional single for Sign “O” the Times Super Deluxe, “Witness 4 the Prosecution (Version 1),” was an irreproachably safe choice: a well-known track in the bootleg trading community, remastered so that hardcore fans can hear the upgrade in sound quality and newer fans can hear what all the fuss is about. But it’s the second single that delivers exactly what I live for in these kinds of releases: a recording which even the most fortunate among us hadn’t heard of, much less heard, until the box set was announced.

Before last week, the accepted history of “I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man” went something like this: Prince recorded the basic track sometime in 1982, during the incredible burst of creativity that produced 1999 and planted the seeds for a number of other projects. Clearly at no shortage of quality material, he shelved the song for four years, then dug it back out during another creative renaissance on July 16, 1986: appending a smouldering guitar solo nearly the length of the original track, and transforming the spiky little power pop tune into a grandstanding album-rock setpiece. This extended version was slated for the unreleased Dream Factory and Crystal Ball projects, before finally seeing the light of day on Sign “O” the Times in 1987.

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Ephemera, 1986

Witness 4 the Prosecution (Version 1)

Prince by Jeff Katz, circa 1987; © the Prince Estate.

As has become tradition for Warner’s posthumous Prince collections, last month’s Sign “O” the Times Super Deluxe announcement was accompanied by the release of a “new” song from the Vault. “Witness 4 the Prosecution (Version 1)” was recorded on March 14, 1986–one of the first recordings at Prince’s new home studio at Galpin Blvd. in Chanhassen, where he had moved in November of 1985. The stripped-down blues-rock number featured Prince on all instruments, including live drums and some decidedly Hendrixian guitar.

Lyrically, “Witness” finds Prince in a metaphorical courtroom, testifying against a “heinous love affair” in which he claims to be “guilty of nothin’ but always wantin’ you to be there.” “Whatever it is you think that I did,” he argues passionately, “You’re wrong, I wouldn’t even dare.” Susan Rogers, Prince’s home studio engineer from 1983–1987, told Per Nilsen’s Uptown fanzine that the song was written “as a direct result” of his tumultuous relationship with Susannah Melvoin, his live-in partner at the time and the twin sister of Revolution guitarist Wendy (Nilsen 1999 214). “He had gone further with her than anybody else,” Rogers recalled. “She was wearing his ring, he loved her and didn’t want to lose her, but he didn’t think that he could carry out his commitment. They were fighting a lot, and it was sort of over nothing” (195).

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Patreon Exclusives

Patreon Exclusive: So, Let’s Talk About That Sign “O” the Times Reissue

Cover art for the forthcoming Sign "O" the Times Super Deluxe Edition; photo by Jeff Katz, © Warner Bros./NPG Records.

Last Thursday, after weeks of rumors and leaks, it finally became official: the next expanded reissue from Warner Bros. and the Prince Estate is Sign “O” the Times, and it’s a doozy: 8 CDs (13 LPs, for the wax-inclined) and a DVD covering the full breadth of Prince’s output from late 1985 to early 1987. I won’t be “officially” writing about this music until 2021 at the earliest (more on that later), but damned if I can’t share some preliminary thoughts about it now. Here they are, disc by disc (and, in the case of the Vault discs, track by track)…

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