The original idea was for a country-style collaboration with Stevie Nicks, to whom Prince sent a ten-minute instrumental backing track, asking her to come up with some lyrics. However, Nicks was overwhelmed by what she heard and feared that the task was too much for her to take on, so the song was reworked in rehearsal with The Revolution, utilising Wendy Melvoin’s guitar phrasing as a new guideline. The song appears to have existed before the film; Purple Rain the movie is best described as lucid hokum, but its soundtrack changed the atoms which constituted “pop,” far more so than much ostensibly radical music of the period. For many of that decade’s generation, Purple Rain the soundtrack was “our” Ziggy Stardust – better conceived, performed and produced in every way – and the title song, which closes the album, was “our” “Rock ‘N’ Roll Suicide.” It is such a patient epic, the song, and about a lot of things, and people – each of the verses addresses a different su
“Aquarius…And my name is Ralph…Now I like a woman who loves her freedom…And I like a woman who can hold her own…” It sounds like Studio 54’s in-house video dating agency. It teeters dangerously on the tightrope of tackiness, but its modes persist into contemporary R&B, even though its dual camp and experimental factors enable it to fly far beyond those particular boundaries. “Libra…And my name is Charles…Now I like a woman that’s quite…A woman who carries herself like…Miss Universe…” The Floaters were lucky to get their one moment. A Detroit soul group formed by James Mitchell, formerly of The Emeralds of “Feel The Need In Me” (again, in Britain they had to be called the “Detroit Emeralds”) and featuring his brother Paul as well as Larry Cunningham, Charles Clark and Ralph Mitchell (no relation), their full-length album version of “Float On” lasts for over eleven minutes, and “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” it is not – although what it could be is a belated sequel to