20 Things You Didn't Know About 'Purple Rain'

Prince initially asked Stevie Nicks to write lyrics for 'Purple Rain'. "It was so overwhelming, that 10-minute track... I listened to it and I just got scared," she said. "I called him back and said, 'I can't do it. I wish I could. It's too much for me.” And so Prince went his own way and ‘Purple Rain’ was born.

‘Purple Rain’ was originally a whopping 11 minutes long. A verse and chorus were cut, apparently because the theme of money was deemed inappropriate. The original lyrics are as follows:

Honey I don't want your money, no, no.
I don't even think I want your love.
If I wanted either one I would take your money and,
I want the heavy stuff.

The song was recorded during a benefit concert for the Minnesota Dance Theatre at the First Avenue nightclub in Minneapolis on August 3, 1983. It was the first time Wendy (who actually wrote the first chords of the song) of Wendy + Lisa played live as part of The Revolution before. I'd say that's not a bad debut.

Prince was so worried that the song sounded too similar to Journey’s ‘Faithfully’ that he called Jonathan Cain and asked him what he thought. Cain OK'd it because the power ballads only shared a few chords. Bet he's kicking himself now.

The film pulled in an almighty $68,392,977 and only cost $7million to make.

Each verse of ‘Purple Rain’ is about a group of people in The Kid’s life: his parents, Appolonia and his band mates.

The lead female role was supposed to be Prince’s girlfriend Vanity but she left Prince just before filming. After Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) turned down the role, Apollonia 6 was drafted in, and pretty good she was too.

Prince won an Oscar for the now defunct category Best Original Song Score for ‘Purple Rain’ in 1984.

The "Purple Rain" soundtrack spent 24 weeks at Number 1 on the Billboard charts although the title track only hit Number 2.

‘Darling Nikki’, one of the songs on the soundtrack, caused a diplomatic incidence when Tipper Gore decided it was way too fruity for children’s ears. “A sex fiend... masturbating with a magazine” led to Parental Advisory stickers.

Fans have been trying to work out the meaning of "purple rain" for decades now. Some believe it’s about the end of the world, a theme Prince was interested in mid-80s. This quote from His Royal Badness suggests the apocalypse wasn’t far from his mind:

When there’s blood in the sky - red and blue = purple.. purple rain pertains to the end of the world and being with the one you love and letting your faith/god"guide you through the purple rain

Right...

Prince carried around a big purple note book with sketches, notes and ideas for the script during the 1999 tour. Imagine leaving that on the train.

Rumour has it Morris Day, arguably the star of the film, wasn't invited to its premiere. He had to rely on Pepe Willie, the founder of funk group 94 East married to Prince’s cousin, to get him a ticket. Ouch.

According to director Albert Magnoli, Prince had a hefty bank of 100 songs for the bank and ‘When Doves Cry’ and ‘Take Me With You’ were not on the original slate. What a genius.

The screenwriter William Blinn wanted to call the film ‘Dreams’ but Prince insisted “purple” was in the title of the film, thank God.

A football club in Frankfurt recently recorded the worst cover of ‘Purple Rain’ ever.

Attention guitar geeks. According to Chopin Gard, life-long Prince fan, Prince played a Hohner MADCAT at the First Avenue gig. It was a cheap copy of the Fender Telecaster and he bought it for $200 at a local Minneapolis guitar shop called Knut Koupe. Fender sued, fought for the production rights and are making a reissue.

It wasn’t reported at the time but Wendy and Lisa were a couple during “Purple Rain’ and for 20 years afterwards.

According to band mate Lisa Coleman, the song symbolises “a new beginning. Purple, the sky at dawn; rain, the cleansing factor.”

The strange, distorted vocals at the end of ‘Darling Nikki’ during the sound of rain storm are an extra verse played backwards ("backmasked") through a vinyl player:

Hello, how are you?
I'm fine 'cause I know that the Lord is coming soon
Coming, coming soon."

Read more at http://www.nme.com/blogs/...QB49PDw.99

Nice PR trivia...some of it I've never heard before!

This thread got me interested in Purple Rain trivia, I found another link...anybody else got more trivia?

http://www.moviemistakes.com/film1028

7roses said:

Nice PR trivia...some of it I've never heard before!

Yeah...I wonder how much of it is actually 100% true?

I mean...did Prince REALLY want Stevie Nicks to write the lyrics for Purple Rain (the song)?

Doesn't sound like something he would do back then.

Also - in one of those Unplugged or Behind the Music interviews, Stevie Nicks stated that Prince did the music for "Stand Back", left the studio, and she never heard from him again.
She was being funny, but still it would contradict this trivia.

But if it IS true, can you imagine Stevie Nicks lyrics on that song? She is a master at her craft, so I can assume that the song would've been even MORE awesome.

LadyZsaZsa said:

"16 A football club in Frankfurt recently recorded the worst cover of ‘Purple Rain’ ever." See...Prince can play/record anything he wants. But others who cover Prince's tunes have to get past my electrified fence...!

Did you listen to it? (there's a youtube link on the original blog that I didn't carry over to here).

I got through the first twenty seconds.

Purple info.... this is very nice.

thedance said:

Purple info.... this is very nice.

Great thread!!!!

5

The film pulled in an almighty $68,392,977 and only cost $7million to make.

Wow, that is impressive, would that figure be to date, including vhs, dvd/blu ray sales etc??

PurpleJedi said:

7roses said:

Nice PR trivia...some of it I've never heard before!

Yeah...I wonder how much of it is actually 100% true?

I mean...did Prince REALLY want Stevie Nicks to write the lyrics for Purple Rain (the song)?

Doesn't sound like something he would do back then.

Also - in one of those Unplugged or Behind the Music interviews, Stevie Nicks stated that Prince did the music for "Stand Back", left the studio, and she never heard from him again.
She was being funny, but still it would contradict this trivia.

But if it IS true, can you imagine Stevie Nicks lyrics on that song? She is a master at her craft, so I can assume that the song would've been even MORE awesome.

I know...some of it may not be true, I do think I read about Stevie Nicks before. Maybe somebody else knows?

More trivia:

http://prince.org/msg/7/105280

http://prince.org/msg/7/283853?pr

very cool thank U 4 the time, energy and joy...and love u put into this... loved this trivia...

Is the extra verse version of Purple Rain circulating amongst boot collectors?

It's interesting to me that Prince would ask another artist to write the lyrics to a song that he was recording that didn't happen very often,did it?

then again....Sheena Easton has said that she wrote the lyrics to "The Arms Of Orion",so who knows?

PurpleJedi said:

The lead female role was supposed to be Prince’s girlfriend Vanity but she left Prince just before filming. After Jennifer Beals (Flashdance) turned down the role, Apollonia 6 was drafted in, and pretty good she was too.

I remember hearing that Jennifer Beals auditioned for the role.Thanks to Flashdance,she was red-hot at the time.I wonder how she would done in the movie,playing the Apollonia character....

Rumour has it Morris Day, arguably the star of the film, wasn't invited to its premiere. He had to rely on Pepe Willie, the founder of funk group 94 East married to Prince’s cousin, to get him a ticket. Ouch.

Really???

Stevie Nicks story is quite unlikely.

Or...maybe Stevie actually wrote Purple Rain entirely (down to the guitar solo and the hoohoohoo chants), and Prince asked her the song in exchange of Stand Back .

i heard in one of his DVD saying that; Prince wanted keep his father dead in the end, but they save them alive, cuz they didn't wanted the film to be a tragedy, if prince directed the purple rain, he'd kill everybody in the movie.. his father, appollonia, himself..

i guess he fulfilled his dream later, by killing himself & Aura in under the cherry moon & graffiti bridge

[Edited 8/20/13 5:10am]

vikfunk said:

13

Rumour has it Morris Day, arguably the star of the film, wasn't invited to its premiere. He had to rely on Pepe Willie, the founder of funk group 94 East married to Prince’s cousin, to get him a ticket. Ouch.

Really???

I've heard that story before Prince and Morris weren't even on speaking terms,at that point.

sermwanderer said:

Is the extra verse version of Purple Rain circulating amongst boot collectors?

Yes of course it is,


check the dvd recording: "The King Of First Avenue", recorded august 3rd 1983, (iirc).

purplesnowlove said:

i heard in one of his DVD saying that; Prince wanted keep his father dead in the end, but they save them alive, cuz they didn't wanted the film to be a tragedy, if prince directed the purple rain, he'd kill everybody in the movie.. his father, appollonia, himself..

i guess he fulfilled his dream later, by killing himself & Aura in under the cherry moon & graffiti bridge

[Edited 8/20/13 5:10am]

*

*

purplesnowlove said:

i heard in one of his DVD saying that; Prince wanted keep his father dead in the end, but they save them alive, cuz they didn't wanted the film to be a tragedy, if prince directed the purple rain, he'd kill everybody in the movie.. his father, appollonia, himself..

i guess he fulfilled his dream later, by killing himself & Aura in under the cherry moon & graffiti bridge

Prince is so dramatic He feels like a death at the end of a movie is crucial.

7roses said:

PurpleJedi said:

Yeah...I wonder how much of it is actually 100% true?

I mean...did Prince REALLY want Stevie Nicks to write the lyrics for Purple Rain (the song)?

Doesn't sound like something he would do back then.

Also - in one of those Unplugged or Behind the Music interviews, Stevie Nicks stated that Prince did the music for "Stand Back", left the studio, and she never heard from him again.
She was being funny, but still it would contradict this trivia.

But if it IS true, can you imagine Stevie Nicks lyrics on that song? She is a master at her craft, so I can assume that the song would've been even MORE awesome.

I know...some of it may not be true, I do think I read about Stevie Nicks before. Maybe somebody else knows?

Stevie never said he wanted her to write Purple Rain. All she said was that he sent her an instrumental song that she could write lyrics to. When she found it overwhelming, she sent it back and then LATER it turned into Purple Rain...meaning Prince went back and got that song and dusted it off and turned it into PR.

Here's her quote from that interview.

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/128097743.html?page=2&c=y

Back in the early 1980s, Nicks and Prince were friends and musical collaborators. One day when she was driving in Los Angeles, she started humming along to his "Little Red Corvette" on the radio and pulled over to write down words she was composing. When she went to record the song a few hours later, she called Prince.

"Don't even ask me how I found his number but I did. I told him: 'I'm recording this song and I wrote it to "Little Red Corvette" and I'm giving you 50 percent of it and I want to know if you'd like to come play on it on one of the next three nights.' He was there in an hour, and he was there for about an hour and a half. And we became friends."

That song, "Stand Back," became a big hit in 1983. She asked Prince if they could someday write a song together. So he sent her a cassette of a long instrumental track and invited her to pen lyrics.

"It was so overwhelming, that 10-minute track, that I listened to it and I just got scared," Nicks remembered. "I called him back and said, 'I can't do it. I wish I could. It's too much for me.' I'm so glad that I didn't, because he wrote it, and it became 'Purple Rain.'"

Efan said:

7roses said:

Stevie never said he wanted her to write Purple Rain. All she said was that he sent her an instrumental song that she could write lyrics to. When she found it overwhelming, she sent it back and then LATER it turned into Purple Rain...meaning Prince went back and got that song and dusted it off and turned it into PR.

Here's her quote from that interview.

http://www.startribune.com/entertainment/music/128097743.html?page=2&c=y

Back in the early 1980s, Nicks and Prince were friends and musical collaborators. One day when she was driving in Los Angeles, she started humming along to his "Little Red Corvette" on the radio and pulled over to write down words she was composing. When she went to record the song a few hours later, she called Prince.

"Don't even ask me how I found his number but I did. I told him: 'I'm recording this song and I wrote it to "Little Red Corvette" and I'm giving you 50 percent of it and I want to know if you'd like to come play on it on one of the next three nights.' He was there in an hour, and he was there for about an hour and a half. And we became friends."

That song, "Stand Back," became a big hit in 1983. She asked Prince if they could someday write a song together. So he sent her a cassette of a long instrumental track and invited her to pen lyrics.

"It was so overwhelming, that 10-minute track, that I listened to it and I just got scared," Nicks remembered. "I called him back and said, 'I can't do it. I wish I could. It's too much for me.' I'm so glad that I didn't, because he wrote it, and it became 'Purple Rain.'"

So it's not necessarily that he wanted her to pen "Purple Rain" but rather that the song she turned down eventually BECAME Purple Rain.

Very interesting indeed.

purplesnowlove said:

i heard in one of his DVD saying that; Prince wanted keep his father dead in the end, but they save them alive, cuz they didn't wanted the film to be a tragedy, if prince directed the purple rain, he'd kill everybody in the movie.. his father, appollonia, himself..

i guess he fulfilled his dream later, by killing himself & Aura in under the cherry moon & graffiti bridge

[Edited 8/20/13 5:10am]

Yeah, the execs at WB didn't want that ending, so Magnoli and Prince conformed. Now for no reason it reminds me of a "happy ending" in Taxi Driver -- must've been the dirty hands of the execs too.

SoulAlive said:

vikfunk said:

13

Rumour has it Morris Day, arguably the star of the film, wasn't invited to its premiere. He had to rely on Pepe Willie, the founder of funk group 94 East married to Prince’s cousin, to get him a ticket. Ouch.

Really???

I've heard that story before Prince and Morris weren't even on speaking terms,at that point.

Why? Because Morris stole the show in Purple Rain?

vikfunk said:

SoulAlive said:

I've heard that story before Prince and Morris weren't even on speaking terms,at that point.

Why? Because Morris stole the show in Purple Rain?

Their relationship deteriorated after the 1999 tour and the firing of Jam and Lewis from The Time.Morris decided to stick around for the movie,though.

PurpleJedi said:

LadyZsaZsa said:

PurpleJedi said:

Did you listen to it? (there's a youtube link on the original blog that I didn't carry over to here).

I got through the first twenty seconds.