July 27. 1988
( LoveSexy Tour )
Olympic Studio, London
Recording Session: God Is Alive w/Mavis Staples

God Is Alive is an unreleased track recorded in June, 1988, at Paisley Park Studios, Chanhassen, MN, USA, shortly before the European Lovesexy Tour. Prince worked on the track further on 27 July, 1988 at Olympic Studios, London, England, when Mavis Staples' vocal overdubs were recorded (a clip of this recording session was shown on the Prince - A Musical Portrait documentary).

The track was included as the tenth and final track on the 25 September, 1988 configuration of Graffiti Bridge, and the following month was included on the 27 October, 1988 configuration of Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic. It was also included as the seventh track on a late 1988 or early 1989 configuration of Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic, but the album was ultimately abandoned. -PrinceVault

Flash, flash!
Jack just got the news
God is alive! God is alive!

CHORUS:
Whoa, oh! {x3}
God is alive

News is comin' like a hurricane
Comin' down hard on those who live in vain
Treatin' each other funky when U know we're all the same
God is alive, this is not a game

CHORUS
(He's alive)

News is comin' like a dog in heat
He's lookin' 4 soldiers with strong feet
That can dance on whoever can't say His name
God is alive, this is not a game (Listen)

CHORUS
(Listen)
(Yeah, I'm a witness)
(Do U believe?) (U know it)

All of His children come take a blissy ride
4 all who see Him, 4 all He lives inside
U can be so happy, purely satisfied
God is alive

Live, live!

One step at a time, we need a new rhyme (Alive)
Up with education, down with crime
Alive!

CHORUS
(God is alive!)

Live, live!
God is alive! {x5}

(CHORUS) {repeat parts in BG}
Oh yeah
Woke me up this morning
Started me on my day
Got my health and strength, y'all
I can truly say
Ooh, He's alive! Well
Ah, He's alive!
All over me
Ah, He's alive!
I'm a livin' witness
That God's alive!
I'm a livin' witness He's alive!
Do U believe that He's alive?
Do U believe, oh, He's alive?
Ooh, yes He is
Sho'nuff He is, well
Yes He is
Each breath I breathe lets me know
Every step I take lets me know
Every song I sing, oh, lets me know
Oh, God is alive!

Whoa, oh

Olympic Studios is an early 20th-century building in Barnes, London which, after four years of closure, re-opened on 14 October 2013 as the new home for the Olympic Studios cinema. As well as a two-screen cinema, the building includes a café and dining room, a members' club and a recording studio.^[1]

The building at 117 Church Road in Barnes was constructed in 1906 as a theatre for the Barnes Repertory Company, and was a cinema for much of the first half of the century, before becoming a television studio in the late 1950s. In 1965 it was purchased by Olympic Sound Studios to become a renowned independent commercial recording studio, best known for the many legendary rock and pop recordings made there from the late 1960s onwards. It has been described as the "go-to studio for many of rock and pop's leading lights in the music industry's golden era, from the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix to Led Zeppelin and The Beatles",^[2] and as being of the same importance as Abbey Road Studios.^[3] The studio's sound mixing desks eventually became famous in their own right, and were later manufactured commercially.

The conversion from film to recording studio was undertaken by architect Robertson Grant and the acoustics completed by Keith Grant and Russel Pettinger.^[4] The studios won Music Week magazine's award for best recording studio five times. After forty years and a succession of owners, the studio's earlier facilities were finally closed by the EMI and Virgin Group in 2009. However, Olympic has now been converted into an independent local cinema incorporating reminders of its own history, including a new studio designed with the help of original members of the studio's staff.^[5] In keeping with its audio history, Olympic's cinema is now also the only one in London employing a new form of state-of-the-art cinema sound.^[6]

In 1987, Virgin Music bought the studios. After consulting with Sam Toyoshima, a Japanese studio builder who declared the studio "unfit to record music in", the property was refitted to a different practical and acoustic specification.^[12] Barbara Jefferies, then Studio manager for Virgin Music at Olympic Studios,^[19] instructed that the master tapes of the studio's vast library of recording sessions be discarded.^[20] The disposal of these tapes was unsecured as they were put into skips outside the building and left for days, and some ended up as highly sought-after bootlegs.^[21]

there are some other pictures that look very similar to these, but they are from the Batman recordings @ Paisley Park

iZsaZsa said:

It's a jam!

Do any of you think Prince was so fed up with WB and being trapped in his contract that he decided to create the worst music possible for the possibility of getting WB to drop him as an artist? I seriously think this sometimes. What do you guys think?

victoriamarcelin said:

Do any of you think Prince was so fed up with WB and being trapped in his contract that he decided to create the worst music possible for the possibility of getting WB to drop him as an artist? I seriously think this sometimes. What do you guys think?

That's very interesting, althoug completely off-topic.

However, Prince started to make the worst music possible after leaving WB, so the answer is no.

Oh, wait, you're reacting to Violetblues. But the answer is still no. Do both of you like Adonis and Batsheeba...?

[Edited 7/24/14 14:00pm]