I give a lot of $$$$ to see WB giving to this album a Deluxe Treatment...i have hopes 4 this year!!??

My favorite Prince Album ever....and IMO TEMPTATION is his Masterpiece song on this one....coupled not far away with Condition Of The Heart

Do you read most of what's been written about you?

Not long ago I talked too George Clinton, a man who knows and has done so much for funk. George told me how much he liked Around the World in a Day. You know how much more his words meant than those from some mamma-jamma wearing glasses and an alligator shirt behind a typewriter?

Do you hate rock critics? Do you think they're afraid of you?

[Laughs] No, it's no big deal. Hey, I'm afraid of them! One time early in my career, I got into a fight with a New York writer, this real skinny cat, a real sidewinder. He said, "I'll tell you a secret, Prince. Writers write for other writers, and a lot of time it's more fun to be nasty." I just looked at him. But when I really thought about it and put myself in his shoes, I realized that's what he had to do. I could see his point. They can do whatever they want. And me, too. I can paint whatever picture I want with my albums. And I can try to instill that in every act I've ever worked with.

What picture were you painting with 'Around the World in a Day'?

[Laughs] I've heard some people say that I'm not talking about anything on this record. And what a lot of other people get wrong about the record is that I'm not trying to be this great visionary wizard. Paisley Park is in everybody's heart. It's not just something that I have the keys to. I was trying to say something about looking inside oneself to find perfection. Perfection is in everyone. Nobody's perfect, but they can be. We may never reach that, but it's better to strive than not.

PRNluv2 said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Does it bother you when people say you're going back in time with 'Around the World in a Day'?

No. What they say is that the Beatles are the influence. The influence wasn't the Beatles. They were great for what they did, but I don't know how that would hang today. The cover art came about because I thought people were tired of looking at me. Who wants another picture of him? I would only want so many pictures of my woman, then I would want the real thing. What would be a little more happening than just another picture [laughs] would be if there was some way I could materialize in people's cribs when they play the record.
How do you feel about people calling the record "psychedelic"?

I don't mind that, because that was the only period in recent history that delivered songs and colors. Led Zeppelin, for example, would make you feel differently on each song.

I still have one of the balloon logos, it's a sticker that I put on the front of my scrap book back in the day. Was just looking at it the other day and WOW! it's been how many years?

Way back then, I knew how special that sticker was

^^^^

Yes, I love this sticker too it is really special - loved it back then and love it more now.

AnnaStesia10 said:

^^^^

Yes, I love this sticker too it is really special - loved it back then and love it more now.

Thankfully they made it more functional with the reissue.

One question about the cover: what was the REAL original LP cover: the one WITH the title on the balloon or the one WITHOUT it?

databank said:

One question about the cover: what was the REAL original LP cover: the one WITH the title on the balloon or the one WITHOUT it?

I've never seen the balloon as anything other than a sticker on the shrinkwrap, or on it solely in print ads.

PS If fans (who don't know) really wanna go "original" on the cover, this was the first one by artist Jim Warren. I don't know why Prince never used it, but it still holds all the elements he wanted, that are in the one we know. Old man, crying woman, black child w/ a flag, girl on a see-saw, clown juggling balls & the earth, the ladder, girl with ice cream, a tambourine (there are actually two men with tambourines below), etc. (And apparenetly a beefy daddy bear hugging a lion. WOOF) I think the guy on the bottom left looks like Sean Penn as a glance.

TrivialPursuit said:

databank said:

One question about the cover: what was the REAL original LP cover: the one WITH the title on the balloon or the one WITHOUT it?

I've never seen the balloon as anything other than a sticker on the shrinkwrap, or on it solely in print ads.

PS If fans (who don't know) really wanna go "original" on the cover, this was the first one by artist Jim Warren. I don't know why Prince never used it, but it still holds all the elements he wanted, that are in the one we know. Old man, crying woman, black child w/ a flag, girl on a see-saw, clown juggling balls & the earth, the ladder, girl with ice cream, a tambourine (there are actually two men with tambourines below), etc. (And apparenetly a beefy daddy bear hugging a lion. WOOF) I think the guy on the bottom left looks like Sean Penn as a glance.

Thx for the balloon info

As for the original I'd tend to say that maybe the realistic painting gave it a Jeovah's Witness magazine tone that Prince wished to avoid (how ironic ), I like it but it reminds me of those JW books I've seen with lions and lamb gazing together and stuff.

Released May 24, 1985
Recorded The Warehouse, St. Louis Park; 1984


There is a park that is known
4 the face it attracts
colorful people whose hair
On 1 side is swept back
The smile on their faces
It speaks of profound inner peace
Ask where they're going
They'll tell U nowhere
They've taken a lifetime lease
On Paisley Park

chorus:
The girl on the seesaw is laughing
4 love is the color
This place imparts (Paisley Park)
Admission is easy, just say U
Believe and come 2 this
Place in your heart
Paisley Park is in your heart

There is a woman who sits
All alone by the pier
Her husband was naughty
And caused his wife so many tears
He died without knowing forgiveness
And now she is sad, so sad
Maybe she'll come 2 the park
And forgive him
And life won't be so bad
In Paisley Park

chorus

See the man cry as the city
Condemns where he lives
Memories die but taxes
He'll still have 2 give
(who) Whoever said that elephants
were stronger than mules?
Come 2 the park
And play with us
There aren't any rules
In Paisley Park

chorus repeated 2 times

your heart, your heart
Paisley Park
your heart, your heart, your heart (sing, sing it)
Paisley Park
Paisley Park
Paisley Park

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...ark_(song)
Paisley Park" is a song by Prince and The Revolution.[1] It was the first single in both the UK and Australia to be released from their 1985 album, Around the World in a Day. The song has a psychedelic feel, similar to some of The Beatles' later work with echoed guitar and finger cymbals. The lyrics describe a Utopian place that one can feel in their heart, despite the chaos of the world around them. "Paisley Park" was recorded before Purple Rain was completed, indicating the new direction Prince wanted to take after the success of that album and film. Violin on the song was played by Novi Novog, and Wendy & Lisa provide backing vocals.

Can you tell us about Paisley Park?

Paisley Park is an alternative. I'm not saying it's greater or better. It's just something else. It's multicolored, and it's very fun.

It's gone on record since (I can't find where while posting this) that Prince had been requesting all of The Beatles albums after Purple Rain and there's absolutely no doubt of an influence here but, as with all but the 'tribute influences' (eg. when he quotes Joni and James Brown for instance and or when he nods to Paul McCartney's 'Silly Love Songs' in 'Love Sign'), they're digested. Musically, there's nothing on ATWIAD that's explictly Beatlish but he has in fact taken their influence in subtler ways, even the fact that the way THEY digested their influences was to make of them something utterly new and unrecognisable.
But as a couple of reviewers noted, he was digesting a lot of sixties influences here. Some heard The Kinks and I can too while some heard him beginning to listen to psychedelic jazz (as indeed has since transpired was the case). He is said to have been most pleased with the fact that George Clinton first appreciated him for this album. That says much because Clinton had himself also made quite a meal, a 'something else' out of disgesting beatle and psychedelic jazz influence.

The cover's psychedlicism of course is said to recall Sgt Pepper and I wouldn't have agreed with it too much until somewhere I saw the albums sitting side by side and thought 'well yeah'.
One thing I've since read is that Paul McCartney intended for Sgt Pepper to be a package that you would listen to over and over and pore over and over for clues as to answers to questions it posed in the course of being also a journey of experience.
This, Prince effected with ATWIAD more than any other of his albums.
I have definitely spent untold hours pondering the meaning of 'The Ladder' and poring over the lyrics in respect of understanding themes he was introducing or continuing to and from later work.
This was the way in which a Beatles influence manifested here but musically, it's only sharing their sheer adventure and I think Prince was definitely infatuated with a certain mode of mystique he hadn't previously considered, an altogether more colourful, sublime mode that is evoked by psychedelic elements in general (colours, sounds in a certain mode of presentation) but not blended well by most practitioners. In this Prince and The Beatles were exceptional because it's just the icing on the cake not the badge.

While people call his Raspberry Beret hairstyle 'Liza Minelli' (which of course it is), it's also to me him saying 'Look, I am The Beatles all rolled into one!'
And, goddamit he was but on this album he's also Sun Ra.

I can't say it's my favourite because I don't rank things.
They all have their moment like every dog you've met, as your favourite for a minute, a day or a year.

What I can say is that no album of Prince's has kept me in a room with just it and its packaging as the entirety of my focus for longer. I've spent days and weeks with this thang!
And the range of styles, the exotic instrumentation, arrangements, lyrics, everything, created in me a new sense of the eclectic which I HAD previously associated with Beatles albums where you come away wanting not to listen to more Beatles or Prince but more music like it, from more artists. In this respect, he promotes a whole other way of consuming music than just looking in the charts for what's selling or in shops for what's been released (which I'll admit, had tended to be my way of getting to music before this album, although, as I say, The Beatles had also pushed me toward their references and flavours in other artists)

I think I bought my first jazz album after hearing ATWIAD and certainly when I got to Sun Ra later, I thought 'Prince has been here'.
That year I also got introduced to Frank Zappa's albums and when Sign O The Times appeared, I rather thought Prince had too. In the meantime, he was going to go to Europe for his next influences which rather depart from this set as it had from Purple Rain.
Again, this was a kind of standard of development which had been set by The Beatles in the 60's but rarely emerged in other artists. In this respect, Prince's whole 80s reputation, now, of continuous development and radical mold-breaking between albums owes much to those fab four with whom I feel sure he engaged and, incredibly, decided to compete.
That he was able to and in some sense equal and transform their mode of invention with such dynamism and invention is the meaning of that raspberry beret 'Beatle' cut for me.

"...astonishing and largely improvised -ambient coda to the albums title track" -Novi Novog

Novi Novog (appeared on MANY Prince recordings and associated artists)

Music: Eclectic, High strung instrumental quartet Novi Novog and her viola have been heard and seen on recordings, films and concert stages all over the world. She is one of LA's top session musicians, with a long list of credits including solos on Prince's "Purple Rain" and "Raspberry Beret," The Doobie Brothers' "Black Water", and album appearances for such diverse artists as Shaun Colvin, Bonnie Raitt, Terrance Trent D'Arby, Carly Simon, 10,000 Maniacs, Cher, James Taylor, Spinal Tap, Madonna, Tom Petty and Tangerine Dream. Her touring credits include such names as Frank Zappa, The Doobie Brothers, Aretha Franklin and Jennifer Warnes. A valley girl from North Hollywood, CA, Novi began playing piano at age four. When she was eight, she took up the violin, then moved on to viola. As part of the American Youth Symphony, Novi studied under Mehli Mehta, then attended California Institute of the Arts on scholarship under Louis Kievman, where she received the American String Teachers Award. Novi has recorded several albums with her own groups - Freeway Philharmonic (Sheffield Lab), Chunky, Novi & Ernie featuring her cousin Lauren Wood (Warner Bros. Records) and Sumner (Elektra/Asylum). Novi combines the background and training of the most intense classical disciplines with the improvising and listening abilities of a great jazz musician. She is one of the most versatile musicians in the Los Angeles scene, equally at home in classical, jazz, pop or rock

Also part of the trio - Chunky, Novi & Ernie. (Warner Bros.- 1977)

I can still see the day that Raspberry Beret premiered on MTV very clearly. I played some basketball and then walked with my girlfriend to her place to watch it. We were both pretty hyped. Good times. I probably stunk, tho. So, probably better times for me than her .

This is the album that made me a Fan. I liked Prince before this, but this one came out when I was 15, and made a huge impression in my life. I remember hearing tracks on the radio as I believe DJs were told to play whatever they wanted from it. My friends were not diggin it...but I was...and finally bought the cassette. I wore that thing out!

I always felt that I was able to understand something the masses couldn't. To my ears it was about open minds, univeral love for God, each other, and ourselves. The message came through loud and clear...and of course the music slammed. Much love for Around the World in a Day!

OldFriends4Sale said:

PRNluv2 said:

I still have one of the balloon logos, it's a sticker that I put on the front of my scrap book back in the day. Was just looking at it the other day and WOW! it's been how many years?

Way back then, I knew how special that sticker was

I had that bad boy on the rear window of my first car.

herb4 said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Way back then, I knew how special that sticker was

I had that bad boy on the rear window of my first car.

This is cool. Would be fun to have this as stained glass for my studio

Condition of the Heart

There was a girl in Paris
Whom he sent a letter 2
Hoping she would answer back
Now wasn't that a fool
Hardy notion on the part of a
Sometimes lonely musician
Acting out a whim is only good
4 a condition of the heart

There was a dame from London
Who insisted that he love her
Then left him 4 a real prince
From Arabia, now isn't that
A shame that sometimes money
Buys U everything and nothing
Love, it only seems 2 buy a
Terminal condition of the heart

Ooh-ooh
Thinking about U driving me crazy
Ooh-ooh
My friends all say it's just a phase, but
Ooh-ooh
Every day is a yellow day
I'm blinded by the daisies in your yard

There was a woman from the ghetto
Who made funny faces just like
Clara Bow, how was I 2 know
That she would wear the same
Cologne as U and giggle the same
Giggle that U do?
Whenever I would act a fool, the fool
With a condition of the heart

Ooh-ooh
Thinking about U driving me crazy
Ooh-ooh
My friends all say it's just a phase, but
Ooh-ooh
Every day is a yellow day
I'm blinded by the daisies in your yard

There was a girl (There was a girl in Paris)
whom he sent a letter to
(Whom he sent a letter 2)
(Hoping she would answer back)
She never answered back and now
(wasn't that a foolhardy)
He's got a condition of the heart

Condition of the Heart
All instruments and voices performed by Prince
Recorded at Sunset Sound by Peggy Mac

KoolEaze said:

Maybe because there are no real videos except for Raspberry Beret, no real tour except for the two or three songs he played during the Parade tour, and no specific style or look except for the Liza Minelli hairdo and cloud suit.

LOL

OldFriends4Sale said:

Do you read most of what's been written about you?

Not long ago I talked too George Clinton, a man who knows and has done so much for funk. George told me how much he liked Around the World in a Day. You know how much more his words meant than those from some mamma-jamma wearing glasses and an alligator shirt behind a typewriter?

Do you hate rock critics? Do you think they're afraid of you?

[Laughs] No, it's no big deal. Hey, I'm afraid of them! One time early in my career, I got into a fight with a New York writer, this real skinny cat, a real sidewinder. He said, "I'll tell you a secret, Prince. Writers write for other writers, and a lot of time it's more fun to be nasty." I just looked at him. But when I really thought about it and put myself in his shoes, I realized that's what he had to do. I could see his point. They can do whatever they want. And me, too. I can paint whatever picture I want with my albums. And I can try to instill that in every act I've ever worked with.

What picture were you painting with 'Around the World in a Day'?

[Laughs] I've heard some people say that I'm not talking about anything on this record. And what a lot of other people get wrong about the record is that I'm not trying to be this great visionary wizard. Paisley Park is in everybody's heart. It's not just something that I have the keys to. I was trying to say something about looking inside oneself to find perfection. Perfection is in everyone. Nobody's perfect, but they can be. We may never reach that, but it's better to strive than not.

I used to have this magazine - up until 2012 when we downsized to move. Wish I still had it

ROCK & SOUL * APRIL 1986

THE PRINCE INTERVIEW
Mr. Purple Discusses His Movies, His Music, His Musicians
And More, More, More.

By Michael Shore

Under the Cherry Moon is a love story, set in the 1940s and shot in black and white. Word from the set has it that the plot is more or less spelled out in the lyrics to "Condition of the Heart" on Around the World in a Day, which appears to be about a musician falling in love with a woman too rich and worldly for his own lifestyle.

Around the World in a Day opus 1985 (A Reappraisal)

author of the article is Joseph Stannard

photos by taken by Doug Henders painter of the ATWIAD album cover

Prince’s Around The Wor...demy Daily

The Red Bull Music Academy Daily is the online publication by the Red Bull Music Academy, a global music institution committed to fostering creativity in music. Just...

daily.redbullmusicacademy.com

Prince’s Around The World In A Day: A Reappraisal

http://daily.redbullmusic...d-in-a-day

Moderators Note * the article has been edited to focus on the ATWIAD music direction and photos/artwork
please visit the redbullmusicacademy site to read the rest of the article

Released only two weeks after the conclusion of the Purple Raintour at the Orange Bowl in Miami, Prince’s seventh studio albumAround the World in a Day occupies a curious position in his discography...

...

Much of the music that made it onto Around the World in a Day had been completed prior to the release of Purple Rain. The remainder of the album was recorded prior to and in some cases during the tour at a variety of locations including Sunset Sound in Los Angeles and a mobile audio truck taken on the road. Engineer Susan Rogers witnessed the rapid evolution of Prince and The Revolution’s sound and visual aesthetic while working on new tracks at Flying Cloud Drive Warehouse, Eden Prairie, in 1984.

...

Rogers notes the conspicuous absence of the colour purple in the band’s new wardrobe around this time, as well as the growing cast of auxiliary players that included David Coleman and Michael Melvoin (siblings of The Revolution’s Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin) along with cellist Suzi Katayama, violinist Novi Novog and saxophonist Eddie Minnifield aka Eddie M. As Rogers suggests, Prince was indeed seeking to expand his palette. He had already employed Novog and Katayama on Purple Rain, most notably on the astonishing - and according to Novog, largely improvised - ambient coda to the album’s title track.

“He was serious, but it was fun,” says Novog of the sessions. “Because when you see someone with total focus and the energy that he exuded, it wakes you up and makes you concentrate. You all get on the same wavelength. A couple of times when he wasn’t there and it was just Wendy and Lisa, it was still focused but it was maybe a little more light and frivolous. There was a different attitude. Although those guys got a lot of work done.”

The greater involvement of string players marked a development that would be further advanced in association with veteran bandleader, composer and arranger Clare Fischer. This long distance collaboration (the pair never met) began during recording sessions for the debut album by Prince proteges The Family in late 1984 and lasted until 2006’s 3121. Significantly, The Family were co-fronted by Wendy Melvoin’s twin sister and Prince’s on-off girlfriend, Susannah Melvoin, who contributed backing vocals to Around the World in a Day and reputedly inspired its highlight “Condition of the Heart.”

British engineer David Tickle was also involved in the recording of the new material. Tickle had worked front-of-house sound for the Purple Rain tour and mixed some of the singles taken from the soundtrack. As with Susan Rogers, this was the first time he had been involved in a Prince album from its inception.

“There was no clear objective with what the next album was going to be,” says Tickle. “It wasn’t like it started out and it was gonna be this specific focus. Prince would literally write a song a day and every three days or so we would go and do a full production on something. If you listen to the album, there’s actually quite a difference in the context of the songs themselves, and even in production and sonic value. That’s because when you worked with Prince what happened was he would say, ‘David. I’ve got a song. Get a studio’ - maybe after a show one night, or we may have a couple of days off. We’d start with the drum machine and I wouldn’t leave the studio until it was mixed. Right from the first bass drum being printed. That could be 24, 48 hours, and on a couple of occasions we got into about 72, 76 hours. Without going to sleep. That was his thing. You go in, you start it, and you don’t leave until it’s done. And that moment in time is encapsulated.”

...

As Susan Rogers explains, there were technical issues that contributed to the album’s spontaneous feel: “Prince owned a fantastic multitrack tape machine, the Ampex MM1100, that finally reached the end of its life, so we replaced it with an MCI JH24. It couldn’t compete with the Ampex sonically but it was more reliable. For much of the album we were recording in a warehouse with no isolation between sound sources and an inferior signal path, compared to what we had at Sunset Sound in Los Angeles.”

In contrast to the logical sequencing and narrative flow ofPurple Rain, the new album was, as its title suggests, all over the place. The opening title track was originally composed and recorded by David Coleman and is notable for its non-Western instrumentation. Oud, darbuka and finger cymbals are layered atop a booming Linn M-1 machine rhythm while Prince promises “a wonderful trip through all time.” Coleman was well-versed in Middle Eastern musics but most critics of the time traced these sounds as far back as (cough) The Beatles. Close behind, the ostensibly positive message of “Paisley Park” is delivered in a nursery rhyme lilt over mogadon beats and sheets of feedback. It’s one of Prince’s eeriest tunes and least remembered singles, “The mission is easy / Just say U believe” sounding more like a Jim Jones-like invitation to imbibe the Kool Aid than anything remotely comforting.

The album’s biggest hit, the lascivious but sweetly nostalgic “Raspberry Beret,” finds Prince at his most winsome and whimsical. Its scenario recalls “Little Red Corvette” but also finds time for a subtle acknowledgement of racism in the first verse: “He told me several times that he didn’t like my kind / ‘Cause I was a bit 2 leisurely,” sings Prince of his old boss, Mr McGee. The line is lent a piquant irony by the fact that it’s delivered by one of pop’s most infamous workaholics. The video for the song is a mini-classic in which Prince avoids eye contact with the camera for the duration and prefaces his vocal intro with a coughing fit. “I just did it to be sick, to do something no one else would do,” he toldRolling Stone, gesturing at the wayward urges that fuelled the entire album project and his subsequent career.

Perhaps the most impressive of the album’s nine tracks is “Condition of the Heart.” The ballads on Prince’s first two albums approached love from the adolescent perspective of one who had yet to experience it; from Controversy onward, they tended to be erotically charged and laden with irony or, like “The Beautiful Ones” and “Purple Rain,” set pieces with a dramatic purpose. Here, Prince sounds genuinely bereft: “There was a dame in London who insisted that he love her / Then left him 4 a real prince from Arabia / Now wasn’t that a shame / That sometimes money buys U everything and nothing / Love, it only seems to buy a terminal condition of the heart.” Lyric aside, the song’s backing track – a florid fusion of piano, minimal percussion and synthesizer – sounds like nothing less than heartache itself.

An experimental album released in the wake of mainstream success, it’s no surprise that Around the World in a Day is flawed. The political orientation of a couple of tracks subvert the popular idea that the album has anything to do with the LSD-fuelled radicalism of the 1960s: the taut, bouncy “Pop Life” may be one of his best singles and feature one of his funniest lyrics (especially in its extended 12-inch form, which incorporates additional verses) but its central assertion that “Everybody can’t be on top” conjures up the wholly unappealing concept of Prince as a funky Ayn Rand; the uptempo jam “America” meanwhile takes great pleasure in its unironic denunciation of Communism, pushing the patriotism of1999’s “Free” into even less palatable territory.

Less contentiously, “The Ladder” seems designed to be the album’s centrepiece but is in fact a big red herring, a hollow inflation of “Purple Rain”s epic neo-gospel balladry which gives the impression of lasting three times its length. “Temptation” is too self-consciously raunchy, a sax-assisted bump ‘n’ grind accompanied by a lyric unusually devoid of wit or charm; it’s damning (no pun intended) that the song only becomes interesting with the entrance of God, who sentences his subject to death for his inability to distinguish love from lust. The album concludes with Prince condemned to Hell, addressing his audience in pitiful tones: “I have 2 go now… I don’t know when I’ll return… goodbye.” Though hard to love, “The Ladder” and “Temptation” are crucial to Prince’s extended mythos, foreshadowing the conflict and resolution between the carnal and the spiritual that provided 1988’s Lovesexy with its central theme.

The tracks which found their way onto b-sides are superior to some included on the album. The unusually candid “Hello,” addresses Prince’s critics on subjects including his bodyguards (“I call them my friends”), his non-participation in USA For Africa’s “We Are The World” charity single (“I tried 2 tell them that I didn’t want 2 sing / But I’d gladly write a song instead”) and the paparazzi (“Up yours! That’s right! You’re a star!”). Later covered by D’Angelo, “She’s Always In My Hair” is considered not only one of Prince’s greatest b-sides but one of his finest songs, reputedly written about collaborator, Purple Rain co-star and former girlfriend Jill Jones; best of all, “Girl” is an erotic synth fantasia as tender as it is pornographic (“If I was anything else I’d be the water in your bath, darlin’”).

Thanks to their memorable roles in Purple Rain, guitarist Wendy Melvoin and keyboard player Lisa Coleman had become the most identifiable members of The Revolution aside from Prince himself. More importantly they were increasingly responsible for the character of the music. The duo’s advanced musicality and distinctive harmonic approach meant that they were being called on to enhance and in some cases complete Prince’s compositions (a reversal of the process depicted in Purple Rain). Those who wonder where the sound of The Revolution escaped to following the band’s dissolution are encouraged to investigate the duo’s own discography. “Wendy and Lisa had the years of formal musical training that Prince lacked so they brought new harmonies and chord progressions to his work,” says Susan Rogers. “Prince wisely gave them opportunities to write string and backing vocal arrangements, as well as their own guitar and keyboard parts.”

“They had more input,” agrees David Tickle. “Prince would put down a drum machine, do some kind of guide vocal, because he may not have figured out all of his vocal moves yet, then say to Wendy and Lisa, ‘Hey, you go and put background vocals on this’ and we’d build the thing up for him.”

Critical reception to the album was mixed. Much of it hinged on the perception that Prince was attempting a naked homage to late-period Beatles, while the Jimi Hendrix comparisons invited by his guitar heroism and flamboyant appearance circa Purple Raincontinued unabated. New York Times rock critic Robert Palmer wrote at the time that “Prince is risking charges of imitation and excessive eclecticism by deliberately invoking so many icons of ’60s rock.” In truth, it’s a struggle to find anything on the album that sounds much like “Tomorrow Never Knows,” “I Am the Walrus” or “A Day in the Life,” not least because so much of it is underpinned by the precise thud and snap of the Linn M-1. Neither does the album resemble the psychedelic soul and funk of the The Temptations, Funkadelic or The Undisputed Truth. If this was psychedelia, then it had more in common with the variety peddled by US bands like The Rain Parade, The Three O’Clock (who released their fourth album Vermilion on Paisley Park in 1988) and The Bangles (who released their version of Prince’s “Manic Monday” in 1986), all of whom had been grouped into a movement known as The Paisley Underground.

“There are these little calliope sounds and instruments that may remind you of a couple of things that the boys and George Martin did,” says Alan Leeds. “But I’m 68 years old, my life experience with popular music goes back to the late ‘50s. I knew what [The Beatles and Hendrix] meant culturally to my generation and it wasn’t nearly the same thing as what Prince meant. First of all, we were all stoned the entire time! Whether you were making the music, playing on stage or in the audience. Everybody was fucked up! And nobody in the Prince camp was stoned!”

It’s true that the album’s sleeve art – a colourful depiction of characters and images taken directly from the songs – did little to dispel this impression. Artist Doug Henders, who worked on thePurple Rain movie and tour, providing the Pierrot-like faces that adorned both The Kid’s basement and the stage set, as well as taping each live show for Prince’s later inspection, confesses that his cover painting for the gatefold sleeve was indeed inspired bySgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“Prince gave me a laundry list,” says Henders. “Old woman crying; a clown juggling the earth; a ladder going to heaven. So I could do it two ways: a collage or a surrealistic landscape, and [the latter] is what I chose, kind of a la Sgt. Pepper’s. I did that on the road, while I was on the Purple Rain tour. I would go early to the arena, arrange the stage, because a lot of the artwork was on the stage, set up my camera, shoot the show and the videos would go to him right after the show. Then he would have parties in his hotel suite in whatever city, and some people were prisoners and some people were guests. I ended up going back to my hotel room and painting all night long. After two weeks I got pretty burned out and I hired someone to take my place shooting video. I rented a hotel in Los Angeles and finished the painting. I made Prince’s management buy it an airline seat because we couldn’t trust them to put it below.”

There was no tour to support the new album, but the process of its creation would prove catalytic for The Revolution live and in the studio. The use of additional musicians like Eddie M, Suzi Katayama and Novi Novog demonstrated to Prince what might be possible were he to loosen the restrictions placed upon his music by the six-piece rock ensemble format, and awakened him to the tonal and textural possibilities of brass and string instruments.

“He was clearly thinking outside the box of The Revolution,” says Alan Leeds. “The six-piece band that had been his template since he first organised it with [bass guitarist and childhood friend] Andre Cymone, the instrumentation of which had remained the same throughout the personnel changes from Dez [Dickerson, ex-Revolution guitarist] to Wendy and so on, it was clear that he had outgrown that format. He had Eddie M on saxophone, not really playing a significant part, but certainly a hint that there would be a space for that kind of texture and flavour in the music he wrote. I think that those of us who were paying attention could see what was next.”

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It’s not that Around the World in a Day deserves to be hailed as a lost classic. Rather that it deserves to be recognised as the genesis of deeper and darker work to come. The textural and structural innovations that would come to fruition with the spectacular late ‘80s trilogy of Parade, Sign O’ the Times andLovesexy have their origins within this curious artefact. It’s equally arguable that this was the point at which Prince’s artistic impulses first began to chafe against the expectations of his record company.

“My hunch is that Prince conceived of the album as a gesture sketch because he wanted to experiment stylistically,” says Susan Rogers. “Purple Rain represented a new point in his commercial success and so its follow up needed to promote a new direction if longevity was the goal. Around the World in a Day was the interim record while later works were incubating.”

Prince told Detroit DJ The Electrifying Mojo in June 1985, “I was making something for myself and my fans.” For his fans? Perhaps. For himself? Definitely. This album, more than any other in Prince’s discography, offers a rare glimpse of an artist figuring out his future.

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By Joseph Stannard on May 28, 2015

Doug Henders modeling for the cover of Around the World in a Day

From Wendy&Lisa.com

Uptown #37 Spring 1999

David J. Magdzairz

"Doug Henders was asked to create the cover art for around the world in a day shortly before Christmas 1984. He was given a brief 15-point outline from Prince with some ideas of what he wanted graphically. "The process of creating the coverwork and the rock trip (Purple Rain tour) itself were very gruelling." says Henders. "I think that's reflected in the melancholic rendering of the painting."

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For some of the images, Henders snapped polaroids of the Revolution band members and people close to the band. Then he slightly altered the faces or real life features for the painting. "Most of the figures of on the cover are characters in the songs, but I think some of the people Prince wanted are parts of himself, so they are all of a piece and someone autobiographical." Henders explains. "The litte puppy in the picture was added simply because Prince got himself a dog while on the road."

Susannah Melvoin ok ... so heres a bit of trivia... the violin player is me..... I had posed for the artist in that position the entire day listening to the cocteau twins for the my very first time.. it was a beautiful day... and the gorgeous gal with the the short black hair is wendy....

OldFriends4Sale said:

Susannah Melvoin ok ... so heres a bit of trivia... the violin player is me..... I had posed for the artist in that position the entire day listening to the cocteau twins for the my very first time.. it was a beautiful day... and the gorgeous gal with the the short black hair is wendy....

Thanks for so many great memories of a very short but generally overlooked era.

Clara Bow

There was a woman from the ghetto
Who made funny faces just like
Clara Bow, how was I 2 know
That she would wear the same
Cologne as U and giggle the same
Giggle that U do?

TheDigitalGardener said:

2freaky4church1 said: