I'm under the understanding that this is the one track on Romance 1600 that Prince did not write/perform. However, I always thought that the bass sounded pretty similar to "2 Nigs United 4 West Compton." Specifically, I am referring to the bass solo sections of both songs. So, if Prince did not play bass on "Merci for the Speed of a Mad Clown in Summer" who did? Levi? Whoever it is that is a nice bit of playing.

rialb said:

I'm under the understanding that this is the one track on Romance 1600 that Prince did not write/perform. However, I always thought that the bass sounded pretty similar to "2 Nigs United 4 West Compton." Specifically, I am referring to the bass solo sections of both songs. So, if Prince did not play bass on "Merci for the Speed of a Mad Clown in Summer" who did? Levi? Whoever it is that is a nice bit of playing.

It's probably Levi, if he was Sheila's regular bass player at that time. I got the impression that Prince was trying to sound like Levi (and Sheila and Fink) with his playing style on "2 N U 4 West Compton," which I thought for a long time was a band recording, but later found out that it was all Prince.

According to The Vault it was recorded with her own musicians while on tour. That leads me to believe it was Benny Rietveld, who was her bassist at the time.