by Paul Cashmere on June 26, 2012

Martika’s big hit ‘Love Thy Will Be Done’ started out as a prayer and then was given a make-over by Prince to become the song you know today.

Martika

“It is a hymn. It is very spiritual and beautiful,” Martika tells Noise11.com.

This is her story of how the song was created. “I wanted to work with him and had a message sent through to his camp. He responded favourably so I flew to Paisley Park and we sat and talked”.

For the trip she took along her lyric book. “I had a notebook with a lot of lyrics,” she said. “‘Love Thy Will Be Done’ was a prayer that I had written in my notebook. I showed him some of my stuff and he said ‘would you mind if I borrow your book for a few hours’. I said ‘cool, no problems’. He asked if he could photocopy a few things that he liked and I had no problem with that. I had no idea what the process for collaborating on music with him would be because it is always different with everybody. For him, he said ‘I have photocopied a few things. Why don’t you just let me live with this for a bit and we’ll go from there’. So I flew home to L.A”.

About a week later, Prince made contact again. “A fax came through with a song with a bunch of my lyrics with some of his lyrics. The next day I received a cassette. (Now we are really dating ourselves). There were several songs, basic tracks with just drums, bass and some changes with background vocals. That’s how I first heard it. My prayer was turned into ‘Love Thy Will Be Done’ and from there he sent me the master”.

The remainder of the song was done in Los Angeles. “I went into the studio in L.A. with the people that I was working with and started working on my vocal. After that he sent me the rest of the copies. I never went back to Paisley Park to work with him. I just finished the music with different people that I knew. That’s how it came together. It was a strange process. The real kick was him singing ‘Martika’s Kitchen’”.

Prince performed the song on his recent Australian tour.

Martika will tour Austral...ew Zealand in September and October.

Nice story! Thanks for sharing!

Beautiful story!!

Who would have ever thought the lyrics were developed this way!

Awesome!!!

Love Thy Will Be Done, remains as one of my favorite songs!!!

She sings it so well as well!

On the 1991 BBC Omnibus documentary Levi said that Prince wrote the lyrics and laid down the basic track in 20 minutes.

naffi said:

http://www.noise11.com/ne...dium=email

Martika Explains How Prince Crafted Love Thy Will Be Done

by Paul Cashmere on June 26, 2012

Martika’s big hit ‘Love Thy Will Be Done’ started out as a prayer and then was given a make-over by Prince to become the song you know today.

Martika

“It is a hymn. It is very spiritual and beautiful,” Martika tells Noise11.com.

This is her story of how the song was created. “I wanted to work with him and had a message sent through to his camp. He responded favourably so I flew to Paisley Park and we sat and talked”.

For the trip she took along her lyric book. “I had a notebook with a lot of lyrics,” she said. “‘Love Thy Will Be Done’ was a prayer that I had written in my notebook. I showed him some of my stuff and he said ‘would you mind if I borrow your book for a few hours’. I said ‘cool, no problems’. He asked if he could photocopy a few things that he liked and I had no problem with that. I had no idea what the process for collaborating on music with him would be because it is always different with everybody. For him, he said ‘I have photocopied a few things. Why don’t you just let me live with this for a bit and we’ll go from there’. So I flew home to L.A”.

About a week later, Prince made contact again. “A fax came through with a song with a bunch of my lyrics with some of his lyrics. The next day I received a cassette. (Now we are really dating ourselves). There were several songs, basic tracks with just drums, bass and some changes with background vocals. That’s how I first heard it. My prayer was turned into ‘Love Thy Will Be Done’ and from there he sent me the master”.

The remainder of the song was done in Los Angeles. “I went into the studio in L.A. with the people that I was working with and started working on my vocal. After that he sent me the rest of the copies. I never went back to Paisley Park to work with him. I just finished the music with different people that I knew. That’s how it came together. It was a strange process. The real kick was him singing ‘Martika’s Kitchen’”.

Prince performed the song on his recent Australian tour.

Martika will tour Austral...ew Zealand in September and October.

AWESOME

He christened her & turned her prayer in2 a "MasterPiece" called #LoveThyWillBeDone...

[Edited 7/4/12 10:33am]

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

He christened her & turned her prayer in2 a "MasterPiece" call #LoveThyWillBeDone...

"Christened her"?? You have some sincere fucked up idol worship issues. To you, the Holy Trinity is Prince the Father, Will Smith the Son, and Jada The Holy Spirit.

Seek help.

Great find! thanx for posting that. Details magazing talked about this briefly back in the 11/91 issue, but it was cool to read this fleshed out.

I never know how much to believe stuff like this.

The thing that always sets alarm bells ringing is the fact that artists go on about how they then 'worked' on the track and 'finished' it, yet when you hear the unreleased Prince version it's blatant they just sang over it. I know with Love Thy Will Be Done there's credited extra keyboards on there, but it's the same with The Family, and Susannah going on about how much freedom Prince gave them when doing the album.

Fine, but the unreleased stuff with Prince singing sounds like they didn't exactly have a right lot to do!

In fairness, she has a writing credit...

http://www.princevault.co...ll_Be_Done

You can find the song on here by searching and she does have a credit under her real name:

https://www.ascap.com/ace...index.aspx

...but the story I'd always heard was that Prince played her a bunch of tunes, she thought Love Thy Will Be Done sounded good and asked for it. That's what Prince Vault says too.

In which case, why did she get a writing credit?

I guess, either her story is true (or true enough that she got a credit) or Prince was being generous and gave her a credit so it looked like more of a collaborative effort rather than him just having people sing over his songs!

Which to believe? I guess it's a pretty detailed story to make up, so I'm actually inclined to believe Martika on this one.

Maybe once Prince took the poem he wrote the song in 20 minutes flat and that's what Levi referred to.

I remember hearing the the song for the first time on some video countdown on T.V., and knowing immediately that Prince must have been involved.

It's simple, powerful tune.

softandwet said:

I never know how much to believe stuff like this.

The thing that always sets alarm bells ringing is the fact that artists go on about how they then 'worked' on the track and 'finished' it, yet when you hear the unreleased Prince version it's blatant they just sang over it. I know with Love Thy Will Be Done there's credited extra keyboards on there, but it's the same with The Family, and Susannah going on about how much freedom Prince gave them when doing the album.

Fine, but the unreleased stuff with Prince singing sounds like they didn't exactly have a right lot to do!

In fairness, she has a writing credit...

http://www.princevault.co...ll_Be_Done

You can find the song on here by searching and she does have a credit under her real name:

https://www.ascap.com/ace...index.aspx

...but the story I'd always heard was that Prince played her a bunch of tunes, she thought Love Thy Will Be Done sounded good and asked for it. That's what Prince Vault says too.

In which case, why did she get a writing credit?

I guess, either her story is true (or true enough that she got a credit) or Prince was being generous and gave her a credit so it looked like more of a collaborative effort rather than him just having people sing over his songs!

Which to believe? I guess it's a pretty detailed story to make up, so I'm actually inclined to believe Martika on this one.

Maybe once Prince took the poem he wrote the song in 20 minutes flat and that's what Levi referred to.

Well since she had credit on it in the first place there is not really a choice but to believe it...

alexnvrmnd777 said:

KCOOLMUZIQ said:

He christened her & turned her prayer in2 a "MasterPiece" call #LoveThyWillBeDone...

"Christened her"?? You have some sincere fucked up idol worship issues. To you, the Holy Trinity is Prince the Father, Will Smith the Son, and Jada The Holy Spirit.

Seek help.