Now that the recent threads related to uttakes have taken care of that particular subject, perhaps it's time to take a closer look at all the circulating original songs by Prince that he has performed live, or during rehearsals, but never released on record.

This survey, which complements the information contained in 'Turn It Up 0.2', also includes several noteworthy, well-known jams. They're all out there, circulating amongst collectors:








1981 - 'Everybody Dance'- Performed as an encore at Sam's, Minneapolis, March 9th, the first concert the Dirty Mind tour. The song is basically an instrumental with an unusual, syncopated bass and synth pattern, with Prince shouting instructions to get everybody to "dance", "say yeah" and "scream".



1981 - 'Dance To The Beat'- Prince joined The Time onstage on the Controversy tour, Los Angeles, 12th February to perform this number. The song is a furiously fast rockabilly-flavoured rocker, very much in the same vein as 'Jack U Off', 'Delirious' and 'Horny Toad'.
More than likely, Prince wrote 'Dance To The Beat' for The Time so that they would have more material for their live show.



1983 - (As part of 'Piano Session #2):
'There's No Telling What I Might Do'
'Cold Coffee And Cocaine'
'Mama'

'There's No Telling What I Might Do' is a cute, lullaby-like melody sung by Prince in a tender falsetto voice. The lyric is the complete opposite as it finds Prince in deep depression, "contemplating suicide from 12 o'clock till dawn". He doesn't explain the reason for his miserable state, only saying he hates it when he is "all alone".

'Cold Coffee And Cocaine' is a funky piano number sung by Prince in his Jamie Starr voice. He is tired of his woman because all she is offering him is "cold coffee and cocaine".

'Mama' is a slow, somewhat gloomy number with a repeated piano phrase. Prince tries out different vocal inflexions. The lyric expresses doubt and confusion, with Prince admitting that he is lost and feeling "kinda strange". He asks "mama, where am I?" and "what is this strange, strange garden?"



1983 - 'The Bird [rehearsal]' With the exception of a few repeated lyrics, the rehearsal of 'The Bird' is instrumental from beginning to end. It is interesting how Prince methodically builds 'The Bird', constantly giving the musicians instructions, "make it a minor", "take the echo out", "gimme that line", "drop out the handclaps", etc. At one point, he says "that's not ours", referring to a bass part that sounds similar to a Rick James tune.
'The Bird' on the album Ice Cream Castle is a live recording by The Time, from October 1983, so this could be a rehearsal for that session, even though the song is far from being in its final shape. A few notes from the Vanity 6 version of 'Sex Shooter' are included at times.



1983 - 'White Girls' - This is a funky jam by Prince and The Revolution. the "na-na-na-nah..." part of the alternate (unreleased) version of 'Computer Blue' is chanted, and lines from both 'Ice Cream Castles' and 'Erotic City' are sung.



1983 - 'Gotta Shake This Feelin'' - This is essentially the same as 'Purple Rain', but with different, ad-libbed lyrics.



1983 - 'Electric Intercourse' - There is no known studio version of this track in existence, hence its inclusion in this survey. Prince did however use the rehearsal version of this song when he embellished it at Sunset Sound in mid-September that year. A sultry soul-pop ballad with an electric piano to the fore, the song revolves around "the sexual electricity extraordinaire" that exists between Prince and a woman he has just met.



1984 - 'Our Destiny' and 'Roadhouse Garden'
Recorded live with The Revolution at First Avenue, June 7th, 'Our Destiny' has a relentless, stomping beat and features some energetic guitar playing by Prince and a fast, insistent synth figure. The words are difficult to hear clearly but the key phrase appears to be "our destiny is to fall in love".
'Roadhouse Garden', on the other hand, is a one-chord rock song centred around a simple guitar phrase that is repeated throughout. It only contains one verse, which is sung twice. The brief lyric includes the lines: "the house where we used to play, we owned the nights, we owned the days" and "this is the garden where emotions grow, 24 feelings all in a row".



1984 - 'Billy' - Prince plays guitar for some 45 minutes during what is considered amongst collectors to be one of his best loved rehearsal moments.
'Billy' is a bluesy, guitar-driven rock number, during which Prince makes up lyrics about how funky Billy's glasses are (the 'Billy' of the title is Billy Sparks, who has done promotional work for Prince since the early '80s. He is still heavily involved in Prince's tours), which Prince alternatively describes as the ugliest, the funkiest and the strangest he has ever seen.
Even though it is an improvised jam, the track is in fact tightly structured, with a chord sequence repeating from beginning to end. Prince then closes the song with a ferocious guitar orgy, before moving on to teach The Revolution 'Strange Relationship', a song that was not to see the light of day until the release of 'Sign O' The Times' several years later.



1985 - 'Drawers Burnin'' During the June 7th birthday party at the Prom Center, St. Paul,Prince and The Revolution played a lengthy funk workout which included portions of 'Irresistible Bitch', 'Possessed' and 'The Bird'. Also part of the medley/jam was a four minute piece tentatively called 'Drawers Burnin'' with Prince singing in his Jamie Starr voice. The brief lyric concerns some of the adverse effects of his fame, with Prince complaining: "Asshole tried to take my picture, I kicked him in the neck. Sue me for a million dollars, I said what the heck". He says "the good drawers are hard to find, the bad ones follow you home. I said go away baby, leave me the hell alone".
The song was previously known as 'Burn It' amongst collectors.



1986 - 'Electric Man' - Prince's performance of 'Head' in the 1986 Parade show saw him seducing and making love to his microphone stand. He would sometimes sing a couple of lines about being "the electric man". Prince later developed this embrionic song into a bluesy number. On the 1990 Nude tour, he sang the 'Electric Man' lines over the instrumental coda of 'The Question of U'. The song now consisted of three lines, with the first line ("all the men call me Prince, all the ladies call me electric man") repeated twice and the third line ("cause when I plug in your socket, baby, I charge you like nobody can").



1986 - 'Susannah's Blues' - This is an instrumental that was recorded live with The Revolution during a soundcheck for the Paris august 25th concert. They had premiered the number the day before at Le New Morning in Paris.
The track revolves around a sprightly five-note motif, initially played by Prince on piano but soon picked up by the horns, which lends the song a Dixieland jazzy feel.



1987 - 'What Did I Do?' - Often referred to as "Wasn't My Face" or "Wasn't My Faith" by bootleggers, this is a minor key blues number that Prince played at Le New Morning, Paris on June 15th (am), while on the 'Sign O' The Times' tour.
Prince wants to know what he did "to make you do me so bad". He asks his woman: "was it my cologne? was it my ride? was it my hair?". More than likely, the lyrics were improvised on the spot.



1988 - 'People Without' - "We do this next one in the dark", Prince said before playing this song during the Het Paard van Troje aftershow in The Hague, August 19th (am). The song is based around a synth bar that recalls both 'Sign O' The Times' and Madhouse's 'Six', a portion of which was also incorporated into the song.
He began by reciting lines from the song, repeating the phrase 'people without' at the beginning of each line of the verse.
The song was largely created on the spot and the effect of the improvised performance is highly dramatic.



1988 - 'If U Let Me Undress U' - This seemingly ad-libbed bluesy number was played during the piano sit-down segment at Copenhagen, Idraetsparken, August 21st. It consists of three lines, the first two of which are difficult to hear on the tape recording. The third line is repeated three times, "if you let me undress you".



1995 - 'The Volkswagen Blues' - During a Paisley Park concert on June 18th (am) , Prince played a four-minute blues number with ad-libbed lyrics. The musical backing was based on his version of 'Mary, Don't You Weep'.
The song starts "I gave you a Volkswagen, you say you want a Cadillac". It also includes the line "I gave you seven children, now you wanna give them back".



1997- 1998 - 'Playtime' - Marva King sang this number at many aftershows on the 1997-1998 Jam Of The Year tour. Although widely believed to be an old funk/R&B number, the song was in fact penned by Prince. The lyric is full of sexual innuendo and includes a line "I'll show you mine if you show me yours", that was used in 'Insatiable' on Diamonds And Pearls.



1998 - 'The Go-Go's (Osama bin Laden Gettin' Ready 2 Bomb)'
Introduced on the summer 1998 European tour, this is an instrumental with a percussive, salsa-flavoured rhythm incorporating an ascending, operatic-sounding synth motif borrowed from 'Also Sprach Zarathustra' (by classical composer Richard Strauss).
Most performances of the song included a chant of "hola, hola, hola", but the most notorious rendition of said number (performed at club Tivoli, Utrecht, on 23rd December) contained a repeated chant of "Osama bin Laden gettin' ready to bomb" ... "2001 is here, y'all"... "I gotta go back to America"... " Igotta get ready for the bomb"...

Where can I find recordings of those songs???? I would so badley like to hear em, it would be like getting two or threee brand new albums.

Anyone...please help me out!

Peace
the VILLE

Roadhouse Garden was suppose to be an album of left over Prince in the Revolution songs, but was never released.So possibly there is a studio version of that song.

You forgot about the most obvious choice which is of course the time he played "Broken" on the Controversy tour. Can't remember which show; but it is right there on the absolutely essential to own "City Lights" set.

Rehearsals do not count as performing live.

No. Which is why I made the distinction as I wrote the first paragraph of my post.

My overall aim was to try to address the issue of original Prince songs that have been aired, both in live and rehearsal situations.

This is due to the fact that too often in the past rehearsal versions of said original songs tend to be unfairly neglected and, as is the case with theVille, tend to remain unknown to the newer fans.

Lovemachine:

'Broken' is already circulating amongst collectors as a Prince solo studio recording, which makes its addition to the above survey as superfluous..

How about "Honkey Tonk Woman?" I found it on the internet, but have not seen it on any recording. Very Hot.

annmarie said:

annemarie, this is not an original Prince composition. You are right though it is very hot. You can get it officially on The Undertaker VHS video.