I never get tired of this song; beyond the bootleg sound quality--which in fact makes it sound real dirty, which is the point.

Just a masterful song with spectacular lyrics--actually about something! Fancy that.

I sing that chorus so hard my throat needs a lozenze. lol

When I hear crap like Turn Me Loose it just makes me sad.

ur right about the lyrics.

"Oh, if U could just pass your history class
Maybe life would be alright
Until then U'll be lookin' 4 a penny"

I love it. The whole atmosphere of the song is perfect, bootleg quality and all. It would be nice to have a clear remastered version of this but I'm glad I got what I got.

PurpleKnight said:

yah think? I'd rather hear him try wierd stuff like this again than another attempt at contemporary R&B, another faux-rawk anthem, slow jam or JB work out.

emesem said:

I don't disagree about that, but what he attempted here doesn't click with me.

PurpleKnight said:

I think the music is fantastic! It's like some hybrid latin-funk-rock thing that's in a category all on its own. Eric Leeds even commented on this track once saying that it was one that he thought they really were able to create something new, stylistically. Musically, it's probably my favorite outtake ever. It's just a pity sound quality sucks.

No that you asked, but here is a little background on the creation of this track:

---
It was May of 1986 and Prince was going thru a period of renewal and change. Parade, his latest album was just released to good reviews and the first single, KISS, was #1 on the charts. At #2 was The Bangles MANIC MONDAY, which was also written by Prince, so he his professional life was going well. The second single, MOUNTAINS, was about to be released, and the world was waiting for his 2nd movie, “Under The Cherry Moon”. Not one to ever rest on his laurels, Prince had already begun creating his next project. The previous weeks had him holed up in Minneapolis, where he was recording a great deal and trying not to focus on the demise of his relationship with Susannah Melvoin. She had recently moved out of his home in Minneapolis and he decided to fly to Los Angeles and bury himself in his recording.

Saturday, May 3, 1986
Studio 3, Sunset Sound, Los Angeles

Prince asked his engineer Coke Johnson to set up the studio for a new batch of recordings. Because the Revolution was rehearsing and touring together during much of this period, they were invited into the studio.

Coke arrived at the studio at 11:30 and began the set up for a band recording, but it wasn’t until 4 that people started showing up. During group jams, it wasn't uncommon for Prince and whoever was invited in the studio to just groove and record the entire session. Sometimes Prince would be inspired, sometimes he would hear something amazing and that would dictate the direction of the session. It was not an exact science and sometimes people got left off of credits, depending on Prince's mood and generosity. On other occasions, a familiar song would come up in the groove and everyone would start focusing on recording a cover of that song. On this day, Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman, Sheila E., Levi Seacer Jr., Eric Leeds, and Matt Blistan joined Prince to work on the classic song “Get On Up” by The Esquires (from their 1967 release on Bunky Records). After laying down the familiar jam, Prince led them into recording a new jazz-fusion song called “In A Large Room With No Light” (sometimes inaccurately referred to as “Welcome 2 The Ratrace”). The song was based on a jam by Wendy and Lisa.

Eric Leeds remembered this session:
“We also did … another song that Wendy and Lisa...we recorded live with Wendy and Lisa. I cannot remember whether Levi was there, I want to believe he was. Sheila played drums, the vocals, the background vocals were done by Sheila and Wendy and Lisa. Susannah might have been there but I don't remember. The horns were myself, Matt Blisston, and Norbert Stachel, who was Sheila's saxophone player by now, Eddie M having left. He was there for that session, playing alto sax, for a song called "Have you ever felt that love was like looking for a penny in a large room with no light”. It is like....Prince does Fifth Dimension. It was one of my favorite songs we ever did. It was an absolutely wonderful performance live, Sheila just absolutely kicked butt on it, it was just a great song, and unlike anything Prince has ever done. Very unique song, and a great song. It was another one of those cases where I thought, just really felt that we were part of something special on that one. And that's a song that I really hope sees the light of day some time, personally."

The recordings took place until midnight.

Sunday, May 4, 1986
Studio 3, Sunset Sound

Prince asked various members of the Revolution to show up for overdubs for yesterday’s session. Prince also included Sheila’s band member, Norbert Stachel to record various saxophone overdubs. From 3pm to midnight, additional layers were added to GET ON UP and to IN A LARGE ROOM WITH NO LIGHT. Prince and Coke spent the next 5 hours mixing the tracks.

At 5 in the morning, Prince realized the mixes were missing some additional vocals so he spent the next 7 hours adding his vocals as well as other background vocals to the tracks. If you listen closely to LARGE ROOM, you can hear the layered vocals behind the busy track.

Monday, May 5, 1986
Studio 3, Sunset Sound

The session didn’t stop. It was not uncommon for Prince to continue for hours at a time if he felt like he had a mission. This was one of those instances. From noon to 2:30 pm, Prince spent the time mixing the new vocals into the song and copying them on to cassette (2 TDK C-60 tapes).

Prince left the studio for a short time but soon afterwards, asked to be set up for some additional mixing. Apparently he wasn’t completely happy with the songs once he played them in the car and wanted to continue working on them. Although Coke set up for the next session, Susan Rogers was called in to take over for Coke now that he had been in the studio for over 24 hours straight.

Prince showed back up just after 8pm and he and Susan spent the next 5 hours working on crossfades and edits in the tracks.

Prince would continue to tweak the track over the next few days, eventually adding it to the collection he was compiling called “Dream Factory” but that is another story for another day.

- this information is from an early draft of PRINCE: The Studio Sessions.
[Edited 5/1/08 22:24pm]
[Edited 5/1/08 23:50pm]

Lana drew a picture in school 2day
One that made her mother cry
A picture of a woman with a drink in her hand

Standing by a child with no eyes
Washington reaction based upon revenge
Babies blown 2 kingdom come

Damn the logic
Cartoon characters look better when they're on the run
Danny dropped the dime on his girlfriend

He said he didn't wanna go 2 jail alone
The seed lives in the same mind

With the thought that says we all should be stoned
And people lookin' 4 angels in the sky

Whenever they're broken-hearted
Love is grown, seeds are sown
A fire don't burn unless it's started
Did U ever feel that life was like lookin' 4 a penny
In a large room with no light?
A sophisticated man reduced 2 company in no-win situations
That aren't right
Everytime U wake up there's a little motherfucker
Talkin' big stuff in your face (Are U happy?)
U only get the kind of people that open their mouth
just 2 swap feet
Welcome 2 the rat race
Did U ever feel that life was like lookin' 4 a penny
In a large room with no light?
A sophisticated man reduced 2 company in no-win situations
That aren't right

Oh, if U could just pass your history class
Maybe life would be alright
Until then U'll be lookin' 4 a penny

In a large room with no light
Yeah!
Life {repeat 2 fade}

The lyrics enter there own, very thoughtful and imagintive.

Sam 8)

Love this song...its really difrent..
I think what makes it so good beside the lyrics..
is that it's short

What exactly is PRINCE: The Studio Sessions?

He spends all that time recording a song he never releases. Fuckin nutjob..lol

Love this song, it's one of my favorites. It's so happy sounding and catchy.

2freaky4church1 said:

Do you expect him to only record the songs he wants to release? Any artist is going to do trial and error. Sometimes it works perfectly, and sometimes it just isn't what they wanted to express at that time. If he only played it safe and recorded only what he wanted on a specific album, we probably wouldn't have gotten so many amazing songs out of the man.

Babe Ruth hit a lot of home runs but he also struck out a lot too. Maybe he should have only hit the home runs.

I mow my backyard every week. Few people ever see it, but it is mowed.

Prince may be a nutjob on some issues, but his recording habits are what most of us like about the guy. Cut hims some slack!

madhouseman said:

I was gunna say, definatly sounds like a parade-era song. Would really fit in with the UTCM film

Really good song (shame there aren't any clear bootlegs of it around )

And it was 22 years ago today that it was recorded.

madhouseman said:

What's the status of your book, sounds incredibly interesting.

violetblues said:

It is still being worked on. As I've mentioned in other posts, my goal has always been to make this into an UPTOWN book, having worked very hard on all of their other projects, but I don't know if that is going to happen. If it doesn't, then once I am done, I'll probably put it out by myself. It would be great to make it an UPTOWN book simply because it is always great working with everyone on a project together, like we used to do.

thanx and you'll hear about it when it is complete. There will be some press behind it once it is done.

let there be light

it's fucking sublime and is one of the most musically adventurous things he's ever done. and on top of that, it's great fun and catchy as hell. awesome energy on this one. he could do no wrong during those 1986 sessions.

I'm in a large room with no light right now.


And needless to say,
I'm frightened.

One of the high points of the Revolution era, along with Power Fantastic. It's tracks like this that get you thinking, 'what if the group hadn't disbanded in 1986?.....'

This may be a stupid question--or at least one I should already know the answer to--but where was Bobby Z? I always thought that Prince had fired all the Revolution before Sheila joined his band. Was there ever a point where Sheila was considered part of the Revolution, such as the recording of this song would suggest?

Fuck.
I can't seem to find a switch around here anywhere.

PurpleKnight said:

Can't believe this is an honest statement.

SUNUVABITCh....!
I just fuckin' stubbed my big toe....!

TheMightyCelestial said:

would you keep looking for a dollar!!!??
[Edited 5/5/08 16:10pm]

love this song -- i have a pretty small ipod, so i'm always shuffling what's on it, and this song hasn't been off in the year I've had it!

another quote from Eric Leeds about that era, but not about the song specifically...

"My relationship was a little bit more from a player's standpoint. Because of the tremendous drummer and percussionist that Sheila is, [it meant] that relationship was very important. Some of the more interesting and more enjoyable music from my point of view was when Sheila, Prince, Wendy and Lisa and I would just go into the studio and just jam. I've got quite a few tapes of sessions like that. Purely ad lib, instrumental sessions, where we'd go in and just make a lot of music. None of it was going to get released; it was for our own enjoyment. Wendy and Lisa don't really come from a jazz background [but] they shared in the ability to be very spontaneous. Our ability to go in and spontaneously play some music and at the end of an hour come out with some music that at least we could say has some kind of musical validity and continuity. It may not have the harmonic sophistication of a straight-up jazz band, but the ethic was very similar."

madhouseman said:

the amount of specific detail that exists regarding his process is astounding. it always amazes me.

looking forward to the book!

light is the reward for good intent. darkness for the wicked.