So it's common knowledge that WDC was originally recorded with bass, and then the bass was popped out of the mix.

Question is - does anybody know anything about what the original bass sounded like? It's hard to believe it never leaked anywhere. Does the original bass still exist on the master tape? Just curious about this part that so famously "doesn't exist"!

(PS - Prince should totally pull a fast one on his fans and record a song using the mythical & never-heard WDC bass.)

i'm sure it sounds like the bassline on the live versions. the studio version with bass has never been circulated

ask dez dickerson

On a local radio station (98.1 Kiss FM in California) one of the DJs sometimes plays When Doves Cry while spinning the bassline from Erotic City behind it, and it sounds INSANE!! Not sure what the actual bass sounds like though

muirdo said:

i'm pretty sure when doves cry was a solo prince recording, none of the rest of the revolution played on it. like most of the recordings until 85/86, prince played everything on them. he even overdubbed most of the live recordings on the purple rain album himself, including the guitar parts on the title track

This is a story for Susan Rogers to tell us.
Please, Susan!

muirdo said:

Strictly a Prince solo work and it was one of the last songs recorded for Purple Rain and I'm pretty sure Dez was gone by then.

joyinrepetition said:

Didn't Jill Jones suggest to skip the bass ?

Prince said he tried the base but it didn't work.

Rinluv said:

This is part of a good article about 'Purple Rain',

according to PrinceLyrics.co.uk:

“The Artist’s (Prince) all-time biggest hit, “When Doves Cry” [Purple Rain], is most distinctive because of its lack of a bass line. The song had one but it was pulled at the last minute. “They were almost done editing the movie,” he explains, referring to his big-screen debut in Purple Rain. “‘When Doves Cry’ was the last song to be mixed, and it just wasn’t sounding right.” Prince was sitting with his head on the console listening to a rough mix when one of his singers, Jill Jones, walked in and asked what was wrong. “It was just sounding too conventional, like every other song with drums and bass and keyboards. So I said, ‘If I could have it my way it would sound like this,’ and I pulled the bass out of the mix. She said, ‘Why don’t you have it your way?’” From the beginning Prince had an inkling the tune would be better bass-free, even though he hated to see the part go. “Sometimes your brain kind of splits in two - your ego tells you one thing, and the rest of you says something else. You have to go with what you know is right.”
http://www.thefrontloader...doves-cry/

Wildboy said:

i honestly always thought thats where the baseline went.it matches too well.

SUPRMAN said:

Yep, that's where i remember reading it from.

I like the song w/out it..but then again i have never heard the 'orginal'

I wonder if it's in 'the vault'

also..i heard that WDC has a reverse message in it. i am not sure that it does,cuz i have never flipped it.
[Edited 6/13/09 18:13pm]

muirdo said:

I was having a dig!
DD once said in an interview that he had a song that had a synth riff remarkably like WDC.Prince turned up at one of his gigs then the next day had written When Doves Cry.In the interview Dez had said he didn't think it was intentional but i think it probably was.
[Edited 6/14/09 23:26pm]

Maybe Prince singing so deeply in this song, he decided that a bass may drown the vocals...

Great Classic Prince Song.