...a train is leaving all day.



It was thirty-three years ago today that Prince quietly put Around The World In A Day leaving radio stations confused since it had no lead single. Eventually, songs like "Raspberry Beret", "America", and "Pop Life" were played (at any program director's leading) on radio.

There have been many posts on the Org about the album, the artwork (there was an earlier painting for the cover before the one we know), the painter used himself, Lisa, Wendy, Susannah, & Sheila E. as models for various people on the cover. Also included were Clara Bow. Each song, and many lyrics, are represented on the album cover. The girl on the see-saw, the small black child could be Jimmy Nothing, the ladder, the woman alone by the pier, and more.

I remember loitering at a local record shop for 45 minutes while the guy behind the counter played the whole album. I just wanted to hear it, so I ended up viewing almost every record in the store just to kill time to listen to all nine songs.

OldFriends4Sale posted great stuff in the past about the album. Maybe they will again. What is your favorite bits about ATWIAD?



Original painting by a different artist:

Oh man I've been all over this album period(AGAIN) in the last 2-3 weeks
playing around in my sketch pad with the album cover art inspiration

...A TRAIN IS LEAVING ALL DAY

Love this album, imo I think this was Prince's first "concept" album as a whole... While I think as a whole it flows well, there is a core to it that is missing, compared to his other 80's works... I know he was trying to go the exact opposite direction of PR, and as an artistic statement, it certainly is a masterpiece album that was made... But like I said I just felt something was missing from that album...

To be honest, She's Always In My Hair was stronger than anything on ATWIAD.

Silvertongue7 said:

This album gets so much love here, but I’ve never been able to really get into it. I agree with ThePersian that the first three tracks are perfect (I’d include Raspberry Beret too) but after that... I like The Ladder and Pop Life, but they are not amongst my favourites. America and Tambourine I can listen to every now and then. And temptation... nope.

There's something missing about this album... Whenever I listen to it as a whole and try to "compare" it to his other 80's works... I finish listening and say to myself, ok that was GOOD but... As a "PRINCE" album, the essence of it... Something is just missing. I think he was trying to hard to go a different direction and make an "artistic" statement, that some of his trademark energy that usually is encompassed in his work was kind of missing.

The paradox is, the most "Prince" we got was in a mediocre song Temptation... The energy, the lust, the sex, the passion (the screams), the electric guitar... But when the album ends I felt like ok let me flip it to the other side to finish the rest, but then I realized the album was finished.

I have always thought that there are 7 Prince's on the cover- on the right side of the image there are the three figures in the robes (three wise men?), the figure in the doctor scrubs holding a small golden ladder with white mask, the figure in the blue and white cloud outfit with guitar, the old man sitting down with a cane, and the red haired figure laying on 'her' side (Camille, with a mustache?) with the ice cream cone. We all know that Prince had a fascination with the numbers 7 and 17.....

This album left me wanting more... It's like, when you finish 1999 & Purple Rain you just leave with energy... SOTT makes you contemplate on his genius, LOVESEXY you feel overwhelmed after it all... But ATWIAD feels like when the album ends is where it's supposed to actually start...

When I looked back a few years after that grand 80s purple run. I saw how connected ATWIAD was to Purple Rain. The Purple Rain (album/era) introduced sounds like strings via Lisa Coleman David Coleman Novi Novog Suzi Katayama, extra percussions, even an accordion, sax, finger cymbals.
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People usually try to group it with Parade, but they are not 'symbiotic' Parade is definately the seed for Dream Factory (Sign of the Time)

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As drastically diffferent as ATWIAD sounds from Purple Rain. You hear Purple Rain throught it. With very introspective songs on Purple Rain, it is an outside set of music, the clubs the streets sex in a barn etc Around the World in a Day feels like a album viewing the world from the inside out. It feels like the triumphant Prince & the Revolution returing how from taking over the world, and reflecting on life.

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For me the first side is perfect. And very powerful.

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Around the World in a Day is middle eastern instruments mixed with some synth and linn. I love how it rides. I can see Greek and Arabic bellydancers. It builds and moves like waves of sound. And I love the message. This song leading in Paisley Park, set a tone for what Prince was all about leading up to this period of 1983-1985 into 86. 'Papa I think I wanna dance...' I always felt Baby I'm a Star somehow

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Paisley Park, the 3rd or 5th utopian song up until this point, revealing more of Prince's vision:Uptown Sexuality (Purple Music) Erotic City. I love the extended version. I wish the album cut opened with that guitar piece. I always wonder how people would have received the album on first listen if ATWIAD opened with Paisley Park ext

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I know people love She's Always In My Hair, I do too. But I think that comes from liking its less thoughtful perspective. It is a rock song about some lady who adores him more than he does her. It is almost 'well it was Saturday night I guess that makes it alright' rock in roll fun.

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But for me Condition of the Heart is a powerful song. Moreso that SAIMH. It echoes in my after it is over and I need a moment of silence before ripping into Tamborine. Prince was showing his piano skills like he did his guitar skills. I don't think he played piano like that on any other album cut prior to that. I could see Prince and the band in a grand classical music hall in NYC or Europe playing this. I wish they would have back then. God the Dance Electric moody shadowey somberness

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Tamborine, total wild masturbatory Prince. He's given it to us before. Listen to Darling Nikki, Sexuality, Tick Tick Bang(81) then listen to Junk Music... I love it percussion instruments and bass popping, finger cymbals and high hats. I could use an extended version of this.

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Around the World in a Day, Paisley Park, Condition of the Heart, Tamborine, Rasperry Beret, a strong block of songs.

pt1

The album cover, and the inner painting...
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My brothers and I got lost in it before we put the needle down on the record.

Prince everywhere and nowhere

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I'll start from right to left

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Jill Jones said Prince told her that is her when she gets older. He said she was always going to be in his life(that sadly didn't happen for her after the 89/90 altercations ie the roles/the music) It is also sad because her crying as an old woman because of her husband/mans indescretions... she was always cast as 'the other woman' or someone with unrequited love. She's always in my hair, is Jill from Purple Rain, 'even if i was a gigolo, she'd still be there' ...

probably a composite images of another person as well.

I like that pop of lavendar or hot pick on her legs

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The jet fighter...that looks like it is flying directly toward the dove(that represents peace)

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the dog Prince adopted while on the Purple Rain tour. Jill had one too(seen in Purple Rain)

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the woman with the purple beret, purple eye make up, purple lipstick

She reminds me of 1920/30ss starlets Rene Adoree or Fredi Washington ...

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the mixed looking girl on the seesaw in a suite Prince & Wendy have worn. Those snow boats though lol

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The African-American toddler with the sunken or alien eyes, holding the American flag. Did Doug do different paintings? If you look at the single artwork there is a dove flying, but not on the album.

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The harlequin clown juggling. I always thought that was an alternate Earth up in the sky. I believe the harlequin is juggling it according to the notes Prince gave the artists.

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the lady playing the violin in purple ballet slippers. A composite of Susannah & Sheila E(the more direct muses of Prince at the time)

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the woman that looks like Sheila E & Vanity, wearing that leafy nude outfit she wore during the PR tour and that she was wearing when being photographed. Temptation?

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The artist Doug sat for the man in the cloud suite. With spiky blonde hair that Dez Dickerson had during the 1979/80 period.

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Clara Bow... who I thought could be Apollonia
Charlie Chaplin in black with no mustache?

the 3 Graces? But the genders are not so specific...the one in the middle looks like Prince if he was (non mixed genetically) or Jesse Johnson.

Prince as Dr Fink?the face also resembles Brad Marsh(Prince/Bobby Z drum technician)

the old man, I also flash forward to Prince's father, who Jill said Prince said was Jerome when he got older

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all these years later, I'm still so enraptured with this album art/music

Could the seated violinist be Marcy Vaj? Looks sorta like her.

one of his no-turkey tracks album

Stimpy said:

Could the seated violinist be Marcy Vaj? Looks sorta like her.

Nope, it's Susannah:

I don't really think Prince ever tried to make an artistic statement. We were getting it straight from godhead with him. Of course he had influences and styled what came out of him, wanted to impress.

His execution was leagues beyond most artists on every mental and physical level. To date. We will be finding new things on the old albums thoughout our lives. Perspectives and the way you hear music & lyrics changes over the years too, you'll see.

Although I still considder this somewhat as a unfinished album, it remains one of my absolute favourites of Prince's.

The reason why I think it feels unfinished is because Prince - so soon in his carreer - wanted to say "fuck you" with it. Released just two weeks after the Purple Rain Tour ended, and ten months after the release of the album Purple Rain.

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Stunning bizarre album.

I never felt it as an album, but more as a quick EP or something.

It feels like not being complete.

Add a fewmore songs, or longer versions of these exsisting songs, and my gut feeling will be fullfilled.

Vannormal said:

Although I still considder this somewhat as a unfinished album, it remains one of my absolute favourites of Prince's.

The reason why I think it feels unfinished is because Prince - so soon in his carreer - wanted to say "fuck you" with it. Released just two weeks after the Purple Rain Tour ended, and ten months after the release of the album Purple Rain.

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Stunning bizarre album.

I never felt it as an album, but more as a quick EP or something.

It feels like not being complete.

Add a fewmore songs, or longer versions of these exsisting songs, and my gut feeling will be fullfilled.

I believe that everyone - casual and hardcore fans and the general public - was hit so hard and fast with the weight and voracity of Purple Rain's campaign that whatever he put out immediately after wasn't heard as it normally would have been; we were still shellshocked. We did not have time to recoup. It was less than a year between those two releases, whereas most times he would go for an October release (sometime changing that to spring for years at a time). But PR was July, and ATWIAD was the next April. That's a pretty quick turn around.

Imagine if MJ had put out an album in 1984, right on the heels of Thriller still being hot. People would have always measured that release against Thriller. Whether purposeful or not, I think we sometimes measure ATWIAD against PR. PR was just so strong and purposeful, and ATWIAD was more free and rebellious against the norm that was PR. I think it worked to the detriment of ATWIAD, in some cases.

All that theory aside, they are very similar albums.

"Raspberry Beret" extends the story in "Take Me With U" and the Kid and Apollonia in the movie, lyrically and visually.

"America" reuses the "Baby I'm A Star" beat (a practice he would do many other times thru his discography, notably "Love 4 One Another" using "Billy Jack Bitch" drums).

The 3rd song ballad "the Beautiful Ones" echoed with "Condition of the Heart".

The overtly sexual tune at the end of side one, "Darling Nikki" now becoming "Tamborine".

The anthem - "Purple Rain" vs "The Ladder".

The sparse arrangements of "When Doves Cry" and "Paisley Park" are similar.

Literally "Let's Go Crazy" starting with one note/chord, an unexpected vocal, and a single drum beat happens in "Around The World In A Day".

You could also swap "Darling Nikki" for "Temptation". "Pop Life" has a trippy edge the way "Computer Blue" does, although they are distinctive in other ways.

ATWIAD was clearly created from the PR blueprint. If PR was a complete record with its 9 songs of distinctive styles, then ATWIAD with its 9 songs of distinctive styles was as well.

pt 2 side II

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America

I remember Prince saying he could have started the album off with a guitar solo. And I always wonder how would we have heard/had expectation if American (or Temptation or Paisley Park) opened the album) Upbeat fast rock Prince & the Revolution jamming it out, what more needs to be said.

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Pop Life

This is the song, that for me, was an undercurrent tone for the album. Very introspective. Pop Life is one of those songs that make me a little meloncholy. (almost like Money Don't Matter 2Night)

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the Ladder

I'll be honest, I always felt this one needed a killer guitar solo, like Free(Lisa Vanity Jill Jones Wendy Melvoin). Which is what it reminds me of, which is a type of Purple Rain. Lisa Wendy Susannah & Taj Sevelle. But the intro lends to giving us a glimps of the psudo purple culture that had formed and this was giving us a little purple parable.

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Temptation

Having heard the rehearsal of this for the Nice France 1985 show, I wish he would have had a full band on this one. I think the mostly Prince rendering of it slowed it down. Eric Leeds sax really brought a spark to this one. And I actually enjoy the ending still. I see images of the 1999 album cover when I hear it.

When Rolling Stone's Neal Karlen asked how Prince felt about his new Around the World in a Day being labeled "psychedelic," he responded, "I don't mind that, because that was the only period in recent history that delivered songs and colors. Led Zeppelin, for example, would make you feel differently on each song."

TrivialPursuit said:

Stimpy said:

Could the seated violinist be Marcy Vaj? Looks sorta like her.

Nope, it's Susannah:

never saw that before. 100% right.

Stimpy said:

TrivialPursuit said:

Nope, it's Susannah:

never saw that before. 100% right.

The pics are probably still o... somewhere, especially those from the last year or so. Doug Hender, the artist who did the cover, took photos of Wendy, Susannah, Sheila & himself to use as models for the painting. Sheila is the gal w/ the ice cream cone in a reclined position. Wendy posed for the older woman by the pier. Doug himself sat w/ a guitar for the cloud suit man. Actress Clara Bow is represented in the painting, too. (It's the same outfit Wendy wore in the "Raspberry Beret" video.) It's cool he put Clara Bow on the cover since she's mentioned in "Condition of the Heart".

It's like feeluupp said, it really was Prince's first concept album, front to back.

I'm sure there are many extended versions of these songs in the vault.

Pop Life for instance, it's mixed/remxed for this album. The original tape must be a song that continues. The sound clearly were mixed in afterwards.

The fade-out songs must've had longer play. As I remember that Prince was still in a long-version recording mood back then.

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I always thought that the b-side 'Girl' should've been on it. What a great song, with a strange vibe and somehow a song overlooked by many of us. It's an absolute gem. Remaster it, and you'll hear.

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Ever really payd attention to Prince's drumming on 'Tambourine' ? It's just... stunning. And then the playful way he juggles with the tambourine throughout is also stunning. Like as if for these reasons he kept the instrumentation very sparse.

His percussion skills are truely amazing. Knowing he mostly played around with the Linn Drum for the last couple of years up to then.

(Also the bass guitar is on this album, it doesn't play that much a prominent role.)

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I made a copy for my own, starting side two with 'Hello' and 'She Is Always My Hair', then 'Girl', and before 'Temptation' I put an edited part (16 min and long slow fade) of the extended version of 'America', and replaced 'Pop Life' with it's ext.vers. Works pretty well.

(I also added some 17seconds of sea & seagul, with some playing children +fairgroung sounds mixed into the intro to ATWIAD, and used Prince's words 'So What's The Matter With Your Life' in a slowed down echoed version (from the end of the 'POP LIFE' ext.vers. to begin with). My favorite.

I also speeded up 'Paisley Park' just a bit to the Camille style, and put up the pitch of 'The Ladder' to have it just that bit faster (sounds less preaching). Great to play around with.

I also juggled a bit with the mastering of 'Condition Of The heart'.

Such an emotional and absolute heartfelt song.

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Loved to fool around with this purple gem. This album always felt the most purple of 'm all. .

As stated here above by someone else, this clearly is sort of a continuation or a work-through of the Purple Rain album. But it sound completely different.

Just imagine, compare this album with '1999' album, or with 'Parade' even. As it's from another planet.

(For that reason I never ever liked any of Prince's Greatest Hits packages. That just doesn't work)

Anyways, what a wonderful album to forget the world for a while.

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I read somewhere that the Purple Rain Tour exhausted everyone, and also certainly the unstopable Prince.

Record companies, managers, organisers really pushed their biggest artists to the edge. Some got lost in drugs etc. Everyone wanted a piece of it/them.

(Maybe the Purple Rain tour should've been shorter. Prince would've had some more time. Maybe...)

But Prince himself of course rightfully tasted fame, felt the impossible being possible.

Not being sufficently supported, guided, not wanting to listen to good advice in the first place, resulted in what we know for the rest of his life. In this album you feel that somehow.

I always felt like Purple Rain made him loose contact with a lot of things, with himself in the first place. He's questioning in 'Temptation', the doubt, the temptation, the idea of feeling free to do what he wanted, the attention, looking for a ladder, as if unnoticed loosing grip on the world and the people around him a bit.

I have no truth in this, but this chapter in his life is much more meaningful than we can imagine.

It was his position at the top, and just beginnning to go slightly downwards, something he wasn't absolutly aware of.

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Great piece of art this era is.

[Edited 4/26/18 23:32pm]

feeluupp said:

Silvertongue7 said:

This album gets so much love here, but I’ve never been able to really get into it.

There's something missing about this album... Whenever I listen to it as a whole and try to "compare" it to his other 80's works... I finish listening and say to myself, ok that was GOOD but... As a "PRINCE" album, the essence of it... Something is just missing. I think he was trying to hard to go a different direction and make an "artistic" statement, that some of his trademark energy that usually is encompassed in his work was kind of missing.

I feel the same way.There are a few great songs ("Paisley Park" is my favorite) but I'm not in love with the album.It lacks the energy and excitement of the albums that came before it."Temptation" is just plain terrible.This was the first Prince album that didn't thrill me.

TrivialPursuit said:

Stimpy said:

never saw that before. 100% right.

The pics are probably still o... somewhere, especially those from the last year or so. Doug Hender, the artist who did the cover, took photos of Wendy, Susannah, Sheila & himself to use as models for the painting. Sheila is the gal w/ the ice cream cone in a reclined position. Wendy posed for the older woman by the pier. Doug himself sat w/ a guitar for the cloud suit man. Actress Clara Bow is represented in the painting, too. (It's the same outfit Wendy wore in the "Raspberry Beret" video.) It's cool he put Clara Bow on the cover since she's mentioned in "Condition of the Heart".

It's like feeluupp said, it really was Prince's first concept album, front to back.

LORD ALMIGHTY! I've never seen those before. That's exceptional.

It's interesting to get a little insight into the creation of this masterpiece.

AMAZING!!!!

p3

Bsides and Extended versions

She's Always In My Hair

Hello perfect response to a media situation

Girl I love that Vanity is on this in backward speech

will add more later

Vannormal said:

r there any more unreleased extended version of the songs from the album???????

One of those albums I can have on rotation for a week and find something new each time. LOVE IT

Vannormal said:

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I always thought that the b-side 'Girl' should've been on it. What a great song, with a strange vibe and somehow a song overlooked by many of us. It's an absolute gem. Remaster it, and you'll hear.

"Girl" would have fit in great. I never liked COTH. It's an interesting album but I don't play it much. There's not killer track on it that makes me say "god damn" but there's a lot of good ones and even the failures are at least interesting.

Left up to me, I'd lose "Temptation" (or make it shorter) and "Condition of the Heart" and swap in "She's Always in my Hair" and "Girl". Plus I'd have kept the original painted cover.