In Susan Rogers interview with Official Charts Company just now...

She just confirmed that she made Prince a cassette copy of Wally before the master tape was erased. She has no idea what he did with the cassette.

I don’t want to give anyone any false hope, but that’s what she said.

they have it, they just didn't want to use it up on, say, a SOTT SDE. this i'm certain of.

VaultCurator said:

In Susan Rogers interview with Official Charts Company just now...

She just confirmed that she made Prince a cassette copy of Wally before the master tape was erased. She has no idea what he did with the cassette.

I don’t want to give anyone any false hope, but that’s what she said.

I was pretty intrigued by the liner notes from Duane, stating that Wally emerged from a rough piano demo entitled "Babyless". So I am assuming this one is still intact, but maybe too rough of piano demo to call it a song perhaps? So in some ways there's 3 versions: "Babyless" (locked in the Vault?), "Wally #1" (erased?), "Wally #2" (the one we have). Is that what Michael Howe was referring to when he said there was more to Wally, then we might think/thought. Whatever that means.

lustmealways said:

the year is 2027. a limited 7" record is produced with a cost of 20 dollars a pop. there are only 1987 copies made. you look on the back, "side a: wally (original version) side b: babyless"

an aging michael howe gives an interview in promotion "it was the strangest thing. i was strolling through iron mountain and out of the ether this cassette tape appeared, like the virgin mary. right in front of my eyes. i reached out and grabbed it, popped it in the tape deck, and thought 'ok we have to get this out RIGHT NOW. the fans are going to go nuts'"

fin

lustmealways said:

the year is 2027. a limited 7" record is produced with a cost of 20 dollars a pop. there are only 1987 copies made. you look on the back, "side a: wally (original version) side b: babyless"

an aging michael howe gives an interview in promotion "it was the strangest thing. i was strolling through iron mountain and out of the ether this cassette tape appeared, like the virgin mary. right in front of my eyes. i reached out and grabbed it, popped it in the tape deck, and thought 'ok we have to get this out RIGHT NOW. the fans are going to go nuts'"

fin

-

about that cassette,

Lisa :

"He probably threw it under his bike and rolled over it."

-

I misremembered. Please read my post on the second page for clarification

[Edited 10/7/20 10:34am]

Strive said:

But Michael Howe also recently said there's no existence of Wally #1 in the vault so who knows.

Yeah but before that he gave that over-the-top cryptic non-answer with the "ummm" "ahhh" "hmmm" "uhhh" "sworn to non-disclosure" preamble.

[Edited 10/6/20 16:16pm]

Okay so the story goes that he records the most personal song of his career, post breakup, and it's addressed to Wally. He supposedly erased and destroyed this track and/or added instrumentation to scribble over it.

We get a version with heavy instrumentation but it doesn't sound ruined or overly busy, and it's debatable how personal it sounds.

When did Susan ever talk about a demo version?

On a side note will the webinar this was from be available for replay, does anyone know?

Strive said:

MathematicalGas said:

I was pretty intrigued by the liner notes from Duane, stating that Wally emerged from a rough piano demo entitled "Babyless". So I am assuming this one is still intact, but maybe too rough of piano demo to call it a song perhaps? So in some ways there's 3 versions: "Babyless" (locked in the Vault?), "Wally #1" (erased?), "Wally #2" (the one we have). Is that what Michael Howe was referring to when he said there was more to Wally, then we might think/thought. Whatever that means.

Neversin told me this awhile ago and it makes alot of sense now after reading that.

He told me there was a piano demo Prince made the day before going into studio. That cassette was taped over when they did the cassette mixdown of Wally #1 before they destroyed the master. Then a few days later he made the Wally #2 we all currently know.

Some of those details may be off since it was told to me back when SotT SDE was announced but I've posted about all this on the org before so it's nothing new.

But Michael Howe also recently said there's no existence of Wally #1 in the vault so who knows.

The fact Duane knew what was written on the original tape points to it being in the Estate's possession.

[Edited 10/6/20 15:58pm]

Thanks for resharing this info, must have missed it back then. It does add an interesting curiosity to the story – how does Duane know about the 'piano demo' called "Babyless" if they taped over that cassette for Wally #1? Of course it could be in the logs or maybe Susan shared this info – so it's just guess work. For a moment I also wondered wether Susan actually heard "Babyless" first (as the title itself sounds more in line with the emotional reveal) and then Prince layered instrumentation (as Susan has mentioned) added lyrics on top of it in order to conceal the heartache, and then renamed it Wally (#1) aka the emotional cut and paste version. That version was then erased from the master tapes and he recoreded the whole thing, which then became the lesser emo Wally #2. I guess that's what you (or Neversin) are saying lol. Sooo, does that mean? that, while Wally #1 might be long gone – "Babyless" aka Wally #0 is the raw hearthbreaking version without added insrumentation and is indeed still in the Vault and waiting to be released and make us cry our guts out.

lavendardrummachine said:

Okay so the story goes that he records the most personal song of his career, post breakup, and it's addressed to Wally. He supposedly erased and destroyed this track and/or added instrumentation to scribble over it.

We get a version with heavy instrumentation but it doesn't sound ruined or overly busy, and it's debatable how personal it sounds.

When did Susan ever talk about a demo version?

The piano demo version is mentioned in the liner notes of the SOTT SDE book, by Duane Tudahl. It wasn't our dearest Susan.

•

The integrity of emotions is very debatable in Wally #2 I find. On the one hand the lyrics themselves don't reveal much as they are pretty whimsical – but they do also feel like a distraction of the real underlaying feeling, when he sings "Wally, can U tell me why did my baby leave?". There's somekind of desparation in that sounds sincere to me. Also towards the end of the track, quite buried in the mix, you can hear Prince screaming his guts out. Made me think, maybe Wally #2 is more enticing in emotional complexity than the so called Wally #1 or #0 (Babyless).

[Edited 10/6/20 18:41pm]

[Edited 10/6/20 18:42pm]

[Edited 10/6/20 18:43pm]

[Edited 10/6/20 19:26pm]

MathematicalGas said:

There's somekind of desparation in that sounds sincere to me. Also towards the end of the track, quite buried in the mix, you can hear Prince screaming his guts out. Made me think, maybe Wally #2 is more enticing in emotional complexity than the so called Wally #1 or #0 (Babyless).

[Edited 10/6/20 18:41pm]

[Edited 10/6/20 18:42pm]

[Edited 10/6/20 18:43pm]

[Edited 10/6/20 19:26pm]

Agree. It's also what supports the instrumentation flourishes, and why I've grown to appreciate it on the official release.

AvocadosMax said:

It just hit me: “And if I don’t find somebody, somebody will FIND ME...” He’s saying if he doesn’t find a new companion, if he doesn’t find ‘another love,’ he will commit suicide...

Holy shit. That never occured to me but I think you might be right.

Transformed1 said:

AvocadosMax said:

It just hit me: “And if I don’t find somebody, somebody will FIND ME...” He’s saying if he doesn’t find a new companion, if he doesn’t find ‘another love,’ he will commit suicide...

"Somebody will find me" is a common hopeful after unrequited love them that appears in a lot of lyrics.

I'm not ruling out that was a play on words to read it the way you did, but that's not very Prince. There are examples of him using word play like that but it's not that subtle.

lavendardrummachine said:

VaultCurator said:

BlueShakooo said:

Isn't that what she had been saying for years?

Don't think so. The original story was that he recorded this heartfelt track, proceeded to purposely ruin it by adding all these extra instruments, and then had it erased entirely. She didn't know if the track still existed in some form and never said definitivey what she's saying now. The story evolved, and a lot of people heard it third hand through Questlove.

It was talked about like it would never be heard. Then it turned up.

Previous discussion with the original story here:

https://prince.org/msg/7/298457

[Edited 10/6/20 23:19pm]

AvocadosMax said:

I know its their business, but i would love to hear more insight from Susannah in what went wrong in their relationship and her reaction to Wally

Wasn't it the same thing as Vanity? Commitment issues and arguments.

Why wouldn't you guys just admit he most likely destroyed the tape for the same reasons he erased the multitracks ? It would have been a nonsense to erase the MT and keep the mixdown cassette.

Now maybe that Babyless demo still exists in poor quality on another cassette since it's been mentioned by Duane in the liner notes.

fredmagnus said:

BlueShakooo said:

VaultCurator said:

In Susan Rogers interview with Official Charts Company just now...

She just confirmed that she made Prince a cassette copy of Wally before the master tape was erased. She has no idea what he did with the cassette.

I don’t want to give anyone any false hope, but that’s what she said.

I was a bit surprised when I saw Casey Rain tweeted these 'News' a few hours ago. I'm even more surprised it's now mentioned here. Isn't that what she had been saying for years? As far as I remember, she started the whole Wally legend years ago by telling exactly that story: Version #1 was mixed and put on a cassette, the multi track was deleted by Prince. When she told the story back then, she wasn't aware of Version #2 (didn't know he re-recorded it. Hasn't it been discussed here on the org many times over the years? I don't get what's new now. [Edited 10/6/20 22:44pm]

I remember neversin mentioning the piano demo on some other site, not here, last year and also hinted at Wally #1.
I'm not surprised Susan wouldn't know about Wally #2, because it seems Prince was on a stint recoding and engineering solo for for soem tracks during this time. She was asked during a interview some years ago in the netherlands about the Katrina's Paper Dolls re-recording and she also didn;t know anything about a recording of that and someone let it hear her in the netherlands.

BlueShakooo said:

VaultCurator said:

In Susan Rogers interview with Official Charts Company just now...

She just confirmed that she made Prince a cassette copy of Wally before the master tape was erased. She has no idea what he did with the cassette.

I don’t want to give anyone any false hope, but that’s what she said.

I was a bit surprised when I saw Casey Rain tweeted these 'News' a few hours ago. I'm even more surprised it's now mentioned here. Isn't that what she had been saying for years? As far as I remember, she started the whole Wally legend years ago by telling exactly that story: Version #1 was mixed and put on a cassette, the multi track was deleted by Prince. When she told the story back then, she wasn't aware of Version #2 (didn't know he re-recorded it. Hasn't it been discussed here on the org many times over the years? I don't get what's new now. [Edited 10/6/20 22:44pm]

There has been mention of a cassette in the past, but there was also some speculation as to whether or not that detail was correct. There was further confusion as on one occasion where Questlove was recounting the story of Wally, he claimed Prince destroyed the demo cassette while erasing the master. The reason I'm highlighting this was because she was very specific about the details this time...

Interviewer:

There has been some suspicion that a tape was actually made of the original version before Prince asked for it to be erased. Do you think that's possible? So firstly, can you explain a little bit about Wally and the fact that it's one of the greatest tracks he's ever recorded, but it doesn't exist anymore as far as you understand.

Susan:

And there were only two of us in the room so I can tell you what happened.

It was so... as I said earlier, as the Sign O' The times album was coming together he's more sombre in tone but the music he's making is not sombre in tone. He's doing a lot of upbeat stuff like 'Play In The Sunshine' and 'Housequake' and I honestly didn't get it. I didn't think the times called for funk material right about now. I mean his mood didn't seem to be that way.

He and Susannah had finally decided to end their engagement and she had returned to Los Angeles and man he was hurting. You can see that he was hurting. Not only was Susannah gone but the Revolution had broken up.

It was cold. It was December and one day he called me to the house (the home studio in Minneapolis) and he asked for piano and drums and the stuff like on Purple Rain. I set it all up in advance and he came down started moving from one instrument to the next as he would do. Drums and bass and then the big piano upstairs. As the song is taking shape and finally I'm hearing the lyrics and I'm realising, finally, finally, he's finally revealing what I know he's been keeping bottled up all this time.

It was a break up song. He's singing to Wally, his friend Wally, and he's saying 'Wally, where did you get those glasses. Can I try on those glasses because, you know, my relationship broke up, I want to go to a club tonight and I want to look good because I want to meet someone else'. But when he gets into the meat of the song there are big powerful piano chords and in the chorus he's just singing 'oh,oh, oh my la-di-dah, oh my la-di-dah ', and we worked on it for a long long time. It could have been overnight, I don't remember. I think I remember light coming in through the windows in the morning, so probably overnight. Anyway, it was beautiful. It was gorgeous. It was finally the expression that I wanted to hear from him.

We finished it. We put it on cassette, the rough mix onto cassette. I handed him the cassette and he said 'now put all 24 tracks into record and erase it, the whole master tape'. I said 'no, don't do it, do it, do it' and I tried to talk him out of it. I was just shocked, I'd never heard anything like that before and it was a shock to the bone. It would be one thing if it was a bad song, but this was (as a fan remember) I'm thinking 'this is great'. And he said 'if you don't, I will'.

We were standing on opposite sides of the remote (of the tape machine). I was sitting in front of it and he was on the opposite side of it, and he reached over the remote and starts putting all 24 tracks in record ready, and I'm trying to tell him 'no, please, at least sleep on it, sleep on it, get some sleep, we've been up all night, and if you call me after you've slept on it and you say erase it then I will do it, but don't erase it'. One of us, I'm pretty sure it was him but I can't remember for sure, he wouldn't hear it, there was no stopping him and the record button was pressed and the entire song was erased top to bottom.

The only known copy of it was that cassette that I made for him because of course after it was erased it was too late to make any stereo or any other copies or mixes of it. What he did with that cassette I have no idea. I don't know if he kept it, if he gave it away, if he destroyed it, I don't know what he did. I'd know it if I heard it, if I heard that song. It's pretty etched in my memory.

What I don't remember, and this is startling to me, I didn't know until Michael Howe told me, but it was a few days after that we re-recorded Wally. I would have sworn that I didn't even do it except that Michael showed me photos of the track sheet in the tape box and that's me. It was my handwriting, but I think I was just traumatised because the new version of Wally, it's the same song. Same lyrics, same chord changes. It is not the same attitude. It's like Witness for the Prosecution. He went from a position of vulnerability to a position of 'I'm fine. I'm gonna be fine. Oh yeah, I'm hurt but I'm tough. I can take it'. Not the same Wally as the one I heard.

LoveGalore said:

Neversin implied the tape for Wally #1 exists and is out there in one of his last posts here during Guttedgate. I'm pretty sure the tape is in the hands of people. Who those people are is any guess but there's not that many candidates for consideration there. I do think that her shock about Wally 2 is a bit funny. And then saying it's basically the same song. Comparing it to Witness is weird cuz those two songs aren't that similar beyond some lyrics and some of the melody.

I don't remember Neversin implied such thing .....maybe about the 1 st piano jam demo with Wally Melody but not about this famous 1 st Wally take mentionned several times by Susan thru the years ....So...there are much more speculations than solid mentions about this famous 1st take on tape saved as a miracle ....Or ?????

[Edited 10/7/20 4:04am]