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'17 Days' excerpt from 'Prince -King of B-sides' book 17 Days (the rain will come down, then U will have 2 choose. If U believe look 2 the dawn and U shall never lose)
 Released: 16 May 1984, B-side of ‘When Doves Cry’ If the B-sides from the ‘1999’ era were an aperitif to whet our appetites with the delights he had in store for us, then ‘17 Days’ and the B-side that was on the follow-up single release were surely the entrée. It was a full-course meal that would continue to feed and nourish fans with B-sides until at least 1992. ‘17 Days’ could just be one of Prince’s catchiest songs, it is certainly up there, as it is a pop song through and through. A song pretty much any other act in the history of popular music up to that point in time would have chosen to release as an A-side or double A-side, and it would have been one of their signature songs; it is that good. Perplexing as he was, Prince relegated it to a supporting track. Paired with the A-side of ‘When Doves Cry’, which became Prince’s first No.1 single in the USA and ended up the biggest-selling single of 1984 in the USA according to Billboard, selling over 2 million units. Perhaps there was a strategy at play here, as ‘17 Days’ did end up finding its way into people’s homes more than any other Prince B-side, and at a time in his career when he was at his most commercial and becoming known to many for the first time. There are many reasons why ‘17 Days’ is cherished by Prince fans, it’s a catchy yet melancholy song, and of course superbly performed and produced but that goes for much of Prince’s recording output. The song covers familiar territory too - a man with a broken heart, going through the pain of a breakup,who was left by his girlfriend 17 days and 17 long nights ago, and has a new partner. ’17 Days’ thus resonates deeply with many because it taps into a universal experience – the sting of a lost love. Whether you're a teenager navigating your first heartbreak or a young adult facing a more serious break-up, the song's emotional core hits home. This relatable theme, alongside the A-side's exploration of human relationships from the perspective of how our approach to life and our relationships are influenced, knowingly or not, by our parents, likely explains why it holds a special place in the hearts of many teenagers and young adults from the 80s, including myself. It was then, and is still, a song that could be played over and over helping you get through the pain of early life breakups with the love of your life at high school or college. The lyrics of ’17 Days’ aligned well with what you were going through and helped you get through a lot of heartache,regardless of whether you were a smoker or not. The song has a bassline that is elastically popping away throughout, and despite the melancholy lyrics the music makes for hypnotically upbeat and groovy pop music that at forty-plus years and counting still sounds fresh. As an aside, while she sings backing vocals on the track, I dearly hope there is a Jill Jones solo version in the vault somewhere, as I’d love to hear how she would have approached this song with her voice. The A-side ‘When Doves Cry’ is credited to Prince alone, but ‘17 Days’ as the B-side holds the distinction of being the first commercially released single to be overtly credited to ‘Prince and The Revolution’ and was a group written song by Prince, with Lisa Coleman, Dr. Fink and Wendy Melvoin; and thus began the start of something very special on record and live in concert for the next three years. And if you were ever wondering what Prince did for fun, there’s also a live rehearsal version of the song on the 2018 album 'Piano & A Microphone 1983' that is entirely beautiful. It’s just Prince and a piano, no band, just a-jamming and a-grooving away to himself; feeling out the song, having fun improvising and ad-libbing as he goes. Less a polished pop gem, more a very special chance to hear a part of the process that went into Prince's musical creations, as well as his personality at play, on what is an embryonic version of ’17 Days.’ But to be honest, this is not a song to read about, especially if you’ve never heard either version, it should be an experience through hearing, not telling; so, my strong recommendation is to check it out and make your mind up on whether it should or could have been an A-side in its own right… … you’re back, hello again.
Where was I, oh yes, alas ’17 Days’ wasn’t a song that appeared too often in Prince’s touring repertoire, but two great performances of ‘17 Days’ can be enjoyed again and again on YouTube from different eras of his long career. Firstly, as the opening track to the sublime Prince and The Revolution gig on Prince’s birthday, 7th June 1984 at First Avenue, Minneapolis. Secondly, for nearly nine glorious minutes fromthe ‘Welcome 2 America’ (2021) deluxe edition on 28th April 2011 at The Forum in Inglewood, California. Both versions make for blissful pop music, despite being played 27 yearsapart by completely different bands; I have a slight preference for the 2011 version, which is saying something given how great the birthday gig from 1984 is! Several covers exist, by O'Chi Brown,1985, Living Colour, 1993, Dam-Funk, 2012 and Susan Voelz, 2016. Some sampling too, ‘Paper Thin’ by MC Lyte, 1988, Que. ‘D's Cash Flow (J DILLA REMIX)’ by Que. D, 1996, ‘It's on You’ by Freedom of Soul, 1991 and ‘3 Kings & a Queen!’ by Sadat X and El Da Sensei feat. R.A. The Rugged Man and Sa-Roc, 2018. But the one cover, sample, mix to rule them all is one by Louis La Roche from 2022, who takes the 1983 live performance version that's on the album 'Piano & A Microphone 1983' and gives this beautiful song a whole newIbiza Sunday chill-out vibe that’s more than worth checking out…
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I don'tmeantorainonyourparade, but you mentioned worthless cover versions instaid of one of the greatest leaks in free bootleg history??? I was giddy as teenie again when the full version of this song dropped. No mention of this? Reallly? BTW, it was designed for Brenda Bennet's lead vocal, not JJ. Good luck with the compilation of essays "Whatever skin we're in
we all need 2 b friends" |
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it is an excerpt, a taster. etc not sure what you mean about 'worthless' but each to their own - I was sharing for those that like to explore different interpretations of songs I am aware Brenda is singing the background vocals - my text merely wishes for there to be a Jill Jones version, as I find her involvement in the studio and on Prince songs lifts the above others IMHO |
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Too many adverbs. Needs an editor, too. Sorry, it's the Hodgkin's talking. |
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And you my fellow Prince fam, seem to have missed off a single acronym off your post... |
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[Edited 9/20/24 16:41pm] Sorry, it's the Hodgkin's talking. |
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"This is not a song to read about" Not something id write in a book about music lol |
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I was suggesting you missed off: IMHO
I saw your earlier, pre edited response... as to being verbose = unashamedly guilty. As to your other obeservations, there are plenty of Prince books out there that would be probably more to your liking - I didn't want to write 'just another Prince book' - I wanted to offer something up that was for the fams, from a fam, and that would come across as more personal and conversational. Hopefully to be a more enjoyable read.
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once I get into the actual songs, consider them more like reading notes for fine wine, lol. The songs came first, the songs inspired the writing of the book, but always, always it is the songs. No songs, no book about them. Songs are meant to be heard. And Prince's B-sides are songs with stories to tell... |
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Completely useless book |
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RODSERLING said: Completely useless book How do you know? Have you read it yet? | |
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And you my fellow Prince fam, seem to have missed off a single acronym off your post... |
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From the first extract published here, this is merely subjective impressions. |
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What's up with the acronym commrnents? "Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything." --Plato
https://youtu.be/CVwv9LZMah0 | |
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I am SO SICK of the constant SPAM for this "just a generic book" with poor artwork on the cover. Welcome to "the org", laytonian… come bathe with me. |
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Welcome to "the org", laytonian… come bathe with me. |
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Sorry, it's the Hodgkin's talking. |
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Hey @laytonian, @RODSERLING and @TrivialPursuit what's up?
If I'm guilty of over excitement on something I have put a lot of love into then I apologise if it has offended you so much.
Some background for you, I collect and read Prince books and magazines, somehow that became my thing. This summer, when I was job hunting (sucks hard) to keep myself sane, I settled down to do what I'd always dreamt of doing - writing a book about the most creative person that's lived on our planet IMHO, which perhaps not unsurprisingly given this group is and was Prince. The GOAT. I wrote it as a fam, for fams, based on what I know I'd enjoy reading about Prince. To find a niche, I decided to go deep, Mariana Trench deep and focus on Prince B-sides. To celebrate Prince and what is now a redundant but once super exciting format.
To the point made about ‘Duane Tudahl's books. Because unless any random person, he does the footwork and it shows. Who else? Parke and Shahidi. Mayte. They knew him, they were there.’ I agree, they were, and in their books, they do their thing. That is not to say that no one can ever write about Prince or his works, else over the years there would never have been reviews in papers and magazines or other books such as ‘Imp of the Perverse’ by Barney Hoskyns or Dave Hill’s ‘A Pop Life’ and the others have come out over the years.
I won’t try and convince you one way or the other about the worth of my contribution but I will correct you on a few things, because it is clear you haven’t actually read my book or at least got to the end of it.
There was no point in rehashing what’s been done before and given what ‘The Master’ Duane Tudahl has covered in his books, add nothing new to the world. However, as much I as a Prince fan of 40 odd years appreciate his two volumes to date and hope the will do more, they are not for everyone. I wanted to produce something that was far more conversational with the reader, an enjoyable and informative read for long term followers of Prince and those perhaps that only know the hits or just starting to discover his genius.
So, yes of course, it’s from my perspective on Prince and his work, with my experiences at the time, my viewpoints from a historical perspective and forms a book that is classified under the genre of ‘Musical Criticism’ - albeit I am for the most part positive, thus the book title 😊 To suggest ‘Prince – King of B-sides’ offers ‘no new insights…’ or that I haven’t done the ‘footwork’ is plain wrong and frankly, insulting.
I have been a stickler for ensuring the content is correct, I have even made a point about it in the book, where there is a section in the book entitled: ‘Facts – remember those? Facts still matter. Facts, like books and albums, still matter.’ In some areas, I have not seen much of what this entails, captured in any other Prince book to date…
The book also contains exclusive input from Susan Rogers, someone who was there, so…
Again, given the book offers a current perspective, on a now extinct format, the book provides a historic perspective to B-sides and this then leads into how this worked for various artists, before moving into how Prince approach B-sides and eventually moved on from B-sides, going into how as an independent he explored a whole array of distribution methods to get his music out and challenging the music industry along the way…
So, by all means ignore the book, that’s your prerogative but please don’t make stuff up, that just isn’t the case
[Edited 9/21/24 23:21pm] [Edited 9/21/24 23:27pm] |
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It's a recurrent problem on this board (and part of the reason I was away for a couple of years) that people who try to achieve something (and, sadly, even Prince collaborators at times) get attacked by angry boardmembers when they come and try to interact with the community. Even Duane, whose great work is hard to criticize for being useless or opportunistic, got attacked rather viciously at times. The consequence is most people who try and achieve shit in the fandom never come here in the first place, or tried once and eventually decided to leave and never come back. Another consequence is that former Prince collaborators who may have wanted to come here and answer our questions usually avoid this place like the plague. Yet, people seem to not understand this and keep doing it over and over again... Matt's book may not be something we all wish to read in the sense that it probably doesn't reveal any new facts the way some other books or podcasts do, but at least he put work in writing it, and promoting it on the #1 Prince message board seems quite a natural thing to do. I don't see how this deserves criticism. A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ |
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It's all right there in your comment.
"Whatever skin we're in
we all need 2 b friends" |
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Sorry, it's the Hodgkin's talking. |
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I would hope I have brought something new to the party! But then I don't know what anyone knows, or doesn't know...
As a guage if anyone knows Phil Simms who is highly active on The Paisley 5 & Dime and other similar FB groups posted on his FB page the following: "Great to have completed this in less than a week. Thank you Matt Osgood for writing such a compelling book! … yep I even learnt a few things along the way."
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Good Evening, Matt! "Whatever skin we're in
we all need 2 b friends" |
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. Friends don't let friends clap on 1 and 3.
The Paisley Park Vault spreadsheet: https://goo.gl/zzWHrU |
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Yeah I don't what who know what either. I only assumed (perhaps wrongly) the book wasn't based on new, original research like interviews of musicians or engineers, that kind of stuff. Doesn't mean it can't be informative to readers, of course. Just depends how much they already know. A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ |
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No. i just don't know how to read. These posts are generated from my voice to txt device. "Whatever skin we're in
we all need 2 b friends" |
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Sorry, it's the Hodgkin's talking. |
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Well the book contains exclusive input from Susan Rogers, based on what she kindly shared with me, in her answers to my questions about certain B-sides.
As I said earlier in the thread, collecting Prince books / magazines ended up being my thing and having read a lot, I can honestly I say the book's content isn't a rehash at all of other Prince books out there to date. Beyond facts being facts, to quote the GOAT himself - "Everybody wants to tell what's already been told." - I saw no purpose in repeating what'e been already done.
Again, given the book offers a current perspective, on a now extinct format, the book provides a historic perspective to B-sides and this then leads into how this worked for various artists, before moving into how Prince approach B-sides and eventually moved on from B-sides, going into how as an independent artist, Prince explored a whole array of distribution methods to get his music out and maintain his profile, as he challenged the record industry status quo.
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Ah cool, I didn't know. Thanks for clarifying (and all the more reason for people stopping giving you shit about the book!) A COMPREHENSIVE PRINCE DISCOGRAPHY (work in progress ^^): https://sites.google.com/...scography/ |
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indeed and thank you |
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