Around the time just before 'Emancipation' was released Prince was quoted as saying that the 'other day' he had wrote a song so good he was saving it for 'Dawn'.

Later on 'The Truth' album appeared the accoustic track 'Welcome 2 the Dawn'.

'The Dawn' project has been talked about as being Prince's defining musical statement.

Has anyone heard anything about the project recently? Is it still something Prince plans to release?

HollywoodSaint said:

no and no.

Welcome 2 the dawn is the dawn, now back to real life.

HollywoodSaint said:

At the time I remember thinking it was an odd way to try to sell an album by announcing that you had saved your best material for the next album. That Prince is an odd-duck.

I think it would be a cool concept, I wish he would have released it back around when The Truth was fresh, I just think the thinking/lyrically it would be different, and a little bit more in tune to the fans of his music..

I think that the whole "The Dawn" thing was the biggest let down in Prince history.

How could "May you live to see The Dawn" be in every project he did in the 80's then, it's a b-side single I got from Borders as a promo.

That was such a dissapointment.

The earliest reference to The Dawn as a PROJECT was in that Rolling Stones Wendy and Lisa interview around 86, Prince with them on the cover. They mentioned something about already, at that time, writing songs for The Dawn.

It could of been such an awesome thing, like a box set with the Revolution or something, in 99 or something. Oh well.

Yes,in the early days Prince always had the message May You Live To See The Dawn. THen I read after Purple Rain there was suppose to be a sequel called the Dawn and something about DREAMS. Remember when Prince used to sign everything LOVE GOD?

Prince had been planning to release an album called 'The Dawn'
since the Revolution Days. He started assembling tracks for it
many times but never completed it. The closest it ever came
to becoming a reality was just after Emancipation had been
released. It was scheduled in as the next album to be released.
Unfortunately no tracklisting has ever surfaced.

Wasn't DREAMS the original title of Purple Rain?

Muffy said:

hectim said:

Yes.

BorisFishpaw said:

I always had a hunch that The Dawn was an early name for the Truth.

What you said above points to that (wasn't The Truth going to be released on EMI after Emancipation?)

And the Borders Holy River cassette says Welcome 2 The Dawn is from the Truth.

Is it possible he just changed the album title?

Romance1600 said:

No, "The Dawn" was a very different album to "The Truth".
The Borders Holy River cassette actually states that 'Welcome
2 The Dawn' is "from the 4thcoming album: The Dawn".

What we do know about 'The Dawn' is that it wasn't an
acoustic album, it was a full-on band album like 'The Gold
Experience' and 'Emancipation'.

The Dawn- think Graffitti Bridge the song- it would be a whole albumn of this.

BorisFishpaw said:

Exactly, because "Welcome 2 the Dawn" on "The Truth" says it is the acoustic version. Another version exists somewhere intended for something else.

There was even a point where the Gold & Come tracks were
gonna be released as a 2 or 3 cd album called 'The Dawn'.
(hence all the 'hello, welcome 2 the dawn...' operator segues)

Honey, it ain't the Dawn yet!
What do U expect??

In fact there were many points in Prince's recording career
where he started to assemble an album called 'The Dawn',
and each time the tracklisting was completely different.

Hey doesn't the Gold Experience have a voice-over that says welcome 2 the dawn?

hectim said:

So does the commercial at the end of Rave I would hate to think the Dawn was an advertisement for 1-800-new-funk