Trivia / Purple Rain (album)

• What Could Have Been:
  • "Take Me With U" was originally meant for Appollonia's solo album.
  • "Computer Blue" was originally a 14-minute suite with additional lyrics, a section of solos, and a finale of three full minutes of guitar feedback. Another version includes a passage dubbed the "Hallway Speech", with a shorter amount of feedback. It was planned to be included in its complete form on Purple Rain and was edited a few times to fit into the album, eventually setting on a 7-minute version. However, "Take Me With U" was added to the album's tracklist near the end of production. In order to fit into the album's running time, "Computer Blue" was hacked down to four minutes, removing the third section of the song  – the one with the solos – entirely. The result was great because Prince had the good sense to pull an Adaptation Distillation and only keep the best parts of the song with each edit. The third section of "Computer Blue" was included in the film during a rehearsal scene, and the drastically abridged feedback outro was used to transition into "Darling Nikki". Four versions of the song have appeared on bootlegs, with varying degrees of quality (the 7 minute version got as far as the mastering stage, so it stands out.) The "Hallway Speech" version (even officially titled as such) of the song was finally released on the 2017 remaster.
  • "Purple Rain" was originally written as a country song and intended to be a collaboration with Stevie Nicks. She received a 10-minute instrumental version of the song from Prince with a request to write the lyrics, but felt overwhelmed.
    I listened to it and I just got scared. I called him back and said, "I can't do it. I wish I could. It's too much for me."

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