re: Purple Rain (movie)

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Loved the ending when he actually plays purple rain.

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The movie version of the song (which is also the album version) was actually cut down from the first actual live performance of the song that prince and the revolution played in a Minnesota club in 1983.

The original song was actually much longer (13+ minutes) and the stage was miced up like a recording studio to capture the "club" sound for the movie.

He recorded it so early so no one would know the song yet, just like the movie is supposed to be, so there's very little applause and a lot of shock by the audience until the very end.

The original has a entire verse about money that he cut out of the song, as well as a lot of connecting musical phrasing that was not as sharp as the rest of the song, that sww the cutting floor.

He also seemingly "finds" the famous riff in the solo as he's just jamming.

There used to be a Facebook video explaining all of this in much more detail but I can't find it anymore.

You can see the original performance here: LINK

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You can see the original performance here: LINK

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Prince LIVE-First Avenue, Minneapolis 8-3-1983

Yeah, it was a charity concert for the Minneapolis Dance Theater but they used it to debut almost all of the tracks that would be on the Purple Rain album, but 3 of them (Purple Rain, I would die 4 you and Baby I’m a Star) were actually used from this concert and made the album.

I know the power ballad Electric Intercourse was eventually replaced with The Beautiful Ones. And there is also a rare cover of Joni Mitchell’s A Case of You.

I’m going to screw this quote up by trying to paraphrase it but here goes. Eric Clapton was once asked in an interview what he thought about being considered as the best guitarist ever and his response was, “ I’m not sure. You need to go ask Prince.”