See the original handwritten lyrics for ‘Purple Rain’ by Prince
The late pop icon Prince was much more than just a musician. His talents permeated most facets of the performing arts, and his aptitude for experimentalism and conceptual art was second to none. His interest in cinema was apparent throughout his career, and he was rarely far from a director’s radar when looking to spice up their production.
After his musical breakthrough in the late 1970s, Prince made it very clear that his sights were set on the big screen as well as the radio. Despite his blossoming fame, Prince only managed to appear in music videos and occasional TV performances in the early 1980s. However, all of this would change with ‘Purple Rain’, a song that led to an album and, ultimately, the decade’s most adored musical drama.
The original song was written as a country instrumental track intended for a lyrical collaboration with Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. As Nicks recalled in a 2011 interview with Minneapolis Star Tribune, Prince sent her a 10-minute instrumental track, asking her to write some lyrics.
Despite feeling deeply honoured, Nicks was rather apprehensive in the face of such an undertaking, given Prince’s popularity at the time. “I listened to it, and I just got scared,” she said. “I called him back and said, ‘I can’t do it. I wish I could. It’s too much for me.'”
Ultimately, Prince took the helm and wrote the powerful lyrics as seen below. According to Lisa Coleman, the keyboardist from Prince’s band The Revolution, the song morphed from its country origin to something a little more psychedelic and robust during an epic rehearsal session.
“I want to try something before we go home. It’s mellow.” Coleman recalled Prince saying during a 2017 interview with The Guardian. “He was excited to hear it voiced differently. It took it out of that country feeling. Then we all started playing it a bit harder and taking it more seriously. We played it for six hours straight, and by the end of that day, we had it mostly written and arranged.”
Prince’s reputation as ‘The Purple One’ was kicked into full fluid motion with the launch of Purple Rain, but this artistic infatuation with the colour began in the title track of the preceding album, 1999: “Could’ve sworn it was judgment day/ The sky was all purple”.
“Purple rain” was taken from the lyrics of America’s classic 1972 song ‘Ventura Highway’, but Prince added his own personal meaning to the words. “When there’s blood in the sky… red and blue equals purple,” Prince once explained, per American Songwriter. “Purple rain pertains to the end of the world and being with the one you love and letting your faith/God guide you through the purple rain.”
Below, you can see the Prince’s original handwritten lyrics to his magnum opus, ‘Purple Rain’.
