“I don’t want you to sue me”: The Prince song inspired by cheesy classic rock
There was never a genre that Prince couldn’t do better than most.
If he was going for R&B he nailed it. When playing hard rock, he played it better than any metalhead. Even when making strange alternative rock on albums like Chaos and Disorder, it was still miles above anything most Prince fans were expecting. ‘The Purple One’ was always a chameleon, though, and everything around him was indebted to his greatest influences.
Then again, no artist knows Prince’s style better than the man himself. Throughout his career, his need to constantly change came from the music he listened to, whether it was the early sounds of New Jack Swing on Diamonds and Pearls or the political material he heard on albums like Controversy. Although Prince would never crib from his favourites too much, one song came too close for comfort.
When assembling his first hits for MTV, Prince was becoming an industry darling on the same level as Michael Jackson, bringing a level of rockstar showmanship that no other artist could manage at the time. Looking to capitalise on his rise to the top, Prince established a sound all his own on Purple Rain, blending each aspect of his musical personality under one roof on tracks like ‘The Beautiful Ones’ and ‘When Doves Cry’.
Although the title track brought the album to a religious close, Prince was upset that the song might have been too similar to a Journey song around the same time. As Journey songwriter Jonathan Cain told Billboard, he got a call from Prince about the chord changes in ‘Purple Rain’, remembering him saying, “I want to play something for you, and I want you to check it out. The chord changes are close to ‘Faithfully’, and I don’t want you to sue me”.
Though the chords do bear a few similarities to the Journey ballad, Prince had nothing to worry about. Compared to the glorious tenor vocals of Steve Perry, the Purple One’s command of the audience and the song throughout the recording is all his, capturing a spiritual awakening through music that no other artist could muster.
Prince’s phone call also revealed a side of his character that often went overlooked behind the mystique. While he was famously protective of his music and fiercely independent, he still respected the unwritten rules that governed songwriting. Rather than risk a dispute later, he chose the direct route and reached out, making sure that any resemblance was acknowledged before the song ever became a global phenomenon.
That moment of caution ultimately says as much about Prince’s musical instincts as it does about his integrity. He understood exactly where his influences lived within his work, even when they were buried beneath layers of his own style. By the time ‘Purple Rain’ reached audiences, whatever faint echo of Journey might have lingered in the chords had been completely overshadowed by the scale and emotion that only Prince could bring to the stage.
Instead of getting pissed off, Cain was nothing but grateful to Prince, replying, “I thought it was an amazing tune, and I told him, ‘Man, I’m just super-flattered that you even called. It shows you’re that classy of a guy. Good luck with the song. I know it’s gonna be a hit’”.
Journey guitarist Neil Schon echoed a similar sentiment when asked about the call, explaining, “Prince felt, I guess, it was obvious enough that he was worried we were going to sue him. I think he called our office asking about it, and we all talked about it, and everybody said, ‘Nah, it’s the highest form of flattery. Let it go’”.
Even though Cain could have made off like a bandit if he were credited, he figured that it wouldn’t be right to come after the tune, recalling, “No, no, that’ll just bring bad juju on you, and you don’t want to do that. There’s so many other things that have come down the pike that were more of a rip-off, that have stolen Journey songs”. Despite Journey having a similar mindset when writing their power ballad, no one would deliver something like ‘Purple Rain’ the same way Prince could.
