Continuing the massive multi-authored Purple Rain album threads with Darling Nikki, track 5 on the Purple Rain album, closing out the first side. 
Should you not be familiar with Darling Nikki, check it out first: open.spotify.com/track/0khi86hc…
The song was recorded in late July 1983 ‘at a place very close 2 where u live’. At least, that’s what’s the liner-notes say. In fact it was recorded at Prince's Kiowa Trail Home Studio in Chanhassen.
While working on it, this early draft for Purple Rain had been written. It is very likely that the song was written with the Nicartha/Nikki character (to be played by Vanity) in mind. After Vanity left Prince’s entourage the character disappeared from the script.
There have been multiple possible track lists for Purple Rain between November 1983 and the release in 1984. On most of these configurations Darling Nikki was paired with Computer Blue. Thematically the songs seem connected, that might explain the consistent sequencing.
Personally I find the transition from Computer Blue with its screeching guitar feedback and frantic screams to the sinister synth line that starts Darling Nikki one of the highlights on the Purple Rain album.
On the recently released live version of Computer Blue we hear Wendy Melvoin say ‘It's time U learned love and lust. They both have 4 letters. But they're entirely different words’, before it segues into Darling Nikki.
Make sure you check @CaseyRain’s thread about Computer Blue if you haven’t already. He elaborates on this topic.
So here the computer learns about lust. Darling Nikki is totally devoid of love. In his 1990 @RollingStone interview with @NealKarlen Prince called it ‘the coldest song ever written’. More on that later.
In the Purple Rain movie Prince’s character The Kid uses the song to channel his frustration when Apollonia decides to work with Morris. It’s not really clear if he wants to embarrass her or to make her jealous. Possibly both.
In any way, he specifically uses the performance of the song to alienate the object of his desire (Apollonia), his enemies (Morris and co.), his employer (Billy Sparks) and his band (The Revolution), as well as his audience.
In the liner-notes or the Purple Rain deluxe edition Lisa Coleman is quoted saying: “This is the angry version of The Beautiful Ones to me”. With that in mind the track listing makes even more sense. ‘Love’ on the one side of Computer Blue, ‘Lust’ on the other.
The message of the movie segment seems to be that without love or feelings, you are unable to connect. It is quite ironic that the song that pushes everyone away in the movie, had quite the opposite effect on his real-life audience.
Check out for instance Darling Nikki from the Syracuse 1985 concert. The complete show has recently been released as a live album on all streaming platforms. Hear that audience sing along! open.spotify.com/track/2zHdZSwt…
Prince had been known for his raunchy lyrics for years, yet on Purple Rain they are largely absent. That makes Darling Nikki stand out from the rest of the album. The initial version of the song was much more tongue in cheek. This is a funny verse Prince scrapped.
The lyrics retain a sense of humour and leave a lot to the imagination of the listener. “I met her in a hotel lobby, masturbating with a magazine.” Now who is the one masturbating here? Him? Or her? Up to the listener to paint that picture in their mind.
“She said how'd you like to waste some time and I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind”. Hot damn, what kind of hotel is that?! Oh wait… it is indeed Nikki that is doing the masturbating here. Of course!
Now one would think that people only come to this hotel to fulfil the desires of the flesh for a few hours in a scruffy room. But Prince and Nikki never actually get a room there. She takes him home to her ‘castle’. Probably not the Coin Castle from the Sign “O” The Times set.
Once again Prince leaves it to the fantasy (or rather, dirty mind) of the listeners to set the scene. “I just couldn’t believe my eyes. She had so many devices, everything that money could buy”. Tell me, what do you see when he sings that?
The next part is interesting. “Sign your name on the dotted line…” One could argue that Nikki is a high-class prostitute. She’s obviously rich and now needs a signature on a credit card slip. But let’s go back to the first verse. “…you could say she was a sex fiend”.
The word fiend can mean ‘enthusiast’. Nikki certainly is an enthusiast, by the sound of it. But the Cambridge Dictionary also describes fiend as ‘a wicked or cruel spirit’. One could argue Prince is signing away his soul to the devil at this point.
Purple Rain is a very spiritual album, a fall from grace at the end of the first side would fit the narrative. In his letter to the Romans the apostle Paul writes: “Clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the desires of the flesh” (Romans 13:14).
In his letter to the Galatians that very same apostle writes: “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh” (Galatians 5:16-17).
Balancing the sacred and the profane has always been a theme in Prince’s work. Quite often he finds God through sex. Not this time though. In Darling Nikki he’s consciously walking away from the Spirit to gratify the desires of the flesh.
In a song like Temptation on Around The World In A Day he also succumbs, but eventually is redeemed after a dialogue with God. In Darling Nikki Prince is giving in to lust. Without remorse, without redemption. Or so it seems…
“I can’t tell you what she did to me,” Prince moans (again, leaving things up to the imagination of the listener) “But my body would never be the same.” So, he comes out of the experience transformed and longing for more. He’s ‘Possessed’.
One could argue the song Possessed is thematically linked to Darling Nikki. Originally recorded in 1982/early 1983, Prince started recording a new version of Possessed in August 1983, shortly after finishing Darling Nikki.
Possessed was unreleased at the time, but did make its way onto the Purple Rain tour setlist. It was played a few songs before Darling Nikki tough, and segued right after Irresistible Bitch. And that is another song that might be linked.
“I wish I could resist,” Prince sings on Let’s Pretend We’re Married b-side Irresistible Bitch. Now if we go back to that hotel lobby, we hear Prince sing he can’t resist. Is Nikki that very same Irresistible Bitch that stole all his money? open.spotify.com/track/0g7F7phW…
Well, we know he calls her every Friday night. It could very well be the same girl, because after their night together he wakes up when Nikki already has left the house. All she left him was a note with her phone number on the stairs.
You can’t help but wonder why Nikki would leave a total stranger in her house. Also you can’t help but wonder why Prince just did not wait for her to eventually return home. But hey, it’s his fantasy here…
And it’s a persistent fantasy as basically Little Red Corvette (although less graphic) is about a similar encounter. While we’re at it, so is Shockadelica. I’ll get back to that one in a minute…
One thing to notice in this fantasy is that Prince is totally submissive. It is Nikki that takes the initiative, it is Nikki that does things to him (not the other way around) and she ‘kicked his behind’ and ‘showed him no mercy’. Was this an S&M encounter?
Now if the Nikki character was in fact based on Vanity that would make sense. After all, in Vanity 6’s signature song Nasty Girl we hear her being the seductive woman. But a thing to keep in mind is that Vanity already was a character, played by Denise Matthews.
In the Vanity 6 song 3 x 2 = 6 we hear Denise sing ‘My made-up name is Vanity cuz a girl's best friend's her pride’. Now put the lyrics aside and listen to the synths. Doesn’t the chord progression remind you of a certain song?
One more thing (thanks for the inspiration @JurgenKoevoets) about Denise. In the 1998 song Circle Of Amour Prince sings this about a ‘Denise’. Calling her 'the beast'. That would fit both Nikki as well as signing away his soul to the devil... Most likely a coincidence though.
As for the persistent S&M fantasy, it is also present in songs like Shockadelica (‘the lights go out’), Superfunkycalifragisexy (‘signed confession’), Automatic (‘every time you leave me, I die’) and Pheromone (‘I can see the castle’).
Nikki leaving Prince alone in the end fits a broader narrative in his lyrics of women leaving him, emotionally and/or physically. From Why You Wanna Treat Me So Bad to When You Were Mine and on the Purple Rain album The Beautiful Ones and When Doves Cry.
We have not even discussed the music yet. This song has an amazing build up. It starts eerie, creeps up on you. The synths are dominant, initially giving the song a haunting, lifeless feel. Here it is once more... open.spotify.com/track/0khi86hc…
Although the song is credited to ‘Prince and The Revolution’, it’s all Prince here. Prince also produced and engineered the whole song. Don Batts was assistant engineer, which basically meant he set everything up and all Prince had to do was hit the record button.
It is still hard to grasp when listening to the song that we don’t hear a real band here. Especially because Prince must have known that @TheRevolution would be able to bring this to life on stage.
“It blew my head off musically,” says Lisa Coleman in the Purple Rain Deluxe Edition liner-notes. “I didn’t even register the lyric because the music was so good!” @BobbyZ1999 adds: “Darling Nikki transformed the studio into a cavern of sound (…) I was in awe on first listen.”
As the song progresses Prince’s guitar goes wild, eventually going into full heavy metal mode. The drums follow. Actually Prince recorded the drum part love, but that double bass is him working the Linn LM-1 drum computer, plating the frantic beats with his fingers!
Seriously, that double bass drum puts many a metal band to shame and the recording pre-dates influential debut albums by for instance Slayer or Metallica, bands that would be known for these kinds of metal drums.
Speaking of metal bands, in the early 1980s a lot of them became the subject of a witch hunt after self-described neuroscientist William Yarroll argued that hard rock and metal artists were cooperating with the Church of Satan by ‘backmasking’ hidden messages on records.
The backmasking technique had been around for decades, but was popularized by The Beatles in the 60s. Thanks to Yarroll Christian dj’s, tv-presenters and pastors started looking for hidden messages in the early 1980s by playing hard rock and metal albums backwards.
Their ‘evidence’ that popular music was bad for their congregation resulted in multiple record burnings at churches throughout the United States in 1982 and 1983. Prince was very much aware that many of the Christian witch hunters would be playing his work backwards.
In his typical sense of humour he deliberately put a backwards message on Darling Nikki, greeting the ones who figured out how to play an album backwards with a Christian message.
An unreleased version of Darling Nikki also exists, without the backmasked message. If you look closely, another message is hiding in plain sight. Ending the Darling Nikki lyrics as printed on the album artwork, there is a verse there that’s not on the recorded version.
Most likely that text has never actually been recorded. It looks like an explanation. This is what that backmasked message means. So there actually IS redemption at the end of Darling Nikki.
Funny thing to notice is that if you only look at the lyric sheets, both sides of the album end with the words ‘Purple Rain’. Two sides of the same coin.
Although Prince has recorded many more sexual explicit songs, Darling Nikki has become the quintessential example of his ‘naughty’ work. The main reason is the controversy it caused when parents were shocked their children were listening to this ‘filth’.
American social issues advocate Tipper Gore (wife of Al Gore) was especially shocked when she heard what her then 11 year old daughter Karenna was listening to. Prince had become the biggest star on the planet, but he was definitely not as family friendly as other stars.
In 1985 Gore was one of the ‘Washington Wives’ that formed the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC), the American committee with the stated goal of increasing parental control over the access of children to music deemed to have violent, drug-related or sexual themes.
One of the first things the committee did was create a list called ‘Filthy Fifteen’, consisting of songs they found the most objectionable. According to Wikipedia Darling Nikki topped that list, but on number two we find Sheena Easton’s Sugar Walls. Also penned by Prince.
Number 4 on the list is Vanity. Not in Prince’s entourage anymore at the time and the song Strap On ‘Robbie Baby’ is obviously not written by him. But without Vanity the Nikki character would not even exist. So it is fun to see her on the list as well.
Long story short, the strong lobby of the committee ultimately lead to the introduction of the Parental Advisory stickers/labels, to be put on albums that feature explicit content. Ironically I have never come across a copy of Purple Rain with that sticker.
Prince performed Darling Nikki every night on the Purple Rain tour. It was slightly altered. This time Nikki did not leave her phone number on the stairs, but some panties. Visualized by Prince picking them up from the stairs on the right side of the stage.
Like on the album version, the ‘Hello, how are U’ segment closes the song. On the Purple Rain Tour it was not backmasked though and it works as a segue into a new intro for The Beautiful Ones, which - based on Lisa’s quote earlier – is ‘Darling Nikki’s less evil twin’.
Also added was a short synth solo by @DrFink1980. “He would write a lot of songs himself, but he would bring them in and they would evolve,” says @BrownMarknation in the Purple Rain Deluxe Edition liner-notes. The live version clearly is the evolved version.
In the 1990 Rolling Stone interview Prince praised the ‘machine’ that was @TheRevoluiton, saying: “The Revolution could tear up ‘Darling Nikki,’ which was about the coldest song ever written. But I wouldn’t even think about playing that song with this (1990-era – EK) band.”
So it is no wonder that Darling Nikki disappeared from setlists until the late 1990s, when Prince started teasing the song behind the piano during the Jam Of The Year World Tour and the New Power Soul Festival Tour.
Around that time (1997-1998) he was more and more self-censoring as a result of his newfound faith, changing most of his raunchy lyrics during concerts. The Darling Nikki tease was the vessel to convey the message he had changed.
Oddly during the 2000-2001 Hit N Run tour a full-blown version of Darling Nikki was performed each night, for the first time since 1985. Including a dance routine that – like in 1984/1985 – left very little to the imagination.
At one point during the Hit N Run Darling Nikki choreography Prince’s head disappeared underneath dancer Geneva’s skirt. The performance lacked the freezing cold The Revolution was able to deliver, but at the same time was everything he had denounced during previous tours.
After 2001 Darling Nikki was never performed again in its entirety. From 2007 onward the song was regularly teased and part of his much-maligned sampler sets. The last time was during an after show party in Montreal, about a month before his passing.
Darling Nikki remains one of Prince’s most iconic songs and over the years it has been covered or sampled by artists such as Rihanna, Mucky Pup, Tupac Shakur and Rebecca Romijn. Here’s a version by Beyoncé (improvising for Nicki Minaj).
The most famous cover, however, is by Foo Fighters. Allegedly Prince saw tv coverage of @FooFighters covering Darling Nikki on KROQ Almost Acoustic Christmas in December 2006.
Prince responded by covering their Best Of You during his 2007 Super Bowl halftime performance.
Recently @FooFighters performed Darling Nikki again at the recent Grammy Salute to Prince. For many the absolute highlight of the evening, along with the set by @TheRevolution.
More than half of the songs on the Purple Rain album made their way into the charts. The songs that remained album tracks each are classics in their own right. It is probably safe to say that of those tracks, Darling Nikki remains the biggest ‘hit’ that was not a single.
There is a lot more to be said about Darling Nikki, but for today this is more than enough. Thanks @deejayUMB for starting the big bang that lead to these threads, thanks @ActuallyjZt for the brainstorm on this topic.
Be sure to check out all the previous entries by @NightEthereal, arrthurr, @antski74 and @CaseyRain as well and check back tomorrow when @scottwoodssays turns the record over to dissect When Doves Cry. @Miss_EThompson, @PrincesfriendYT and @deejayUMB will round up after that.
May U Live 2 See The Dawn!
