Did You Know Prince’s Hit Song ‘Purple Rain’ Was Originally Intended To Be A Country Music Collaboration With Stevie Nicks?

Just when you think Elon Musk's X/Twitter is broken and descended into decadence beyond repair, something comes along and restores your faith that there is still good in the social media platform. A lengthy X post outlined something I had zero prior awareness of, and well, it seemed fascinating enough to share. It's the 40th anniversary of the movie Purple Rain this year, and incredibly enough, the musical impetus for that film might not have seen the light of day if Prince executed the titular song as he initially meant to. That is, what wound up being an iconic rock opera almost began as a country song that would enlist the talents of Fleetwood Mac leading lady Stevie Nicks. Upon listening to a 10-minute instrumental version of "Purple Rain" the song, Nicks was apparently overwhelmed and didn't think she was up to the task of penning lyrics for it. https://twitter.com/rocknrollofall/status/1839325022391075293 Purple Rain the movie is, like, a major chapter in cinematic history. One of the greatest musicians of all-time starring in his first-ever acting role. It was a smash hit, with smash-hit music, and is one of the defining creative projects of Prince's illustrious career. And I'm wondering if it would've all been derailed had Prince chosen a different genre for the song "Purple Rain" in the first place. The cool thing, too, is we don't have to stretch our imaginations to know what a country-centric "Purple Rain" would sound like. The GOAT herself Dolly Parton did her own electrifying in-studio rendition on the album Rockstar that released last year. Dolly can absolutely rip those vocals even now. Still got it in spades. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zluG5nyXoDI And for the more stringent (lol, string-ent) guitar heads out there, Sturgill Simpson just did his own "Purple Rain" live in concert very recently. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guVWOOC8SHY Another cool spin to the story from the X post above is that Prince was concerned that the song's chord progression/structure was too similar to a Journey song. Thus, he got in touch with Journey's Jonathan Cain, who gave Prince the clearance to launch, wished him well, thought it was classy of him to make contact, and correctly forecast that "Purple Rain" would be a hit. As time goes on, it gets trickier and trickier for songwriters not to rip something off, simply because there are only so many aesthetically pleasing chord progressions and only so many variations, resolutions, and unique twists you can put on them, in particular for mass-appealing music. Obviously, with prominent artists continuing to pay tribute to "Purple Rain" to this day, Prince found a way to craft a truly special, timeless tune that transcends genre.