After the unprecedented success of Purple Rain , Prince quickly followed it up with AROUND THE WORLD IN A DAY, his quirkiest release so far.
FLY BY NIGHT by A. D. Amorosi
Fink. “It is true that if Prince called—even if it was 3:00 AM—and you weren’t ready, he was pissed. He had no call to be angry at me, and worked with me all the time. That was the most important thing. Besides, Prince and I didn’t have a conversational relationship. Like, I remember being on tour during the Reagan era, and asking him what he thought about things. He acted as if we shouldn’t discuss politics or religion.” Instead, Prince funneled his opinionated take on politics, nuclear weaponry, money, and anti-Communist rhetoric on songs such as “America” and his cryptic views on all-that-was Heaven on the spacey ballad “The Ladder” and the grouchy, noise-R&B of “Temptation.” Then there was “Pop Life,” the bubbling poppy funk-lite look into Prince’s ever-widening disgust with fame, a swipe at stardom that surprised Fink to his core. “We did work so long to get there,” he says. “He’s a cynical guy, but this seemed more crusty than usual. Then again, I’m not sure he liked his privacy invaded or having to think about success as opposed to just music, pure and simple.” One of the most unique elements of the Around the World project was Prince’s welcoming of his father, pianist John L. Nelson, into the fold. In the film Purple Rain , the character based upon Nelson is distant and cold, yet it is his death by suicide that prompts Prince to write the title track and dedicate it to his late father. “I’m not completely sure what bad had ever transpired between Prince and his dad, but he used to hang out with us all the time and was nothing but lovely,” says Fink. “He was extremely gracious toward the band, and to me, in particular. Also [he] had helpful commentary and was supportive. I liked that. Not a negative bone or critical toward Prince in any way. When we did ‘The Ladder,’ I felt as Mr. Nelson was there to influence his son, make everything better.” Ask Fink what he thinks of Around the World in a Day , and the keyboardist believes that it shows Prince’s lightest touch as a composer and arranger, despite the cynicism and cryptic lyrics. “Look, he could have kept making Purple Rain s. We had, like, forty additional songs from that album alone. He wanted to do Around the World to clear the air, change the dial. I think he thought, ‘Oh my God, Purple Rain is my Thriller . Now what? I’ll never top it, so I’ll just experiment, change direction, and reinvent the wheel.’ And he never stopped doing that for the rest of his career.” .
Prince should have been over the moon with Purple Rain , his sixth studio album and the first to feature the Revolution. Released on June 25, 1984, with a tour (the first to feature Melvoin as the new guitarist) split into two legs and lasting into 1985, Prince could have kept the platinum-plated momentum going for the rousing Rain . “Except that he was restless and bored by halfway through the tour,” says Fink. What Prince did to alleviate such boredom was return to a piece of music that came his way before the utopian, new-wave gospel of Purple Rain : a demo of “Around the World in a Day” provided to him by Lisa Coleman’s brother David, who would eventually play oud, cello, and more on what would become the title track of Prince’s new album. David would play on “Raspberry Beret” and “The Ladder” as well, and Melvoin’s brother Jonathan and twin sister, Susannah, also played and sang during the Around the World in a Day sessions. “These songs were such a left turn creatively and lyrically from anything that came before it that, at first, it was hard to tackle,” says Fink. “Technically, everything here was on another level. For instance, ‘Condition of the Heart,’ was all just feel . No definite tempo with that intro. Very abstract. Doing that live was bizarre.” Fink states that much of this album sounded random and difficult to emulate onstage: “Maybe the hardest of all his albums, really. Some of it sounded like a butterfly flitting through the breeze.” Melvoin goes on to say that “any of Prince’s music with finesse and dynamic, such as Around the World , was rougher to play.” Influenced by Coleman and Melvoin’s classicism, jazz chops, and experimental nature, Prince—never a pronounced Beatles fan—dove into Liverpudlian psychedelia with relish. But not before he initially resisted the outside inspiration, according to Melvoin. “It was eons before we recorded it that my brother gave me the tape of that song,” she says. “Lisa and I dragged Prince outside the studio and made him listen to this cassette in a car… I don’t even remember whose car, but man, that was a scene. As soon as Prince heard it though, he loved it; so much so that when he had the chance, he changed his whole direction toward that .” Prince hadbecome increasingly reliant upon Wendy and Lisa as musicians and friends, a fact that may have bothered Fink, who had known and played with the guitarist since 1980. “No, I liked those two and had other sessions at the time that I was involved in,” says
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( opposite ) Original promo sticker for Around the World in a Day .
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