I’m Richard Cole host of Amari Purple Talk with the other versions of Strange Relationship on the Vault Tracks disc of the #SignOTheTimesSuperDeluxe #PrinceTwitterThread

Thanks to @djumb and @EdgarKruize and my fellow #PurpleAvengers for inviting me once again to participate and if you haven’t already please check out the previous installments of this thread.

Strange Relationship version 1: Strange Relationship’s Initial tracking may have taken place on 3/14/83 at Prince’s Kiowa Trail home studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota.

Unless the results of that tracking surfaces, or if it hasn’t been used for the existing versions, the earliest known performance of the song maybe from October 1983. (Piano and a microphone)

Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman reworked the track heavily in one or more sessions in mid-late June and July 1985, adding Fairlight CMI, sitar, tablas and other overdubs at The Complex Studios, Los Angeles, California.

Their contribution gives the track a Psychedelic Funk feel. It’s funky, yet puts me into a waking, sleeping, dreaming state. It’s a very hypnotic groove. Would have loved to have this and She’s Always in My Hair on the same album.

The sitar was invented in medieval India between the 16th and 17th centuries. The design we’re familiar with was developed during 18th-century India.

In the late 1950s and early 1960s Ravi Shankar introduced Indian classical music to Western culture mostly from its influence on The Beatles’ George Harrison.

The song was on many configurations of the unreleased Dream Factory, but Prince disbanded the Revolution and decided to remix the track.

Prince took a 4 month musical sabbatical at Sunset Sound Studios in Los Angeles. This was described as a blissfully happy period in Prince’s life. Apparently, Prince played this album a lot while in L.A.

This may explain the Sly influenced funk on the new mix of Strange Relationship, as well as Dorothy Parker and one other song Prince fams May be familiar with.

Having remixed the song with the Camille voice, Strange Relationship was to be included on the unreleased Camille album and was also in the sequencing of the Crystal Ball album before making the final cut of SOTT.

Strange Relationship was considered for release as a single at one point. Which meant including a 12” single release. Enter Shep Pettibone.

He was a dj and music producer, who got his start with his work with Arthur Baker on Afrika Bambaataa &
The Jazzy 5's "Jazzy Sensation"

Shep Pettibone was also innovative in his approach to remixing tracks. He would break a track down
into its components and then use combine these components into longer, more club-friendly tracks for the dancefloor.

He's had a hand in the music of artists like Madonna (in addition
to numerous remixes for her, he produced "Vogue), Pet Shop Boys, New Order,
Depeche Mode, Level 42, Janet Jackson, Whitney Houston,George Michael,

His earliest involvement with a Prince song is a remix of Sheena Easton’s “Eternity”.

His first actual Prince remix are the Hot Thing remixes also heard on the #SOTTSuperDeluxe

The Shep Pettibone remix of Strange Relationship would have been a great club hit and used to great effect in dj spins all over the world.

There’s no explanation as to why Strange Relationship wasn’t a single. I’m going to assume that by late 1987, Prince was done with promotion for SOTT and had moved on to The Black Album & Lovesexy.

Thanks to Shep Pettibone’s website for all of the info. Please check it out. He worked on so many records! http://www.sheppettibone.com 

Thanks again to everyone in the #PrinceTwitterThread and everyone that takes the time to read them. More is on the way!

Post Credit Scene: There is another unreleased Shep Pettibone remix of a Prince song.