•
Prince wrote the song for the film Purple Rain. According to Per Nilsen, Prince's biographer, the song was inspired by his relationship with Vanity 6 member Susan Moonsie.
• Prince wrote, composed, and played
all the instruments on the track.
• There is no bass in the song. Prince took out the bass track at the last minute to get a different sound.
Peggy McCreary, Prince's engineer on the song, said: "[Prince] took the bass out and he said, 'There's nobody that's going to have the guts to do this.' And he was smiling from ear to ear. He felt this was the best and he knew he had a hit song... so he decided to do something really daring. That's what Prince was all about."
• It was his first #1 song in the US, and the top selling single of the year.
It topped the charts for five weeks in the summer of 1984, keeping
Bruce Springsteen's
Dancing In The Dark
at #2. Incidentally, it also prevented Bruce from ever having a #1 hit.