Purple Rain single (1984) / The Hits/The B-sides (1993) / Purple Rain Deluxe (2017)
God is not a song but a sound experiment in otherworldly, resonant frequencies. Alvin Lucier’s soul sits in a realm – different from the one you are in now – recording a feedback loop of his aura in the presence of God, while Prince hums a hymn to Him over the top. And over-the-top it is. The original instrumental has grace and is many people’s preferred version (helped by being relatively obscure for several years). But the shorter vocal take has the histrionics. If the scream in The Beautiful Ones had its own religion, this would be its Lord’s Prayer.
