Transcript
music
“Crown Ones” off the album Stepfather by People Under The Stairs. Chill, grooving instrumentals.
oliver wang
Hello, I’m Oliver Wang.
morgan rhodes
And I’m Morgan Rhodes. You’re listening to Heat Rocks.
oliver
Every episode we invite a guest to join us to talk about a heat rock. You know, an album just burns, baby, burns. And today, we are returning for a record fifth time, we are heading back to Paisley Park to revisit Prince and The Revolution’s 1985 album, Around The World in a Day.
music
“Raspberry Beret” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Psychedelic pop with multilayered vocals. Raspberry beret I think I love her Built like she was She had the nerve to ask me If I planned to do her any harm So, look here I put her on the back of my bike And we went riding Down by old man Johnson's farm I said now, overcast days... [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
It happened real fast. One moment, I felt like I was right at 701 1st Avenue North, at the 1st Avenue club in 1984. I was jamming with the Kid and his cool band. Little more than a year later, I found myself transported to another world. A mystical place called Paisley Park, a place where cymbals, the sitar, the oud, flutes, and what Pitchfork magazine called “sweet psychedelia” was being served. Released on April 22nd, 1985 on Warner Bros. Records, this album was a wee nod to Middle Eastern leaning sounds, and a little unknown band from Liverpool. It was also a look into the condition of the heart of my favorite guitar hero. If you read between the liner notes, you learned what he had to say about unrequited love, musicians loneliness. You’d meet the outliers, Mister McGee, Jimmy, a king, and a subject named Electra. You’d get to know the trifecta of God, sex, and Prince. You’d come away thinking, “Sure, maybe life, it ain’t real funky, unless it’s got that pop.” But also this album ain’t real funky unless it’s got The Revolution. Oh yeah, Wendy, Lisa, Bobby Z, Dr. Fink, Brown Mark. This was bandcamp, band excellence, the band that reigned supreme. We get to meet Prince’s friends. The friends that he doesn’t mention. The friend on tamborine, who was that? And we learned, most of all, him, his humanity, his loneliness, his spirituality, his objects, and his penchant for referencing modes of transportation at admission prices unlike tears to get into lady cab driver, and desire in international lover. To get around the world, laughter was all you paid, and this is my preferred method of listening to this album. Otherwise the loss of him gets unbearable. Alice Walker said, “It pisses God off if you walk into a field and don’t notice the color purple.” It’s impossible not to notice the purpleness of Prince, the album, the regalness, the realness, and a man who dared to take us around the world in a day.
music
[“Raspberry Beret” fades back in] With a girl as fine as she was then (Raspberry beret) The kind you find (The kind you find) The kind you find (In a second hand store) Oh no, no (Raspberry beret) [Music fades out again as Oliver speaks]
oliver
After two years and 100+ episodes, today’s show marks a first for Heat Rocks. When we invite artists onto the show, they are not at all obligated to pick an album that they have worked on, but when today’s guests sent in their wish list of LPs they’d be open to chatting about, every single one of them was an album by Prince. And look, if Wendy and Lisa want to talk some Prince, we’re gonna talk some Prince. Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin have been creative collaborators for at least 40 years, as they’ve been friends since childhood, as both their fathers were members of the famed LA session players known as the Wrecking Crew. At the age of 19, Lisa joined up with Prince to play keyboard on 1980s Dirty Mind, and she became an integral part of the band over the course of recording and touring Controversy in 1999. Around ‘83, Prince was working on a new project that would eventually be entitled Purple Rain, and he needed a new guitarist. Lisa suggested her friend, Wendy, and together they became part of the core of The Revolution, the band that would shape the sound of Purple Rain, Parade, and the subject of today’s episode, Around The World in a Day. And without disrespect to any of the other members of the band, you read any testimonial about the influences on the sound of Prince’s music of that era, and all roads lead back to our two guests. By the late 80s, they branched off to form themselves into the duo we know them as today, Wendy & Lisa. Their accomplishments literally fill pages, having released five albums, done session work for everyone from Madonna to Eric Clapton to Bettye LaVette. And for 20 years running, they’ve blazed a trail in Hollywood as film and television composers, having worked on everything from Soul Food to Crossing Jordan to Nurse Jackie, the latter of which yielded them an Emmy in 2010, and as the two already have Grammys and an Oscar, I feel like the next logical step is a Wendy & Lisa musical. Let’s all make that happen. And as part of The Revolution, they continue to tour and to play. It is our privilege to have them as our guest today. Wendy and Lisa, welcome to Heat Rocks.
crosstalk
Wendy: Oh boy. Lisa: Thank you. [Laughs.]
wendy melvoin
That was an incredible opener. I am so grateful. Thank you. [Morgan responds affirmatively.]
lisa coleman
I know.
oliver
Let’s just start with perhaps a super self-evident question, which is you all clearly wanted to talk about a Prince album. Why is that?
wendy
[Stammering] Because they’re great. [Everyone laughs.]
lisa
Well, and it’s something that we can talk about, and he—Prince—he has been in our hearts, and in such a different way now, ever since he passed away. And, you know, we’ve been revisiting our past, and it’s been incredible. I mean, all these years later, and you know, he died unexpectedly and I never thought that would happen. I thought we’d just be old and funky, you know, like forever and ever. [Morgan and Oliver respond affirmatively.] Um, but that didn’t happen. So we sort of all like, flipped out, and the band got together, and we’ve been playing some shows, and that’s really helped us with the grieving process and trying to like, put that somewhere, you know? It’ll never be resolved, you know, just losing someone is a process. It’s not an event, it’s a process, so it’ll keep going on. And so when this opportunity came up, and they asked about albums, I mean, we just started thinking, “Oh my god.” We’ve done all of these incredible albums with this man and all these people and the whole thing was such an incredible experience. And good choice on Around The World in a Day, because—
wendy
No one likes to talk about that record that much. It’s interesting.
oliver
That’s why I think we lasered in on it on that list.
lisa
Yeah. It's a good choice.
wendy
I mean, everybody either goes for, you know, Purple Rain or they will—second would be probably Parade. So then no one ever really talks about Around The World in a Day, and it was a huge turning point in our collaboration. That was like, the big change.
lisa
Yeah, it was a very—it was probably the most social project, because—
wendy
Interesting.
oliver
Yeah, what do you mean by that?
lisa
Well, because also our brothers, um, the—you know, you nailed it with the Middle Eastern sounds and everything like that, and that came from my brother, David. He started coming around Purple Rain time, and—
wendy
Both of the boys had met him.
lisa
—and then Johnathan, Wendy’s brother, came out and they were kind of trying out to be in the family, and different, you know, permutations of groups that we were trying out, you know? And when Prince met David—my brother David had fallen in love with a Lebanese girl in high school, and he just lost his mind completely, and he taught himself to speak Arabic out of a book and he just—yeah.
oliver
Love’s amazing.
wendy
It is. It’ll make you do nuts things, and he became fluent in Farsi.
lisa
Yeah, I mean people couldn’t tell. They would ask him how long he’d been in this country and things like that.
wendy
Yeah, I mean he’d talk to you with an accent. That’s how deep he got. He would talk to you with an accent when he was speaking in English.
lisa
English, yeah. He was really an incredible person, and Prince and he just really hit it off. They were both geminis, if that means anything. But both like, really creative and just art extremists, you know? Like Prince just completely dedicated his entire being to his art and his path in being Prince. And my brother was very similar, where any creat—he was so creative and so imaginative that he, you know, you really believed whatever world he was in. He would take you with him. And so, and he—with his love for this Middle Eastern girl, and he started playing the oud, and finger cymbals, and—
wendy
Darbuka.
lisa
Darbuka.
wendy
And then he taught himself—
lisa
Cello.
wendy
Yeah, you know, the microtone and twelve tone scales, so that he could play all that Arabic stuff.
lisa
Yeah, quarter tones.
wendy
Quarter tones stuff. Can I expand on that a little bit?
lisa
Yeah, yeah. Of course.
wendy
So, um, that summer, we were all like, rehearsing for the next tour and recording a whole bunch of albums at the warehouse. There were a whole bunch of other bands that were around and recording was happening simultaneously as being in other rooms rehearsing. And Johnathan and David drove up to rehearsal and gave us a cassette of David’s song, “Around The World in a Day.” The two of us listened to it in Lisa’s car, and we were—we both looked at each other and said, “We have to play it for Prince. He’s gonna lose his mind.”
music
“Around the World in a Day” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Slow, melodic psychedelic pop. Open your heart, open your mind A train is leaving all day A wonderful trip through our time And laughter is all you pay [Music fades and plays quietly in the background as Wendy resumes speaking.]
wendy
The chorus hit, you know, and it had that, [Singing along and imitating beat] “Around the world in a day.”
music
[“Around The World in a Day” continues playing] Around the world in a day Now dig Loneliness already knows you There ain't no reason to stay Come here and take my hand, I'll show you [Music fades out as Lisa speaks]
lisa
Prince was like, “Can I have it?” [Morgan laughs.]
wendy
“Get David on the phone!” [Through laughter] You know what I mean?
lisa
“Can I have that? Can I have that?” And that’s how Around The World In a Day started. That song was the epicenter of the creative process for Prince to create everything else around it.
morgan
And it’s the thing that draws me in. After he gets past, you know, “Open your heart, open your mind,” I’m like, you got me. [Everyone laughs.] You got me. No questions asked. And for me, um, I’m glad that we brought up that, you know, this album doesn’t get mentioned a lot, because this one is my favorite. [Lisa and Oliver respond emphatically.] This one’s my favorite. And I’ve been consistent. If you pull up some of our Prince shows, I’ve always said, “Mm-mm, Around The World in a Day is my favorite.” And we’ve had people come on and talk about Sign of the Times, oh no, 1999, Purple Rain, Dirty Mind. And I love Controversy.
lisa
I do too. I love all of them.
morgan
But this one is precious, because as we—the longer we do this show, the more we know that albums and music are also attached to memory, and I have such good memories of this time. So this is my favorite, so I’m glad. I’m glad that we’re talking about this one. [Wendy responds affirmatively.]
oliver
I really appreciate also having just the window into the creative process. Because I think for, as someone who grew up listening to the finished product, it often times feels very opaque, and you’d just assume that there’s this genius in a studio someplace that just kind of magically gets birthed, as opposed to two people sitting in a car listening to a demo and being like, “Oh, yo, we should bring this to Prince.” And so, can you talk a little bit more about how was that creative process? Especially working on this album which, if I understand the kind of discographic history, work had already begun on this before Purple Rain had even dropped.
lisa
Oh, you know, it’s always a blur. There was five million things going on at once, and once he felt something was done, then he’d put it in a little package and say, “Now that’s that.” But so, I mean, I felt like all the lines were blurred. Things were happening during 1999 when I first got there that had to do with stuff that was later going on Crystal Ball. I mean, we—
wendy
Yeah, it was a constant workflow creative thing, and yeah, Purple Rain took longer than any other of the projects because of the film. [Oliver responds affirmatively.] So, and for Prince, that was like— [She begins making snoring sounds.]
lisa
Oh, he was so bored by the time—oh, he was so bored. Oh my god. He was so bored.
wendy
You know, he moved fast. He wanted to, you know, already doing the next thing. Because Purple Rain had such a long ramp to it, and it was gonna happen, gonna happen. And then it would happen and it was like, a long time, and months go by. You know, so we’re always in the warehouse every day, playing and—
lisa
I’m not entirely sure what was happening, how Around The World in a Day—I don’t remember chronologically what songs from Around The World in a Day had started during Purple Rain. [Oliver responds affirmatively.] But I wouldn’t—there’s not a part of me that would say that’s not true, that it didn’t happen. Probably did. I just—it’s a blur.
oliver
Small trivia now that I noticed in just prepping for today that apparently Prince had finished the album, at least as far as the label was concerned, on Christmas Day of 1984. Which means, and we’re taping this a week before Christmas of 2019, which means that we’re almost 35 years to the week that this album was completed, which is a nice coincidence. [Lisa, Wendy, and Morgan respond emphatically.] We certainly didn’t plan it that way. You know, I was reading also along these lines, Susan Rogers, who was Prince’s long-time engineer, who of course the two of you know quite well. I mean, gives the two of you a ton of credit in terms of—and I don’t have the exact quote—but basically, because the two of you had had so much formal music training when it came to sort of like the melodic and harmonic complexities, arrangements, and compositions is that she was like, that was all Wendy and Lisa. And I’m wondering if you could talk a little bit more about how did you—how did songs form out of that partnership with—what did Prince bring into it? What did the two of you bring into it? And how did that go into the finished product?
wendy
That’s a good question. Um, I can speak for myself and my past. I grew up with an incredibly rich and complicated harmonic family. So it was—there was—we weren’t flat-footed musicians. It was all—we tried to go as deep as we could with listening to music. So, the easier the sound, the less we would gravitate towards it. So the house was full of musique concrète. It was full of, you know, Zappa.
lisa
Right, Frank Zappa. Stockhausen.
wendy
Stockhausen. Sabotnik.
lisa
I mean, Ornette Coleman.
wendy
Ornette Coleman. Bitches Brew. So we grew up with that as a template for what our ears had turned into, right? I remember personally hearing him for the first time, and it changed my world. I was thirteen, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And then when Dirty Mind came, I was fifteen when Dirty Mind happened, and I heard that the girl I grew up with joined that band and I was like, “Do you know who you’re playing with? Do you have a clue what you’re doing?” [Morgan and Oliver laugh.] She’s like—
lisa
Not really. [Everyone laughs.]
wendy
Not only that, but then she goes to Minneapolis and goes into his house, and he has a poster of Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Streisand on the wall from A Star is Born. Now, like, I don’t know if you guys know that, like, when you live in Hollywood, you don’t wanna wear a shirt that says “Hollywood.” [Everyone laughs and affirms.] Right? So, Lisa goes and sees this thing on his wall, and she’s like, “Oh my god, where am I? What’s going on here?” I think that he really got a kick out of feeling safe to explore what we wanted to give him and show him. Not that we could teach him anything, but—
lisa
No, but we could explore together, and had the same kind of curiosity, you know? And when I heard his music—and I wasn’t a big pop music fan, you know, but he was deeper than that. There was something else I heard in his music. It wasn’t just like, pop songs, even though he could write a really good pop song, and that was so cool.
oliver
Yeah, I think he did a few. [Everyone laughs and responds emphatically.]
wendy
But when you hear things like “Annie Christian” or something like that, you go— [Morgan responds emphatically with “oh my”.] —”There is something else happening with this guy.”
music
“Annie Christian” off the album Controversy by Prince. Fast, distorted, funky, psychedelic pop. Annie Christian, Annie Christ Until you're crucified I'll live my life in taxicabs Annie Christian, Annie Christ [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
We actually have, uh, we found a clip of Prince talking in his first interview, and he mentions Wendy and Lisa.
clip
[Crowd applauds.] Speaker 1: Someone in Minneapolis recently told us that several months ago they were in a studio there when David Rifkin, your sound engineer, walked in. They asked him what you thought of the new Prince album, Around The World in a Day. He said, “It’s great, but wait ‘til you hear the new album.” Apparently he meant that you’re already working on a new LP ready to go, and that this one was a strong return to your funk roots. Is this true, can you elaborate, what will it be called, when is it due out, and what’s the music like? Prince: Don’t you like surprises? Uh, it is true I record very fast. It goes even quicker now that the girls help me. The girls, meaning Wendy and Lisa. Not these girls. I don’t really think uh, I left my funk roots to begin with anywhere along the line. Around The World in a Day is a funky album. Live, it’s even funkier.
morgan
So I liked when I found that clip. I liked hearing him reference you, because I think that’s the first time that I had. And it also brought up a question for me about some of the discussions around Around The World in a Day, because psychedelia and The Beatles are always mentioned, but people don’t talk about the funk of this album. And in my mind, it’s funky. Like, this is a funky album from start to finish.
wendy
“Tamborine” is one of the funkiest things you’ll ever hear in your life.
morgan
Yeah. Funky. But people—all the reviews talk about how light it is, how airy it is, how Middle Eastern, how Beatles-esque. And they miss the funk element. [Wendy responds affirmatively.] Talk a little bit about what they might be missing on this album, where the funk is concerned.
lisa
Pretty much everything. Everything was funky. I mean, the—funk is just a—
wendy
It’s just the way you approach it.
lisa
It’s a way of feeling. [Wendy responds affirmatively.] It’s a way of feeling the songs, and I think that—well critics—people tend you listen, you know, if you’re writing an article about something, and they listen to the top layer. They’re talking about the icing and not the cake, you know? And so that’s fair enough, and it was, in its way, different than the other albums because of the Middle Eastern influence, but you know, to call it psychedelic and Beatles-esque, I mean, Prince didn’t—he didn’t even like the Beatles. He was like, “Who?” [Morgan laughs.]
wendy
No, he didn’t. He didn’t. He really didn’t.
lisa
That was just not where it came from. It came from a different source you know, for him, and it was real exploration.
wendy
He was experimenting with his melodies at that point. His melodies became a little bit more important than the riff of a vocal, right? Um, I think that if you listen to that record closely, just on its sounds alone, the band layer of it, the drums and the bass and the guitar stuff, it is deep. The kick drum is so heavy on that record. That’s funk. That’s funk. Heaviness of something is funky, and then on “America”, let’s say—I mean, that is just—
lisa
Yeah, I mean, that’s funky. [Laughs.]
wendy
Whoever doesn’t think that that’s not funky is just—their definition of funk is a completely different thing. You’re hearing a different thing.
music
“America” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Upbeat, poppy, psychedelic funk. Freedom Love [Music continues to play as Lisa speaks again.]
lisa
Listen to Mark on the bass.
music
[“America” continues to play] Joy Peace Jimmy Nothing never went to school They made him pledge allegiance He said it wasn't cool Nothing made Jimmy proud [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
I had a question about “America”, because this is a song that, when you look at a lot of I think both reviews at the time but especially the kind of retrospective reviews of the album that have come out in more recent years, is people tend to identify “America” as, I think, the word that’s often used, it’s like an unironic patriotic anthem. And when I listen to it, and especially when you read the lyrics, I’m like, “Well—”
lisa
Huh? I just disagree with that.
oliver
Yeah. Because it seems to me that he is—yes, parts of it on paper seem to be anti-communist, but then you read and it’s like, I kind of feel that he’s actually making fun—
lisa
He is. It’s all irony. It’s just ironic, and let me just give you a funny thing, an anecdote that happened just last week. We played—the band, the Revolution played a corporate event down in Costa Mesa for a performing arts center, and the screen opens and there’s just these very conservative ballgowns and tuxedos. No one younger, really, than you know, maybe 60. And lots of booze, lots of dancing with holding your high heels in your hands, that kind of thing. And we opened with “America”. [Everyone laughs.]
morgan
That’s gangsta.
lisa
And you wanna know what? Your reaction, laughing, was exactly what all of us did on stage. The first note of that beginning of it, and we looked out to the audience. We just started laughing at the irony of that moment, because America is ironic. And I think it might have been lost on this crowd, you understand.
morgan
I mean, I laughed. I laughed at the end of that song, where he’s like, “Teacher, why won’t Jimmy pledge allegiance?” Right? Can we—but I fell in love with the song from the beginning. The opening of that song just gives me chills. Can you play the—
lisa
“Aristocrats on a mountain climb, making money—”
crosstalk
Morgan and Lisa: [In unison] “—losing time. Communism is just a word, but if the government turns over, it’ll be the only word you’ve heard.” [Both laugh.]
wendy
We sang that first verse to those people at that corporate, and I was howling.
lisa
Oh my god, it was hilarious.
wendy
Howling.
oliver
I’m so glad we got this cleared up, because I’m like, “What am I missing?” This does not sound like a—it does not sound like a red-blooded patriotism anthem. It’s silly. It clearly sounds sarcastic.
wendy
Right, “little sister make minimum wage, living in a one-room jungle monkey cage, can’t get over, she’s almost dead, she may not be in the black but she’s happy she ain’t in the red.”
oliver
It’s like, yeah, that does not sound like it’s “go rah-rah-rah.”
morgan
I mean, it wasn’t “Ronnie, Talk to Russia.” [Everyone responds affirmatively.] ‘Cause that would have just closed the party. They’d have been like, You know what, security—”
lisa
Exactly. Should’ve done “Annie Christian” or “Sister”.
morgan
“—get the Revol—” Oh my. Or “Private Joy”, they would’ve been like— [Wendy responds affirmatively.] “Get the Revolution up out of here.” Christian, can you play the beginning of “America”?
music
“America” plays again.
wendy
That’s Susan Rogers on the tape machine.
oliver
And to your point, Wendy, I mean just the intro where Susan’s messing with the tape. As a DJ, I always just think of it more in terms of just starting and stopping a turntable, because it has that same effect. [Wendy responds affirmatively.] And it’s—you know, we had done an episode about Parade a couple of months ago, and there’s that similar sort of just playing with the s—not just on a musical level, but playing with the sound of the recording, there’s elements of that as well. And you don’t expect it, and the first time I heard, I’m like, “Oh wait, is there something wrong with—” [Everyone responds affirmatively, talking over one another.]
wendy
Yeah, no, but you have to imagine. Back in those days, we were cutting 24 track. We were editing, splicing 24 track tape, right? So, Susan goes ahead, cut, line up, line up, [imitating scratching sounds] let it go. It’s exactly the same as DJing.
oliver
Now, was that an accident of the recording, in terms of someone heard it and was like, “Wait, keep that,” or was that always the intention?
lisa
No, it was never the intention. It was just like, “That’s cool, leave it.”
morgan
[Laughs] A happy accident. [Wendy and Lisa respond affirmatively.] I wanted to ask, what was the most fun or the most interesting song to record for this album, and which one was the most challenging?
lisa
Well, the most fun was probably “America”, because that was—we were in the south of France, and you know, that was cool to begin with. [Everyone laughs.]
wendy
Yeah, we were doing Cherry Moon. The film Cherry Moon was being filmed, and we were still—we were working on songs for that, and um.
lisa
Yeah, so there was always a mobile truck around that we’d be working in, and then the rest of the band flew out to do “America”. And yeah, we were just out on this—in a tent on the—
wendy
Côte d'Azur.
lisa
Yeah, Côte d'Azur, right there on the Mediterranean. And um, and it was like, about 127 degrees.
wendy
In the tents.
lisa
I mean, it was hot in that tent.
wendy
And a full audience.
lisa
Yeah. And we like, after that filming and everything, Prince and Wendy both were taken off stage like, with oxygen masks and stuff. Because it was so hot. It got so hot, and we played way too long.
wendy
But that’s recording.
lisa
But that’s—yeah. So that was quite—
morgan
The most fun.
wendy
Yeah, that was fun. That was really fun. “Raspberry Beret” was fun to do. “Pop Life”, I remember, I remember we were in Los Angeles. And Lisa was already in the studio at Sunset Sound with Prince, and they were working on “Pop Life”. And I walked into the studio after they had spent a few hours doing the track, and he played me the track and I burst into tears. Because it was such an amazing combination of funky and beautiful and painful in one little song. I just was like, that’s a beautiful soup you just made. That’s incredible. I rem—it’s been imprinted in me, that moment, to hear that song. God. Just the—that intro, where you hear [Imitates sounds of drumbeat] and the [Imitates sound of keyboard] with the keyboard.
music
“Pop Life” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Slow, melodic, distorted keyboard notes. [Music plays as dialogue continues.]
wendy
Listen to that. [Morgan responds emphatically.] That’s reversed.
lisa
The hand claps tuned way, way down on the snare. [A few more instruments kick in in the song. Music plays for several more seconds, then fades.] Killing the bass. It’s like he’s pulling the strings like five inches off the neck to get that [Imitates bass sounds].
morgan
It’s been hard to listen to this album. Since Prince passed, this is the one that’s been hardest for me to listen to. [Wendy responds affirmatively.] Because it’s my favorite. So I haven’t listened to it.
wendy
You know, it’s funny you should say that. I just got teary, because it’s true, what he says. Well, Sign o’ the Times has very similar kind of melodic and lyrical exploration. But Around The World in a Day said something so much deeper than the previous records up to that point. And it’s heartbreaking to think about him not being here when you listen to what he gave all of us in his fearlessness to explore his lyrics.
morgan
There’s so much wisdom on this album. Wisdom coming from a very young man at this time. [Wendy responds affirmatively.] And in that clip that we played a little bit earlier on, he says something like, “I’m like everybody else, I’m human.” He said, “I need water and I need love.” And the theme that comes up to me in “Pop Life” is how the sameness, the everymanness. We all have a space to fill. Everybody can’t be on top. And there’s so much wisdom. It is very close to Sign o’ the Times. But “Sign o’ the Times”, to me, that song, there’s a world weariness. The world has gone crazy.
wendy
It is one hundred percent, it’s much more global. Around The World in a Day is still—
morgan
Personal.
wendy
It’s a house. [Everyone responds affirmatively.]
lisa
Well, that’s where “Paisley Park”, you know, the song “Paisley Park” is like that. And it was like an idea that he’d been floating for awhile, you know? Coming from Purple Rain as being a big mega smash kind of thing, Around The World in a Day wanted the same audience, the same bigness, but wanted us all to feel how close we are and little we are.
music
“Paisley Park” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Upbeat, funky pop with a steady drumbeat and somewhat distorted backing instrumentals. There is a park that is known For the face it attracts Colorful people whose hair On 1 side is swept back [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
And we’ll be back on Heat Rocks and our conversation with Wendy and Lisa about the seminal album Around The World in a Day after some messages from our other Maximum Fun podcasts. Don’t go anywhere.
music
“Crown Ones” off the album Stepfather by People Under The Stairs
promo
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music
“Crown Ones” off the album Stepfather by People Under The Stairs
oliver
We are back here on Heat Rocks talking about Prince’s Around The World in a Day with Wendy and Lisa.
morgan
So I have to ask about the video for “Raspberry Beret” because I’ve said it, and there’s no way to say this without saying it over and over and over again, for me this album was love at first listen. It was a fantastic time in my life. It’s wedded in my memory. But one of the things I remember most of all about the experience of this album is that video. I mean, you have to imagine what it’s like looking at that as a youth, and of course MTV’s all over the charts with videos. You know, I’m getting entrenched in MTV. Then this video comes along, and I’m like, oh my god. There’s like, hella people in the video. They’ve got like a cool, choreographed two-step going on with their bending, bending to the side. Everybody’s hair is cool. I know Prince didn’t like his bangs, but I loved his bangs. I thought—
wendy
I did too.
morgan
I thought his bangs were on point.
wendy
I thought he looked cute. I thought he looked great.
morgan
The blue suit.
wendy
He looked so cute.
lisa
Yeah, that cloud suit.
morgan
You up there playing, you holding up the back. I was like, “Yo, this is it right here.” And this album won an MTV award for best choreography. So I wanted to ask you about the experience of shooting that video, what was that like?
lisa
Um, well we tried—the whole concept of that video was to bring the album cover to life. So he—so if you look at the album cover and the animated drawings on it, you’ll be able to pick out everybody represented in the video as well.
wendy
I have a couple of strong memories of it. One is I was very upset that I had to play that acoustic guitar in it, because it was huge. [Everyone starts giggling.] And, you know, I’m a fairly aesthetic person, and I like my guitars to kind of match the size of me. So this thing was more like playing like, a guitarron in like a Mariachi band, it was like out to here. Prince was like—he loved that it was so huge on me. He liked that there was some kind of like—”I love that you’re so little and that you’re taking control of something so big.” [Everyone laughs louder.] I didn’t like the guitar. Um, the other memory I have is that Pat Smear from Nirvana was one of the extras in it.
lisa
Yeah, that’s so crazy. Every once in a while people will say—will recognize him and say—and ask me, “Was Pat Smear in your ‘Raspberry Beret’ video?” I’m like, “Wow, you watch closely.” ‘Cause he’s just like in the—
wendy
He’s just there. Um, then Novi and Suzie Katayama and your brother David are playing the string instruments. What was the first video we did, where there was extras around, too, so that was weird. It was like the first scripted video we had done, and not a performance video. So it was interesting. It took much longer than we thought it would take. I could tell Prince was like, slightly annoyed by how long it took. He was just not a very patient guy.
morgan
I mean, that video saw so much heavy rotation on MTV, and it really brought us into the world of the album. And it sold this world, it sold this family, it sold—for someone, an artist, that’s so closely linked with the color purple, this—the video and the album feels blue to me.
wendy
It is. Absolutely.
morgan
It feels blue. That’s the color of the album.
music
“Raspberry Beret” plays again. He told me several times that he didn't like my kind 'Cause I was a bit too leisurely Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing But different than the day before [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
We normally ask our guests what they think the fire track off the album is, which most people interpret to be what the best song is. But I feel like for the two of you, it makes much more sense to ask, what is your favorite song off this album, and why?
lisa
Oh my god.
oliver
I know it’s probably like, picking between your children. But again, you don’t have to limit it to just one, but what comes to mind in terms of something that you just have a very, very deep relationship with? Besides every single one of the tracks on here?
lisa
Right. It is like picking one of your children.
wendy
It’s so hard.
lisa
You know, I used to always say “Condition of the Heart”. [Morgan and Oliver respond emphatically.] And it was one that I had nothing to do with. And it was just him, and it’s just a beautiful song. It’s just—I remember when I first heard it, and I was just like, wow. I just love the chords and melody and just—I think that’s just a beautiful song. It gets overlooked a lot. People don’t—it doesn’t get played a lot. People don’t mention it. But that’s one of my favorite songs of his. It’s just a beautiful song.
music
“Condition of the Heart” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Slow, melodic piano under tender, crooning, nearly pleading vocals. Hardy notion on the part of a Sometimes lonely musician Acting out a whim is only good For a condition of the heart [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
I mean, its’ such a pretty song. And then like I was saying sort of in the intro, you get to see this cast of characters. The dame in London, the woman from the ghetto, shout-out to Marlena Shaw. You know, the girl in Paris. And you get to see that sometimes relationships are complicated. And as a young kid I didn’t have all that information. As a grown woman, now I’m like, “Oh, they are complicated, and they can be unrequited.” I just thought it was a pretty song, and it felt like a story. It felt like these people that I didn’t have access to. But most of Around The World in a Day to me felt like a story.
oliver
I also feel like the song is part one that—and part two off the next album is “Sometimes It Snows in April.” Like, this is sort of a relationship taken through its course and all of its complexities. And I wouldn’t say that—I don’t think Prince’s ballads are underrated because, I mean, you talk about a song like “Purple Rain” for example, or “When The Doves Cry”. But I do feel like we tend to fixate more on the big, big radio pop shiny hits. Which are great, of course, but like, Prince’s ballads were just magnificent in the sublimeness. And we’ve talked a lot about all the kinds of things that he is putting into it musically, but I think “Condition of the Heart” on this album really is a showcase of just what he can bring to a ballad.
lisa
Yeah, absolutely. And like, what he was saying earlier. He loved beauty, and even in the, like, a funky song like “Pop Life”. It’s a beautiful song, and “Condition of the—” You know, it makes you think that he loved Julie Mitchell, and he would explore, you know, classical composers.
morgan
Clare Bowen. He was talking about Clare Bowen on there.
wendy
Right, he used to say I was Clare Bowen all the time. Um, that’s the thing about our relationship that I think helped him explore more, is that when we were together, his ballads changed. It changed from “International Lover”, those kinds of ballads, to—although “The Beautiful Ones” is truly a magical track. It really is. But by the time Around The World in a Day came, up through Sign o’ the Times, that was just—I only speak to my era—that his ballads really became really beautiful and really more personal. [Everyone responds affirmatively.] You know, I mean “Sometimes It Snows in April” is a perfect example of that, you know? By the time the three of us were in a room doing that, he started singing those lyrics over these chords we were doing. It was like, oh. I could see in him that it allowed him to feel even bigger feelings that weren’t overly sexualized, or angry, or just bratty, which he’s the master at. [Everyone laughs.] He could explore that side that is, um, broken-hearted in a way that doesn’t have a pretense or fakery to it.
music
[“Condition of the Heart” fades back in] Whenever I would act a fool, the fool With a condition of the heart Thinking about you driving me crazy
wendy
I’m so glad that happened for him, because when he did get there in “Condition of the Heart”, it’s a great example of it. “The Ladder”, to me, it’s a great sort of religious peak, right? But it doesn’t have the same kind of brokenheartedness about it. It has a different kind of sadness to it, but it’s—there’s a reverie to it.
music
“The Ladder” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Funky pop with a psychedelic flair featuring slow instrumentals over vocals that feel mourning and joyful all at once. The steps you take are no easy road But the reward is great For those who want for go [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
Though, “The Ladder”, to me, reminds me a lot—the beginning of “The Ladder” reminds me a lot of the beginning of “Purple Rain”.
wendy
Yeah, it has that vibe. “The Cross” had the same kind of thing, too.
morgan
I love “The Cross”. I was gonna mention that earlier. But I also love the background vocals on “The Ladder”.
wendy
Oh, yeah. It’s beautiful.
morgan
You guys sang your faces off in that. [Wendy and Lisa laugh.]
wendy
Yeah. That was—I remember being really high. Came in really high.
music
[“The Ladder” plays again.] How the story started and how it will end What's the use in half a story, half a dream You have to climb all of the steps in between [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
I’m curious, too. It’s the one song on here that the two of you actually have writing credits on. I mean, the other songs are credited to Prince and the Revolution, but this is the one where the two of you are you’re named.
wendy
Prince was very random. He was very random. There’s no rhyme or reason why we’re not on—credited as writers on one and then we’re, like— [Lisa responds affirmatively.] He just did some weird stuff. He’d just get in the mood one day and, “Eh, I think I’ll give Wendy and Lisa credit on this.”
oliver
Do you have a favorite song off of here?
lisa
Every time I hear “America”, it does it for me. Every time I hear “Tamborine” and I hear him behind— [Everyone responds emphatically.] —when I hear him behind his drums. Now, you’ve got to remember, this is a guy that would go into the recording studio, and put his headphones on behind his drums, and play an entire track, and then do his vocals afterwards. So you listen to that drum track. Imagine getting it all done, and then he goes in and does his vocal. If you’re a musician out there, you know how hard that is.
music
“Tamborine” off the album Around The World in a Day by Prince and The Revolution. Upbeat, fast, funky pop with rolling, rocking drums. Oh my God, there I go Falling in love with the face in a magazine (Uh oh, not again) All alone by myself Me and I play my tambourine [Music fades out as Morgan and Oliver speak]
morgan
Mm. That was special.
oliver
Morgan, given that this is your favorite Prince album, do you have a—do you have a fire track off of here? What’s your favorite?
morgan
[Sighing] That’s tough. It’s changed a lot, and as I said, heretofore it’s been very hard for me to listen to this album. Not hard for me to listen to the other ones, but I think because this one is my favorite and I feel so close to it, it’s been hard. Because we’ve had to discuss other Prince albums, and that’s been okay, right? But for this one it’s just been tough. And if you had asked me this when the album came out, I would have said “Pop Life” or “Tamborine”. But in thinking about it now, I’d have to say my favorite track is “America”, because of what it means, because of the funk that you talked about, and because in preparation for this chat, that was the one that I was like, “Oh, turn that up. Turn that up.” And I have to be grooving. I have to say too about this album that, you know, there were certain albums that I couldn’t play in the house, ‘cause I grew up real religious. And so I came to Prince because my cousin got saved, and she was like, “Yo, I gotta give you these albums because I can’t play them anymore.” [Everyone starts laughing.] I was like okay. I didn’t really know. So she gave me Controversy, I was like, “Oh, okay. I see why you can’t play it.” And I was like, “Well, I can’t play this at home.” So I had to play it in the house. But Purple Rain obviously was an experience, but Around The World in a Day was one that I could play at the house and turn all the way up with no—you know, my mother liked “Pop Life”, she liked “Raspberry Beret”.
oliver
Even “Temptation”?
morgan
Uh, no. [Everyone laughs.] I didn’t play that one. When I pull up in the driveway, ‘cause I had like a VW Bug, I’d be like, “No, turn that down, turn that down.” “Tamborine” was sort of cryptic, so you didn’t really know until you’d be like, “Wait a minute, what’s this magazine thing he’s talking about?”
wendy
What’s the tamborine?
morgan
What is the tamborine, right? And I played “Tamborine” in church. I was like, “This is not the same. I know this is not the same thing right now.” But this album is precious to me, and “America” is that song for me now that I’m just like, oh my god.
wendy
Now more than ever.
music
“America” plays again. Boom, boom, boom, boom The bomb go boom Teacher, why won't Jimmy pledge allegiance? [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
It’s well established that between the two of us, I always have the more basic tastes. [Morgan laughs.] Because my favorite song off of here is “Raspberry Beret”. I actually thought it was gonna be “Pop Life”, until I was sitting back and listening to it. And I think that “Raspberry Beret” nudges out “Pop Life” by a hair, partially because it also yields my single most favorite moment on the album, which is just the intro and the countdown of—and I just like a good countdown. Anytime a band leader counts it down. Because you can—it’s that anticipation. You know something very cool is about to happen, and in this case it’s that combination of the strings and, I guess it’s the harpsichord that drops in.
music
“Raspberry Beret” plays again. 1! 2! 1-2-3-4! Yeah! [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
It’s just so joyous. I think the thing about “Raspberry Beret” that always sticks with me is just the—that feeling of joy that emanates from it. I also wonder how much thrift stores got raided for raspberry berets after that song came out. [Everyone responds emphatically.] People must have just been in the droves searching for them, right?
morgan
Or at the very least rocking paisley. I know I was. I was rocking paisley hard.
oliver
Do either of you have a particular favorite moment, that every time you hear this album, when that—it could just be as short as a bar, whatever—that’s like, it just gets you.
wendy
I have moments in all of these songs that just kill me when I hear it. I just get that look and I put my head down and shake it, and just go wow. I have it on “Raspberry Beret”, when he says the rain sounds so cool up against the barn roof, the horses wonder who you are, thunder drowns out what lightning sees and you feel like a movie star. Come on. He really reached a beautiful place there. So there’s that and there’s a couple moments on “Pop Life” that does it to me. “America”, “Jimmy Nothing never went to school.” I mean—
morgan
“Made him pledge allegiance, said it wasn’t cool.”
wendy
“Nothing made Jimmy proud. Now Jimmy lives on a mushroom cloud.” Come on.
morgan
Bars.
lisa
It’s changed over time with this album for me, for a lot of reasons. You know, the whole album is really—it’s really special and it’s especially meaningful to me too, because of my brother’s involvement, and having lost—
wendy
Both of our brothers have passed since.
lisa
Yeah, so we lost our brothers, and now we’ve lost Prince. It’s a good thing that it’s such a joyful and positive album, because I feel a lot of loss. I mean, I relate to you saying that this is the one that’s hard to listen to. Because this is the one that really—
wendy
We were really close. We were tight friends. Our families were around. We were creative, like happy, every day. We went to work in the morning at the warehouse and were there all day long, you know, just playing music.
lisa
We were little elves in the factory.
wendy
And we loved ourselves. [Lisa responds emphatically.] You know what I mean? We were young, and we were like, bold and excited about what we were doing, and who we were. And, you know, it didn’t matter about the success of the thing, because we were just—
lisa
We came off the fishbowl effect of Purple Rain by that point, so it was nice to come break it all down.
music
“Around The World in a Day” plays again. Around the world in a day Say papa, I think I want to dance Around the world in a day [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
The thing that I feel like Prince gave me on this album, unlike other albums—because I just feel like I sort of could appreciate his genius over successive albums once I got to know him. But Around The World in a Day felt like he gave me just a little peek into his heart, and I think that’s why I’m so close to this. A little peek.
wendy
He did. That’s exactly what he did on that.
morgan
I think that’s why it’s so hard.
wendy
He did. That’s what I meant earlier, when I said that the entertainer part of Prince took a break, and it was just like this free love feeling about it. Like, this like, “Come have a party with me,” without it being like, badass. Like the badass thing just took a break. It’s all good. You got it. You can get back to it. But right now, this is like—it’s like putting on the 4 A.M. record and chilling out, like coming down after the party. Around The World in a Day has that kind of like, “Let’s relax now and let’s just get close and recap about what our life has been and connect with each other and we’ll go out and do our thing again.”
music
“Paisley Park” plays again. Paisley Park Your heart, your heart, your heart (sing, sing it) Paisley Park [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
We generally ask our guests to describe the album in three words, but I guess since you guys are so close to it, and we’re used to talking to people that have no experience with the album except listening to it. I would say, if you could describe your experience with Around The World in a Day in three words, what would they be?
wendy
Beautiful, intelligent, and funky.
lisa
[Laughing] Joyous, a creative storm, and just uh, I don’t know. It was like, youthful. It was a return, kind of, to our youth. You know, if Purple Rain was like, the mountain we climbed, then Around The World in a Day was—
wendy
Swimming in the river. [Everyone responds affirmatively.]
music
“Condition of the Heart” plays again. There was a girl (There was a girl in Paris) Whom he sent a letter to (Whom he sent a letter to) (Hoping she would answer back) She never answered back and now (Wasn't that a foolhardy—) He's got a condition of the heart (—notion?) [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
For listeners who, perchance, have never heard Around The World in a Day, after they have listened to our podcast, after they have listened to the album, where—what should they listen to next? Morgan, do you have a recommendation?
morgan
[Sighing] Under normal circumstances, I would say listen to, you know, a similar album. I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is Lenny Kravitz, Let Love Rule. But I would direct you back to Prince. Don’t leave Prince. If you like this album, keep going. Pick up Parade, or go back, you know, go back to Controversy. But mom, don’t listen to this part of the podcast. Go back to Controversy, but just keep going, don’t stop. Go to individual songs. Listen to “She’s Always in my Hair”. Listen to “Pink Cashmere.” Just keep going. Listen to “The Cross”. Listen to all of them. Listen to “Starfish and Coffee”. Listen to Purple Rain. Just immerse yourself in this man’s catalogue, because he left us a lot. He left us too soon, and he left us a lot.
oliver
I’m gonna be very self-serving and suggest that people listen to the episode that myself and our guest co-host Ernest Hardy taped last fall with Gabrielle Civil, talking about Parade, which is the album that followed this one in terms of the discographical order. I thought, I mean today’s conversation was miraculous, amazing. That conversation with Civil, I think, for people who really enjoy today’s in depth dive into it, I think you’ll enjoy that as well. Would either of you or both of you have recommendations for what you think people should listen to after this?
wendy
I personally would say sit down for the day and go through Dirty Mind and Controversy. 1999. Purple Rain. Around The World in a Day. Sign o’ the Times. And then just breathe.
lisa
Yeah, Dirty Mind. I would say Dirty Mind. For some reason it’s got a similar energy of, you know, like something’s about to happen, but I’m already there, so check it out, kind of thing. It’s so good.
wendy
For such a young man, it’s so good. And very different than like, Lenny’s Let Love Rule, which to me, when I heard Let Love Rule, I loved the record. But I could pull every resource that influenced Lenny on the record. I knew where every lit came from, I knew what every progression was influenced by, I knew exactly what gear he was using to come up with the sounds of Let Love Rule. So I felt like I didn’t have enough element of surprise to it, right? But when I heard Dirty Mind, I didn’t know anything. And I knew everything, musically. [Everyone laughs.] But hearing that, it was—
lisa
No reference.
wendy
No reference. And it felt so original and so singular, and it was like this guy who was like, “I don’t care about any of this! I just want to be heard! And this is how I’m gonna do it, because I know I’m great at what I do, and I can play my ass off!”
music
“Uptown” off the album Dirty Mind by Prince. Upbeat, fast, rocking funk. Everybody's going uptown That's where I want to be Uptown Set your mind free Uptown Got my body hot Get down I don't want to stop, no [Music fades out as Lisa speaks]
lisa
Or you could listen to some Wendy and Lisa. [Everyone laughs and responds emphatically.]
wendy
Oh, you know what, that’s funny you should say that. So Around The World in a Day and The Girl Bros record would be good together. Those two records would be good together.
music
“I Will” off the album The Girl Bros. by Wendy and Lisa. Melodic, ardent vocals over passionate guitar and drums. I'll will your memories To stay alive I'll beat the drum for you And make it mine I will, I will [Music fades out as Morgan speaks]
morgan
I would say too, like for those that aren’t familiar, earlier you mentioned The Family. “Screams of Passion” and “High Fashion” were two of my favorite hits, so get into that.
wendy
Oh, they were incredible.
morgan
Get into The Time. I mean.
wendy
The original “Nothing Compares 2 U” off that record, beautiful.
morgan
Yo, get into those records. Just spend some time getting into records is what we would recommend. [Everyone laughs.] Take some time and get into these records, okay?
music
“Screams of Passion” off the album The Family by The Family. Grooving, up-tempo music and multilayered vocals. Oh, a robin sings a masterpiece That lives and dies unheard For screams of passion A sound produced by to in love Curtains dance and autumn plays on (Oh, to in love, on and on) The screams of passion All I hear in my head [Music fades out as Oliver speaks]
oliver
That will do it for this episode of Heat Rocks, with our special guests, Wendy and Lisa. What are the two of you working on now?
wendy
Composing for a show on Netflix right now called Firefly Lane that will probably air in February. I think the first episode airs in February. So we’re in the midst of that, and we are working with Sony to create some logo music for them. And we are doing—finishing up doing very last gigs with The Revolution for the year. Writing songs for Maya Rudolph, and producing with Maya. [Oliver and Morgan respond emphatically.] And writing Wendy and Lisa music. That’s our life right now.
oliver
And where can people find you online?
lisa
WendyAndLisa.com. @WendyAndLisa at Twitter. We’re all on the social media, Facebook and all that.
morgan
Y’all on Instagram?
wendy
I am.
lisa
Instagram, yes.
wendy
WigMusic on Instagram.
lisa
I made Wendy and Lisa now.
oliver
Thank you two so much for coming in today. This was such a wonderful conversation.
lisa
Thank you.
morgan
And thank you for being such a part of my growing up, and my musical education, my relationship with Prince. Thank you both for being part of that.
lisa
Thank you. Thanks for saying so. That’s great.
oliver
You’ve been listening to Heat Rocks with me, Oliver Wang, and Morgan Rhodes.
morgan
Our theme music is “Crown Ones” by Thes One of People Under The Stairs. Shoutout to Thes for the hookup.
oliver
Heat Rocks is produced by myself and Morgan, alongside Christian Dueñas, who also edits, engineers, and does the booking for our shows.
morgan
Our senior producer is Laura Swisher, and our executive producer is Jesse Thorn.
oliver
We are part of the Maximum Fun family, taping every week live in their studios in the West Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles.
speaker 2
Comedy and culture.
speaker 3
Artist owned—
speaker 4
—Audience supported.
About the show
Hosted by Oliver Wang and Morgan Rhodes, every episode of Heat Rocks invites a special guest to talk about a heat rock – a hot album, a scorching record. These are in-depth conversations about the albums that shape our lives.
Our guests include musicians, writers, and scholars and though we don’t exclusively focus on any one genre, expect to hear about albums from the worlds of soul, hip-hop, funk, jazz, Latin, and more.
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