Prince – Crystal Ball

The triple album Warner would not press

On 17 April 1986 Prince recorded Crystal Ball at the Galpin Blvd home studio in Chanhassen. It was a crowded week. Two days earlier the band had added parts to Witness 4 The Prosecution and recorded Visions without him. Three days later he recorded Starfish and Coffee. He sang and played the instruments. Susannah Melvoin sang background. The words were not new to a stage. On 16 May 1983, at the third annual Minnesota Music Awards in the Carlton Celebrity Room in Bloomington, he had already dropped them into a jam.

Through June 1986 he added parts and edited at Galpin. Clare Fischer wrote an orchestration, added that summer, with more work in August. By 30 November 1986 Prince had compiled a triple album called Crystal Ball, built from the shelved Dream Factory and Camille projects, and this song opened side three in an orchestrated edit about a minute shorter than the long take. Warner Bros. would not ship a triple. The set was cut down and released on 31 March 1987 as the double album Sign o’ the Times. Crystal Ball the song was not on it.

The lyric looks into the ball and sees a bad night: bombs, hate moving in, and then the claim that the only sure thing is the love made that night. It is a long funk piece, not a single. The version that finally came out runs 10:28. There is no chorus built for radio. There is a scene, a drum machine, and an orchestra Prince hired and then could not put on the album Warner would actually press.