Wendy and Lisa’s tape in London, then the Warehouse, then Nice
On 14 November 1985 Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman were at Advision Studios in London with engineer Susan Rogers, finishing work around Parade. Prince was not in the room. They put up a fresh reel and cut an instrumental that had no title yet. Prince Vault dates the band track to 30 November at the Washington Avenue Warehouse in Edina, Minnesota, the same day as An Honest Man. Wendy has told the London afternoon as a next-day reaction and lyrics written on a plane. The session log is two weeks, not one night. The music still starts with them.
The released record credits Prince and the Revolution as writers and producers. Prince Vault is more precise: Wendy and Lisa wrote the music, Prince wrote the lyric, and he took sole credit on some early paperwork. The single label that fans know lists Prince, Wendy Melvoin, and Lisa Coleman. On the track you hear Prince on lead vocal, Lisa on keyboards and vocals, Wendy on guitar and vocals, Bobby Z. on drums, Brown Mark on bass, Dr. Fink on keyboards, Susannah Melvoin on background vocals, Eric Leeds on saxophone, Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, and Miko Weaver on rhythm guitar.
Parade, billed as music from Under the Cherry Moon, came out on 31 March 1986. Mountains was the second single, after Kiss. The US 7-inch is 7 May 1986 on Paisley Park / Warner Bros., catalogue 7-28711, with the instrumental Alexa de Paris on the B-side. The 12-inch followed on 21 May and runs 9:56. The UK 7-inch and 12-inch are 2 June. The album cut and the 7-inch are the same 3:58.
Lisa and I started writing the music to Mountains. Prince heard it the next day and almost fell out of his chair. He told me and Lisa he wanted to write lyrics.
(Wendy Melvoin, on the London demo)
The video was shot on 9 April 1986 at Studios de la Victorine in Nice, during extra filming for Under the Cherry Moon, and Prince directed it. It aired the week of 12 May. MTV ran it in color. The same footage rolls, in black and white, under the film’s end credits. It is an early on-screen look at Miko Weaver, Wally Safford, Greg Brooks, Jerome Benton, Eric Leeds, and Atlanta Bliss beside the Revolution. Kristin Scott Thomas is in the cast list from the movie shoot.
Billboard had it on the Hot 100 from 24 May, peak 23, eleven weeks. Hot Black Singles peaked at 15. The dance club chart peaked at 11. In Britain it reached 45. After Kiss, that is a modest second single, and the 12-inch is where the arrangement gets room: horns, the Revolution voices, and a long outro the 7-inch trims. The song to keep is the 1986 single, not a later Parade reissue. Wendy and Lisa’s London reel, a Warehouse day in Edina, and a color clip from Nice.
