Prince - Erotic City
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Topic: Prince - Erotic City
Posted By: mainrhythm
Subject: Prince - Erotic City
Date Posted: 07 February 2011 at 8:44pm
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Besides reversing the questionable? lyrics, were there or did anyone do their own clean edit of this back in the day?
Thanks. |
Replies:
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 07 February 2011 at 10:40pm
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I realize that it had dance club success, and that there was a 12" disc of this. But I thought it was the flipside to "Let's Go Crazy". Was it actually a radio hit in some places?
------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 6:50am
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I don't know about when it was first released, but the top 40 station I
worked for in Detroit in the early 2000s played it as a gold. I'm not sure where they got their edit, but my guess is that it came from a RetroMix show. Ron and I were recently discussing this song, and it's debatable how many "f" words are in it. My old station, for instance, left the line "thoughts of pretty u and me" but some consider the word "thoughts" to also be the "f" word. |
Posted By: edtop40
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 6:58am
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i remember hearing "erotic city" on the radio in new york back in the 1984/1985 timeframe.....i don't know the station, most probably Z-100, or if it was an edited version.....years later i realized it was actually the B-side of one of his hits at the time, either "purple rain" or "let's go crazy".....i'm not in front of my boxes of 45's the check.... ------------- edtop40 |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 7:59am
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It got substantial airplay in New York City on both Z100
and WPLJ at the time. It was widely known to be a B- side, and was played right alongside the other tracks from Purple Rain. Both stations had custom edits, probably by their in- house people (not by WB). The Z100 edit used a percussive THWACK sound in place of each F-word. The THWACK might have been a snare drum from some other Prince song - never figured that one out. The WPLJ edit just cut out the offending lines that included the F- word, which disrupted the flow of the song. At the time, my friends and I preferred the Z100 THWACK edit. |
Posted By: MMathews
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 1:06pm
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Ah yes, i remember Z100 playing this very well. (i was impressed at the time, thought it was very bold of them, but after all they were the "Flamethrower...")
Ron, as i recall it, that "thwack" sound was a snare hit they took from the intro. They placed it everywhere that sounded like an "F" bomb. Funny, i'm reading the lyrics now, and they may indeed be "thoughts of pretty u and me" ... but to my ears (and the radio censors) i am hearing "f**k's afraid o' u and me". I'm sure the vague-ness of the line was quite intentional, as it sounds that way when either she or he sings it. :-) MM |
Posted By: crapfromthepast
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 1:31pm
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I always thought it was "F- so pretty...", although that
doesn't make much sense grammatically. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 3:25pm
| To add to the vagueness, some even say the other offending line might be "we can funk until the dawn." Considering his later hit "Batdance" has the line "get the funk up," it could be. Better to err on the side of caution, though, for broadcasters. |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 4:03pm
That's the view I took, so when I DJ at weddings or the like, I have edited my own censored version of it. Luckily there are lots of measure of the music during the song to use as suitanble filler for those few seconds. The hard part? I did this edit years ago on open-reel. I was very patient back then. ------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
aaronk wrote:Posted By: Bill Cahill
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 6:40pm
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It was a power for me in OKC at KJ-103, my competitor KOFM was too lazy to edit it. Number one requested song. I was able to splice in "Erotic City" in place of the Thoughts of pretty. Because sometimes Prince sings "Erotic City can't you see, Thoughts of Pretty you and me, and at another place sings "Thoughts of Pretty you and me, Erotic City Come Alive"
So I just made it every time that line came up I cut it to say "Erotic City can't you see, Erotic City come alive" For the word funk I put in the snare. I didn't censor the cherry line. |
Posted By: eriejwg
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 9:18pm
| Since a few of us here DJ at weddings, has anyone tried modern day custom edits for "Erotic City?" |
Posted By: eric_a
Date Posted: 08 February 2011 at 10:00pm
| Back in the '90s, Promo Only put out a big library of for mobile DJs. I never owned the set, but I seem to recall it including a clean edit of EC, probably something created inhouse. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 09 February 2011 at 12:18am
| I have my own edit, but I rarely play it at weddings. |
Posted By: Jody Thornton
Date Posted: 09 February 2011 at 10:10am
I can email you mine if you want? All I did were the "f-bombs"; nothing else. ------------- Cheers, Jody Thornton (Richmond Hill, Ontario) |
Posted By: JFive
Date Posted: 07 July 2016 at 7:47pm
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I have a custom edit that follows the formula of the
edited (for length) version from 'The Hits/The B-Sides'. It runs around 3:54 and has a WHACK sound in place of the expletives. Funk and F--k are both removed, like the Z100 edit. I made it BEFORE Sheila E put the uncertainty regarding the lyrics to rest. She said that she says FUNK, Prince says the F-word. No idea where "thoughts of pretty you and me" came from. If anyone wants a copy of this, let me know. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 07 July 2016 at 10:57pm
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"Thoughts of pretty u and me" is a different line in the chorus. What Sheila E. is most likely referring to is that during the chorus she sings "we can funk," but during the third verse Prince sings this same line but uses the "f" word instead. ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: JFive
Date Posted: 08 July 2016 at 10:32pm
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In more recent years, Prince had replaced the F word
with "love" in concerts on the rare occasions he performed it. "Love so pretty u and me" is one of those lines he replaced the original with. If it wasn't an expletive from the get-go, he would've just left it as "thoughts of pretty u and me". This has been a debate for a while, but I was under the impression that this was settled within the past 5-10 years. |
Posted By: JL328
Date Posted: 09 July 2016 at 4:07am
you mean when you say the version on "The Hits/The B Sides" was edited for length. The version on that disc matches the version that was the B- side to "Let's Go Crazy." Since this song was never on a parent album, what version was the single version edited from? The 12 inch dance mix? |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 09 July 2016 at 8:21am
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The single version on the 45 was edited from the 12" version.
Regarding the lyrics, I never heard about Prince changing the lyrics in concert in recent years. It did prompt me to look for any videos of live performances, and I stumbled upon this one by Sheila E: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TMfAXjoqDks Don't know when it was filmed, but it looks like the '80s. The camera is zoomed pretty close when she sings the chorus, and you can definitely hear and see that she is not singing the F word in that line. To me, it sounds like "thoughts of pretty u and me." ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: JFive
Date Posted: 09 July 2016 at 8:23am
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Decent point, Aaron. Sheila E doesn't curse on any of
her records, if I recall. Other than the N word on one of her songs, that is. |
Posted By: aaronk
Date Posted: 09 July 2016 at 8:31am
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True, but in the video, she still clearly sings the line "we can f--k until the dawn" (or "funk"). ------------- Aaron Kannowski http://www.uptownsound.com" rel="nofollow - Uptown Sound http://www.919thepeak.com" rel="nofollow - 91.9 The Peak - Classic Hip Hop |
Posted By: AdvprosD
Date Posted: 26 May 2021 at 7:56pm
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I've been discussing a number of songs that contain censurable content with another DJ pal of mine lately. This song obviously came up as one that you'd have a hard time
getting away with playing it on the radio in its original form. I know TM Century had a lot of songs they cleaned up for radio versions, but I don't see this one. I suppose anyone that actually did play it on the radio most likely had someone clean it up for them? I also know that I have a copy of "The B Sides" somewhere in a crate that I still haven't found yet. I also remember that if a group was willing to allow Erotic City at their function, they didn't want it cleaned up. The same goes for the obnoxiously club oriented Pu**y Control. I can't say I ever heard that one played on the radio, ever! ------------- <Dave> Someone please tell I-Heart Radio that St. Louis is not known as The Loo! |