Little Red Corvette
Little Red Corvette is a song by American musician Prince, released in 1982, which he wrote, composed, arranged and produced. The track is included on his album 1999 and was released on February 9, 1983 as the album's second single.
History
The idea for the song came to Prince when he and Lisa Coleman, a member of his backing band The Revolution, were spending the night in their Mercury Marauder after a long recording session. The inspiration for the lyrics came to him during the course of that night.
The instrumentation is dominated by drums from a Linn LM-1, a slow musical build-up and a couple of choirs. In the background vocals you can hear Lisa Coleman and Dez Dickerson, the latter also plays the guitar solo with the electric guitar.
Little Red Corvette is composed in D-flat major and runs at a tempo of 123 beats per minute (English = bpm), Prince's vocals range in pitch from A♭2 to D♭5 in the song. In the song, Prince, in the role of the lyrical self, sings about a one-night stand with a beautiful but promiscuous woman (she is referred to as "Little Red Corvette"). Although he enjoys the experience, he urges her to "take it slow" and commit to a lasting relationship before she mentally self-destructs. Cars, horses, and jockeys serve as pleasure metaphors here in the text. In this context, one also notices that the lyrics contain elements of various post-disco songs, "Disco lives through the myth that Saturday never ends. Little Red Corvette not only insists on doing it, it reminds us of things that happen in the darkened corners of clubs and alleys, all dark and shadowy." According to Jack Hamilton of Slate.com.
Released on February 9, 1983, it was re-released twice: once in 1984 as a double A-side along with the song in 1999, and posthumously in memory of Prince in 2016. In Rolling Stone's list The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time, the synth pop song made it to number 108. The song could be heard in the Knight Rider episodes A Small Town Lives Dangerously and The Mysterious Robot.
Little Red Corvette is also featured on the Prince compilations His Majesty's Pop Life/The Purple Mix Club (1985), The Hits/The B-Sides (1993), The Very Best of Prince (2001), Ultimate (2006), 4Ever (2016) and 1999 Deluxe (2019).
Cover versions
- 1987: Sandra Bernhard
- 1993: Bob Belden
- 1995: Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
- 1997: Phil Collins feat. East 17 (Liveversion)
- 2001: Paul Kelly
