Unreleased (1985)
A Parade outtake where Prince wrings every last ounce of blood-curdling horror from his Fairlight synthesiser. Howls, screams, sobs and Psycho string-stabs accompany creepy Sixth Sense lyrics. There are very few Prince tunes you could describe as genuinely chilling but Others Here With Us cuts to the bone. In the right frame of mind it’s more unsettling than a Victorian doll’s head outside your window on a stormy night. But the Prince of Darkness is a gentleman: this was kept in the vault with every other that delved too far into scary waters. An alternate version exists with added orchestration but that just distracts from the acid-washed terror and like Mavis Staples once said: “the devil ain’t got no music” – just a backing-track made up of the screaming souls of the innocent. If you’ve never heard the original then do yourself a favour and listen to it once. Alone. With the lights off. And then never ever sleep again.
I don’t know if he was listening to Joni Mitchell’s ‘Hissing Of Summer Lawns’ when he composed it. I heard that after hearing the Prince track and was immediately reminded of TOHWU due to those Burundi (?) drums.
PS. I’m binge-reading your site like a DVD boxset, so apologies for the comment overload. Fantastic blog 👏👏👏 (stomp 👣)
Thank you. And I’m loving the comment overload! Keep ’em coming 🙂
PS. Just listened to Derek Went Mad by Shut Up & Dance. It wasn’t just in (all)my dreams after all…😉