Little Red Corvette

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Lore & Background

Prince got the idea for the song when he dozed off in band member Lisa Coleman's 1964 pink Mercury Montclair Marauder after an exhausting all-night recording session. The lyrics came to him in bits and pieces during this and other catnaps. Eventually, he was able to finish it without sleeping. The song is written in the key of D♭ major and moves at a tempo of 123 beats per minute in common time. Prince's vocals span from A♭2 to D♭7. Jack Hamilton of Slate noted that the song is about "ambivalence, vulnerability, and fear" of casual sex, and that with its instrumentation of guitars, synthesizers, and a drum machine, it is a post-disco song "in every respect."

In Their Own Story

The music video, directed by Bryan Greenberg and released in February 1983, was Prince's second music video played on MTV. The first was "1999" the previous year before Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" and after Musical Youth's "Pass the Dutchie". The video was filmed in late January 1983 at the Lakeland Civic Center during the final week of rehearsals for the second leg of the 1999 Tour. According to Greenberg, there was also supposed to be some scenes shot the next day featuring Prince and Vanity driving around in a corvette. However Prince was said to be uncomfortable with the idea, given that his videos had only featured him on stage, and it was eventually scrapped.

Reader's Guide

The initial US single was backed with album track "All the Critics Love U in New York", while UK releases featured "Lady Cab Driver" or "Horny Toad". An extended dance remix of "Little Red Corvette," featured on some 12" releases, was later featured on the 2006 compilation *Ultimate*. Rolling Stone ranked the song No. 108 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time (2004). Dickerson's guitar solo was ranked No. 64 all time by readers of *Guitar World*. Following Prince's death in April 2016, "Little Red Corvette" re-charted on the Billboard Hot 100 at number 29, rising to number 20 the following week. It has sold more than 900,000 copies in the United States.

Did You Know?

• Prince got the idea for the song when he dozed off in band member Lisa Coleman's 1964 pink Mercury Montclair Marauder after an exhausting all-night recording session.
• The song was Prince's first to reach the top 10 in the U.S., peaking at number 6 on the Billboard Hot 100.
• The music video was Prince's second to be played on MTV, following '1999'; it did not precede Michael Jackson's 'Billie Jean', which had already premiered on MTV in January 1983.
• Dez Dickerson's guitar solo on the song is widely praised by fans and critics alike.
• The song was rereleased as a double A-side with '1999', peaking at number two on the UK singles chart in January 1985.

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