Prince — “17 Days”: The Purple Rain B-Side That Became a Lost Masterpiece

1984 · Behind the Songs

Relegated to the flip side of “When Doves Cry,” “17 Days” grew from a Revolution jam into the first song ever credited to Prince and the Revolution — and a fan-favorite “lost masterpiece.”

Its full title runs to an entire sentence: “17 Days (the rain will come down, then U will have 2 choose. If U believe look 2 the dawn and U shall never lose.)” But the song most fans know simply as “17 Days” was never meant to be a landmark. Released on May 16, 1984, as the B-side of “When Doves Cry” — the lead single from Purple Rain and one of the biggest hits of the decade — it was, by design, the afterthought. Nobody expected the flip side to become the story. But “17 Days” refused to stay in the shadows. In the years since, it has been called a forgotten masterpiece, a fan favorite, and a staple of Prince’s live shows right up until his death — and it holds a historic distinction: it was the first song ever officially credited to Prince and the Revolution.

The song began in August 1983, during the sessions that produced “Let’s Go Crazy” and “Computer Blue” for the Purple Rain project. It was born from a jam — the kind of spontaneous band interplay that Prince, for all his reputation as a solitary auteur, cherished with the Revolution. As Wendy Melvoin later recalled: “Me and Lisa started playing a riff, and Prince started singing that melody.” The riff in question was the organ figure that anchors the song’s bridge, played by Lisa Coleman. From that seed — two bandmates vamping, a singer finding words — “17 Days” grew into something complete.

Written for Someone Else

For much of its early life, “17 Days” was not even a Prince song — or rather, it was a Prince song intended for someone else. After Vanity left the group Vanity 6 and the Purple Rain project, Prince reconfigured the side project around Apollonia Kotero, renaming it Apollonia 6. “17 Days” was earmarked as a solo showcase for Brenda Bennett, one of the group’s singers, and was among the first tracks intended for the Apollonia 6 album. But after a few months — and after a jam built on the song itself — Prince changed his mind. In January 1984, he decided to finish it himself.

The final recording, cut between January 8 and March 18, 1984, at Sunset Sound, carries the traces of that history. Prince sang lead and played electric guitar, Oberheim synthesizers, bass guitar, Linn LM-1 drum machine, and percussion, and produced the track himself. But the Revolution is all over it: Wendy Melvoin on backing vocals and electric guitar, Lisa Coleman on backing vocals and Oberheim synthesizers, Jill Jones on backing vocals, Sheila E. on percussion — and Brenda Bennett’s original co-lead vocal, buried deep in the mix like a ghost of the song’s first intended life. The songwriting credit tells the collaborative story honestly: Prince, Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman, and Dr. Fink.

The Lonely Person

What is “17 Days” about? On its surface, it is a song of heartbreak and ultimatum — seventeen days of rain, a choice to be made, a dawn to look toward. But Lisa Coleman, speaking to The Guardian in 2018, offered a deeper reading. Prince, she said, often sang the part of a lonely person — she named “When You Were Mine” and “The Beautiful Ones” as fellow examples — even though he carried himself with the prowess of a love god, a fantasy figure. “17 Days” belongs to that lineage: the sound of the most desired man in pop music singing, with total conviction, about being alone.

That tension is what makes the record endure. The track runs just 3:59, but it feels larger — a slow-burning soul song with gospel undertones, built on Coleman’s organ riff and Prince’s aching lead vocal. It does not sound like a B-side. It sounds like a statement that could not fit on the album, so it hid on the back of a single instead.

A Masterpiece in the Shadows

History has been kind to “17 Days” in a way the charts never had a chance to be. Denied single status, it became something better: a discovery. Fans who flipped “When Doves Cry” found a song that felt like a secret, and secrets travel. The track earned its “lost masterpiece” reputation through word of mouth, through mixtapes and B-side compilations, through Prince’s own live performances — it stayed in his setlists, in various forms, until the end of his life. In 1993, the rock band Living Colour covered it, including their version on the Japanese release of their album Dread — a tribute from one generation of Black rockers to another.

And then there is the credit. “17 Days” was the first song officially billed to Prince and the Revolution — the name under which Prince would do his greatest work. That billing matters. It marks the moment Prince acknowledged, in print, what the music already showed: that the Revolution was not a backing band but a creative partnership, that Wendy’s riff and Lisa’s organ were as much the song as his melody. A B-side became a birth certificate.

What to Listen For

Start with Lisa Coleman’s organ riff in the bridge — the seed of the whole song, the moment Wendy and Lisa were vamping when Prince found his melody. Then follow Prince’s lead vocal, which moves from wounded to defiant and back again, singing the lonely person’s part with everything he has. Listen for Brenda Bennett’s buried vocal in the mix, a whisper from the song’s alternate history. And notice the patience: 3:59 of slow burn, no hurry, no chorus built for radio — just a great band, a great singer, and seventeen days of rain.