1987 · Behind the Songs
The last song on Sign o’ the Times was never a single — and became one of his most beloved slow jams anyway.
Sign o’ the Times, Prince’s 1987 double album, closes with “Adore” — six minutes and twenty-nine seconds of slow jam, recorded on November 19, 1986, at Sunset Sound in Hollywood and released on the Paisley Park/Warner Bros. labels. It follows the album’s live closing party, “It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night,” like a candle lit after the guests leave.
Prince wrote and produced the track, playing vocals, Hammond organ, Ensoniq Mirage, Prophet VS, Fairlight CMI, bass, and Linn LM-1 himself. The arrangement opens up for guests: Atlanta Bliss on trumpet, Eric Leeds on saxophone, and Novi Novog on violin — horns and strings lifting a ballad that never hurries.
“Adore” was never released as a single, yet radio played it, concert audiences claimed it, and a four-minute edit appeared on The Hits/The B-Sides in 1993. The full version later surfaced in the Girl 6 soundtrack, and a solo piano reading appeared on the 2002 live album One Nite Alone… Live!
The honors accumulated without a chart campaign: Essence named it to its “25 Best Slow Jams of All Time” in 2009, AOL Radio readers voted it the second-greatest Prince song in 2010, Rolling Stone placed it 431st on its 500 Greatest Songs, and in 2026 Essence ranked it the fourth-greatest R&B song of all time. Covers by Silk, TQ, Julius Papp, and Joe Roberts kept it in circulation. Some songs need a single; this one just needed the last slot on a double album.