Difference between revisions of "We Can Funk"

from the album Graffiti Bridge

from the album Purple Rain Deluxe

Oui Can Luv
Purple Rain Deluxe

• 3 June 1990, Stadion Feyenoord, Rotterdam, the Netherlands (lyrics incorporated into Baby I'm A Star); 10 June 1990, Niedersachsen stadion, Hannover, Germany (more complete version)
  
• 21 January 1991: Estadio Monumental A. Vespucio Liberti (River Plate), Buenos Aires, Argentina(lyrics incorporated into Baby I'm A Star)

• Nude Tour (mainly as vocal clips during Baby I'm A Star)

• This song is not known to have been performed other than on the Nude Tour and few 1991 one-off performances.

We Can Funk is the seventh track on Prince's 12th album Graffiti Bridge, and is credited as a duet between George Clinton and Prince. The track is also featured in the movie Graffiti Bridge. In 2015, an acoustic version of the track, with some lyrical changes and renamed Oui Can Luv, was included as the eighth track on the acoustic album Oui Can Luv by Andy Allo featuring Prince on acoustic guitar. The original version titled We Can Fuck was released (as We Can F**k) as the tenth track on the From The Vault & Previously Unreleased disc of the Purple Rain Deluxe album in June 2017.

While the song emerged from a jam on 30 December 1983 at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, California, basic tracking for the original version took place on 31 December 1983 and 1 January 1984 (still at Sunset Sound), as We Can Fuck (although listed as "The Dawn" and "Moral Majority" respectively, as the original title was considered 'too raunchy').

Prince would later tone down the title and lyrics of the song, and re-recorded the track on 17 June 1986 at the Washington Avenue Warehouse in Eden Prairie, Minnesota (in sequence after Data Bank and Can't Stop This Feeling I Got, the day before recording Girl O' My Dreams). At one point Prince had Micki Free fly to Minneapolis to record lead vocals. It is unclear when this took place and to which version the vocals were added.

The 1983 recording was returned to and updated in 1989 at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota, and this updated version, without George Clinton on vocals, was included as the sixth track on a 1989 configuration of Graffiti Bridge. George Clinton added vocal overdubs in late 1989-1990, also at Paisley Park Studios, and the final version was included as the seventh track on a 1990 configuration of Graffiti Bridge, where it remained for release.

The track's lyrics mention the Kama Sutra, considered to be the most important work in a long line of Indian erotic literature, written by the Hindu philosopher Vātsyāyana ( later named the first and only album by The NPG Orchestra Kamasutra).

In 2011, a 1:00 video (audio only with a static image) of an acoustic demo of the track recorded by Andy Allo (as Oui Can Luv, with a revised chorus to match) was streamed on her Facebook page, with the tagline "CHECK OUT WHAT EYE FOUND IN PRINCE'S VAULT (Demo recorded in Sacramento on 8/31/11 using ProTools 9 & a Sterling Audio ST69 Mic)", followed a few weeks later by a full-length version of the same track. The track was re-recorded in a similar acoustic version; while specific recording dates for the acoustic re-recording are not known, it is believed to have been recorded in Autumn 2011 to mid-2012 at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota, during sessions for Andy Allo's second album Superconductor.

Graffiti Bridge version

• Prince - all vocals and instruments, except where noted
• George Clinton - co-lead vocals
  
• Wendy Melvoin - guitar and background vocals (uncredited)
• Lisa Coleman - keyboards and background vocals (uncredited)
• Eric Leeds - saxophone
  
• Atlanta Bliss - trumpet
  
• Gary 'Mudbone' Cooper - additional drums
  
• Joseph Fiddler - additional keyboards, background voices
  
• Garry Shider - background voices
  
• Steve Boyd - background voices
  
• William Payne - background voices
  
• Belita Woods - background voices
  
• Tracey Lewis - background voices
  
• Mike Harris - background voices
  
• Pat Lewis - background voices
  
• Sandra Dance - background voices
  

Purple Rain Deluxe version (as We Can F**k)

• Prince - all vocals and instruments, except where noted
• Wendy Melvoin - guitar and background vocals
• Lisa Coleman - keyboards and background vocals
• David Coleman - oud and finger cymbals
• Jill Jones - vox (uncredited)

• Bill Jackson – engineer
• Terry Christian – engineer

Unreleased 1986 version

• Prince - all vocals and instruments, except where noted
• Bobby Z. - drums and percussion
• Brown Mark - bass guitar and vocals
• Miko Weaver - rhythm guitar
• Lisa Coleman - keyboards and vocals
• Wendy Melvoin - guitars and vocals
• Dr. Fink - keyboards
• Susannah Melvoin - background vocals
• Eric Leeds - saxophone
• Atlanta Bliss - trumpet

• Graffiti Bridge album
• Graffiti Bridge movie
• Andy Allo
• Oui Can Luv album
• Tidal
• Purple Rain Deluxe

• As the original title We Can Fuck was considered not suitable to put on the work order sheet, engineer Terry Christian initially labeled the song as "The Dawn". When Prince finished work on the song the next day he retitled it "Moral Majority" on the working order, but that was never the actual title of the song. The 1982 Vanity 6 song with the title Moral Majority nor the 1996 song Welcome 2 The Dawn have anything to do with We Can Funk.

• The Vault: The Definitive Guide to the Musical World of Prince (2004)
• Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions 1983 and 1984 (Expanded Edition, paperback), Duane Tudahl (2018)