1000 Light Years From Here is a song originally recorded March 2010, in sessions that yielded material for the Welcome 2 America album.
While that album remained unreleased at the time, Prince updated the song at a later date by adding horns to it. And although it didn’t get a release under its own name it was used as unlisted coda attached to Black Muse, the tenth track on Hitnrun Phase Two; The last 3:05 minutes of Black Muse on that album are in fact 1000 Light Years From Here. It is unknown why Prince chose to sequence this song and Black Muse as one track.
The initial version of the track with entirely different lyrics and arrangement was released as the fourth song of the tenth posthumous album Welcome 2 America (the first full previously-unreleased studio album of Prince material) in July 2021, 10 years after its original conception. Some lines of the song (Good life, liberty, Innovation / Every child, no matter what color / Gettin' an education) appeared in the Welcome 2 America Tourbook in 2010.
The song was recorded on 11 March 2010, at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota (on the same day as Same Page, Different Book). It was worked further on 19 March 2010, but likely not yet merged with Black Muse (which is listed on the same tape, along with a song called seemingly called Wud), at that time. The pairing of 1000 Light Years From Here with Black Muse was likely done in 2015, preparing it for release on Hitnrun Phase Two.
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