Darling Nikki is the fifth track on Prince’s sixth album Purple Rain, the first album to be credited to Prince and the Revolution. The song also features in the movie Purple Rain.
Because specific recording dates are not known, basic tracking was long assumed to have taken place in July 1983 at Prince’s Kiowa Trail Home Studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota, USA, because it was the first song Susan Rogers worked on with Prince. A cassette tape from Matt Fink's collection, however, has the title with ‘new Prince’ written next to it and a date of 27 May 1983, suggesting the song was in fact likely already committed to tape in May.
The song ends with a "back-masked" vocal coda to close out the first side of the album (on vinyl and cassette).
Darling Nikki was discussed a lot in the media in 1984-85. Tipper Gore (author and wife of Al Gore), having overheard her eleven-year-old daughter, Karenna, listening to the track, was inspired to found the Parents Music Resource Center. The Center advocated the mandatory use of a warning label ("Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics") on the covers of records judged to contain language or lyrical content unsuitable for minors.
The recording industry voluntarily complied with the Center’s request in response to the Senate hearings (Sugar Walls was also listed on The Parents Music Resource Center’s "Filthy Fifteen" which led to the introduction of parental advisory stickers). See here for more details.
It was included as the fourth track on the 7 November 1983 and 23 March 1984 configurations of Purple Rain, but became the fifth track on the final 14 April 1984 configuration after the addition of Take Me With U.
Notes from Prince’s Dreams notebook that was on display in the 'My Name Is Prince' exhibit in the O2 in London reveal that Prince considered naming Vanity’s character in the film Nicarthra Ann, Nikki for short.
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