If You Were A Sailboat is an unreleased cover version of the 2007 track by Katie Muela (from her album Pictures and also released as a single) believed to have been recorded between late 2007 and 2009 at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota along with covers of two other Muela songs, Nine Million Bicycles and The Closest Thing To Crazy. It is unknown if this recordings (all written by Mike Batt) were intended for any project at that time, but Prince was most likely not involved in the original songs. More information will be added when available.
Prince ’s version of If You Were A Sailboat was posted on Batt’s Youtube channel in April 2022 with the following description:
" Prince's recording of my song "If You Were A Sailboat", which I wrote for Katie Melua, of whom Prince was a big fan. He sang three of my songs for her (The Closest Thing To Crazy, Nine Million Bicycles and this one). Before recording it he asked me if he could change "If you were a cowboy" to "If you were a gypsy" to fit the male POV better. I agreed, but when I approved the final version that he sent (as here) he snuck in "If you were a Witness" for "if you were a preacher"!!! (He was a Jehovah's Witness). I hadn't noticed that! I'm sure he wouldn't mind my posting it now, so the world can hear it. Very nice of him to ask permission to make that word change. "
Despite being posted on Youtube by the author, Prince’s version is considered as unreleased since it was not officially sanctionned by The Prince Estate.
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