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In A Large Room With No Light (a.k.a. Life Is Like Looking For A Penny In A Large Room With No Light, listed as ‘N.A. Large Room’ in the initial tracking session) was first available as an audio stream on the Montreux Jazz Festival website on 15 July 2009 in conjunction with Prince’s two shows at the festival three days later. While the recording was new, the track itself was 23 years old. In September 2020, Prince’s original version was released as the eighteenth and final track of Vault Tracks part 1, one of the discs with previously unreleased tracks included with the Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition.
Basic tracking for the original version were recorded on 4 May 1986 at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, California, and was recorded with members of the Revolution and Sheila E.’s band. Eric Leeds confirmed in an interview with The Last Miles that the full title of the track was originally Life Is Like Looking For A Penny In A Large Room With No Light. The track was initially included as the tenth track on the first disc of the 3 June 1986 configuration of the Dream Factory album (and hence would have been credited to Prince and the Revolution), but was removed for the 18 July 1986 configuration.
UK radio station Jazz FM premiered the 2009 version, stating that it had been finished only two days prior to the premiere (on 14 July 2009), and it is assumed that this recording took place at Paisley Park Studios in Chanhassen, Minnesota, but this is not confirmed.
The track’s first live performance took place on 29 March 2009, am, almost 23 years after its initial recording.
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