Screwdriver was released on the stand-alone single Screwdriver in early 2013. It was premiered two weeks earlier as an audio stream on Minnesota public radio station 89.3 The Current's website, and as a lyric video stream on Prince's official website 20pr1nc3.com. At the time of initial release it was unclear if this song was intended to be included on an album.
The first public mention of the song was on 17 December, 2012, when a 0:30 video rehearsal clip of the song was streamed on drummer Hannah Ford's Facebook page with the message: A Taste of Rehearsal.
Interestingly Hannah Ford is not actually the drummer on the studio version of the song. That is John Blackwell.
The video included new guitarist Donna Grantis, and ended with a text screen stating:"2 C the rest of Donna's audition holla at ya girl! We've got bootlegs 4 daazzzzzze every good thing in the vault... Coming 2013". A 29-second clip of the studio version of the song followed the same day on YouTube, with an image showing lyrics from the song, again with the text "Coming 2013", but this was removed within a few hours of its posting.
On 16 January, 2013, a 1:11 audio video rehearsal clip of the song was streamed on 3rd Eye Girl YouTube channel with the message: Prince just played for the new/screw at Fox 9.
On 5 February, 2013, a 6:44 remix of the song was made available for download on 3rdEyeGirl.com website.
On 8 February, 2013, a 1:08 commercial for a live version of the song to be released on February 10, 2013 was streamed on 3rd Eye Girl YouTube channel. The same video was also streamed on Prince's new website prince2013.com.
On 10 February, 2013, just after presenting Record Of The Year to Gotye at 55th Grammy Awards, a 9:08 live video of the song was released simultaneously on prince2013.com and 3rdeyegirl.com.
The track is assumed to have been recorded in late 2012 at Paisley Park Studios, Chanhassen, MN, USA, and is the first Prince-related studio recording to be available featuring guitarist Donna Grantis.
In December 2015 the song appeared as ninth track on the album Hitnrun Phase Two.
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