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The Stick is the sixth and final track on The Time’s first album The Time, and, in late 1981, it was included as the b-side of Girl, the album’s third and final single. The song was written by Lisa Coleman, although the Library Of Congress lists the song as being written by Prince, so both are given credit here, although the album does not contain any writing credits.
While specific recording dates are not known, basic tracking took place in April 1981 at Prince’s Kiowa Trail Home Studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota (along with the rest of the album). As with much of the rest of the album, the recording mostly features only Prince and Morris Day, although Dr. Fink provides a synth solo, and Terry Lewis and Lisa Coleman appears on background vocals.
Lisa Coleman commented on its origin in a July 2024 post on Facebook: One day at Kiowa Trail [...] Prince came up to me with a piece of paper that had a couple lines of lyrics on it. Something about being ‘smooth like my Cadillac’ or something like that. And he said, “Can you write some lyrics to go with this and in the same rhythm”, like whatever meter he was hearing in his head. I know it was in his head because I read the lyrics and had no idea what the rhythm was supposed to be. [...] So I started writing and I came up with my own rhythm. I wrote this one line, “You’re so automatic, I’d rather work my stick.” And with that hook in mind, there’s your song! He wrote the rest that day. We worked in his basement studio.
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