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Witness 4 The Prosecution is a track initially recorded on 14 March 1986 at Prince’s Galpin Blvd Home Studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Further recording was done by Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman, Susannah Melvoin and Eric Leeds on 15 April 1986 at Prince’s Galpin Blvd Home Studio while Prince was en route returning from France shooting additional scenes for Under The Cherry Moon.
While the track was not included on a late April 1986 configuration of the Dream Factory album, it was included as the 17th track (15th song) on the 3 June 1986 configuration, and as the sixteenth track on the 18 July 1986 configuration.
Prince re-recorded the track completely on 6 October 1986 at Sunset Sound in Hollywood, California on the day before the official disbanding the Revolution. This re-recording was done with the intention to offer it to Deborah Allen, who would instead ultimately record and release Prince’s Telepathy (recorded by Prince on 7 October 1986).
A cassette containing the song (along with Chocolate and Movie Star) was given to Miles Davis in March 1987. Davis included Movie Star in his live repertoire, but he did nothing in the studio with these songs.
In late 1998 / 1999, the track was intended for inclusion on the Roadhouse Garden album of Prince and the Revolution-era tracks (indicating that it would have been the 15 April 1986 version of the song), but this album remains unreleased.
In September 2020, the original version as well as the re-recording version were released with previously unreleased tracks included with the Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition (as the ninth track of Vault Tracks part 1 and the thirteenth track of Vault Tracks part 2 respectively). Witness 4 The Prosecution (Version 1) was released on streaming platforms on 25 June 2020, while Version 2 was released on 13 August 2020. Both versions were included on as the a- and b-side of the 7th single on Sign O’ The Times - The Singles in 2020.
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