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Wonderful Ass is a track recorded in early 1983 at Prince's Kiowa Trail Home Studio, Chanhassen, MN, USA. The track is a pop-funk track with synth lead lines, a drum machine beat and rhythm guitar. The track's lyrics were supposedly inspired by Vanity. One section of the song is a list of verbs rhyming with "...ate": "educate", "tolerate", "negotiate", "communicate" etc. This was likely inspired by fellow Minnesota singer-songwriter Bob Dylan's song Subterranean Homesick Blues (from Bringing It All Back Home 1965, also released as a single in 1965). It is unknown if Wonderful Ass was intended for any project at the time of recording.
Lisa Coleman and Wendy Melvoin worked on the track further, either in September 1984 or in early 1986, most likely at Sunset Sound, Hollywood, CA, USA, adding vocals and other instrumentation. Again, it is not known if this song was intended for any project at the time of additional recording.
The track was later planned for inclusion on the Prince and the Revolution album Roadhouse Garden worked on in 1998-9, but the album remains unreleased.
During Prince: A Celebration in June 2000, computer screens at Paisley Park Studios offered names of a selection of tracks which users could vote on for inclusion on Crystal Ball Volume II, and while Wonderful Ass was chosen by fans, the project was ultimately abandoned..
In 2017 Wonderful Ass was released as the seventh track on the From The Vault & Previously Unreleased disc of a Deluxe release of Purple Rain. Anachronistically incorrect this is not the 1983 Prince solo version, but the version that has the Wendy & Lisa overdubbed vocals. The accompanying credits say this song is from September 1984. This might refer to these overdubs. It is incorrect for the original recording.
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