Prince’s Hidden Role in Madonna’s Album 'Like a Prayer'

Uncredited brilliance from His Royal Purpleness

Prince by Ink Floyd

Welcome to the Sunday edition.

I know it’s the Lord’s Day, but instead of hitting you with a sermon I’m going to take Madonna’s advice from 1986 and say: “Papa Don’t Preach.”

That’s from the album True Blue (1986), but today I want to talk about a couple of deep cuts from her 1989 triumph, Like a Prayer.

And although I won’t be talking about the King of Kings, I will talk about a different kind of higher power and his name is Prince.

Specifically, I came to drop gospel on his contribution to one of the album’s least likely tracks.

Honestly, if I ever get access to a time machine, I’m going straight to the early ’90s so I can barely make a living wage writing punchy one-liners for MTV VJs. Apparently, I would have killed it.

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