The b-side is often a British commodity, but one American artist was the equal of any British artist with the quantity and quality of his outtakes. Prince was so prolific that he released 70 official non-album b-sides, as well as reportedly leaving vast amounts of unreleased material in the vault.
Prince has a bunch of celebrated b-sides, including ‘Erotic City’, ‘Shockadelica’, and ‘She’s Always In My Hair’. ‘Another Lonely Christmas’ came from the sessions for Purple Rain – it was credited to the Revolution, but performed solely by Prince. Prince only performed it once live, on 26 December 1984, but it was issued as the b-side as ‘I Would Die 4 U’.
‘Another Lonely Christmas’ is a melodramatic ballad, about the death of a loved one on the 25th day of Christmas. It sounds distressingly like the premise for a Hallmark movie, but Prince’s arrangement is off-kilter enough to make the song fascinating. His vocal performance is committed -despite his later assertion that the “song is a work of fiction”, there’s still some emotional resonance for Prince. If it’s not to the specific circumstances of the song (“Your father said it was pneumonia/Your mother said it was stress/But the doctor said you were dead and I/I say it’s senseless”), it’s at least a connection to the feelings of isolation from his recent rise to mega-stardom.
Another Lonely Christmas Lyrics
Last night I spent another lonely Christmas
Darling, darling, you should’ve been there
‘Cause all the ones I dream about
You are the one that makes my love shout, you see
You are the only one I care for
Remember the time we swam naked
In your father’s pool?
Boy, he was upset that night
But boy, was that ever cool
Remember the night we played Pokeno for money
And you robbed me blind
Remember how you used to scream so loud
‘Cause you hated that number nine
Hey, I saw your sister skating on the lake
This afternoon
Good heaven, how she’s grown
She swoons the boy skaters she’s so tall
But of all your father’s children
All your father’s children, baby, you know
You are the finest of them all
You are brighter than the northern star and I
Last night I spent another lonely Christmas
Darling, darling, you, you should’ve been there
You see, of all the ones I dream about
You are the one that makes my love shout
You see, you are the only one I care for, yeah
My momma used to say “always trust your lover”
Well, now I guess that only applies to her
‘Cause baby, you promised me
Baby you promised me you’d never leave
Then you died on the twenty-fifth day of December
Oh, baby
Last night I spent another lonely, lonely Christmas
Darling, baby, you, you should’ve been there, now
‘Cause all the ones I dream about
You are the one that makes my love shout, you see
You are the only one I care for
Your father said it was pneumonia
Your mother said it was stress
But the doctor said you were dead and I
I say it’s senseless
Every Christmas night for seven years now
I drink banana daquaris ’til I’m blind
As long as I can hear you smilin’ baby
You won’t hear my tears
Another lonely Christmas is mine
Yeah, mine
Yeah
Another lonely Christmas is mine
Last night, yeah, I spent another lonely, lonely Christmas
Darling, darling, you should’ve been there, yeah
‘Cause all the ones I dream about
You are the one that makes my love shout, you see
You are the only one I care for
Another-other, hee, hee
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He had a way of making songs sound epic. This story is a little “soap opera-ish”… with him though it does work. I never heard this one before…
Definitely soap-operaish! There’s a bonus disc of b-sides that came with his 1993 Hits compilations, and there’s a lot of great stuff on there.
When it comes to Prince, I’ve always had conflicting sentiments. On the one hand I acknowledge he was an ingenious artist and a great guitarist; on the other hand, I never really got much into his music, though I do like “Purple Rain” and some of his other better known tunes.
This song is pretty haunting. Hard to believe it’s entirety fictional!
Thanks for listening! I find him a little frustrating sometimes – definitely has a propensity for provocative lyrics that can be distracting. My favourite Prince tune is ‘I Wanna Be Your Lover’ from 1979.
Actually, I know and like that tune as well. It’s got a nice funky groove!
Totally agree. He was a great composer and a talented guitarrist, but his music was too much funky pop.
An argument could be made for Purple Rain as the finest soundtrack ever (though it would be #1 for sure if the Morris Day & The Time tracks were included!) – this one’s new to me. Well said about how prolific he was, and the quality often kept up with the quantity
I’ve been listening to a Niger artist named Mdou Moctar lately. He starred in a movie named “Rain the Color of Blue with a Little Red In It”.
Very cool that you have included the full lyrics. Always wondered what he was screaming about…
It’s definitely creative. I’d never picked up the lines about daiquiris before.
I’ve never heard this one before… pretty good, but banana daquaris? Such a random way to drown his sorrow, eh?
I imagine he’s go for something a little effeminate in the way of drinks…
Such an odd choice, though… I could have understood a peach schnapps.
Sure, that would work, but maybe it doesn’t scan as well?
New Book: ‘Prince -King of B-sides’
Manifesting as an ‘MTV Ready’ generational icon, before MTV was even a thing; his name was Prince, aka ‘The Purple Yoda from the heart of Minnesota.’
Unlike anyone else before or since, Prince defied the pigeonholes of musical categorisation common within the music industry, and through a combination of his innate talent, hard graft, imagination, business sense and personal artistic bravery, did things his way throughout his career.
Many acts dream of creating an album that’s ‘all killer and no filler’, Prince did this repeatedly and he did so with songs to spare. These spare songs invariably ended up either gifted to other artists, collecting dust in his vault or were shared with us, as B-sides. Far from mere throwaways, Prince’s B-sides were akin to what we now call Easter eggs on DVDs and computer games and depending upon the choice of A-side they resided on, sometimes the ‘B’ of B-side really should have stood for ‘best’ side.
His songs tackled love, sex, lust, religion and society with unflinching honesty and equal abandon, challenging racial divides, and redefined masculinity through his flamboyant persona and lyrics. He had song titles that could have been Bond Girl names to rival Pussy Galore. He wrote songs about the sort of girls you didn’t take home to mother. Songs about the sort of girls your mother warned you about and songs about the sort of girls you wanted to meet. Songs with stories to tell…
Available in digital and paperback formats:
Amazon US: https://a.co/d/hhwaLoS
Amazon UK: https://amzn.eu/d/0lCJyXO