Darling Nikki

Lore & Background

The song tells the story of a "sex fiend" named Nikki who seduces the singer. In the film Purple Rain, for which the album serves as the soundtrack, the song is directed toward Apollonia Kotero's character when she decides to work with Prince's character's rival (played by Morris Day). Compared with the slick production of the other songs on the album, "Darling Nikki" was deliberately engineered to have a raw and live feel. Near the end of the song, the music stops into the sound of rain and wind. There is singing, but it is played in reverse. Played forward, the vocals are Prince singing. During the Purple Rain Tour performances of "Darling Nikki", the recording at the end was played forward. This can be heard in the 1985 live video Prince and the Revolution: Live.

In Their Own Story

The club was packed, the kind of packed where the air smells like spilled beer and expensive perfume. The house lights dimmed to a deep violet, and the bass thumped through the floorboards before a single note of guitar broke the silence. Then the voice—low, unhurried, almost conspiratorial—cut through the haze like a blade through silk. The front row went electric. Someone in the back row, a teenager in a borrowed leather jacket, felt the groove in her sternum and understood, for the first time, that music could be an act of permission. The band locked in, the crowd swayed as one body, and for two minutes and thirty seconds the room belonged to no one but the man in the sequined shirt who was looking right at her, smiling like he knew a secret she was about to learn.

Reader's Guide

Credits sourced from Duane Tudahl, Benoît Clerc, and Guitarcloud: Prince – lead and backing vocals, Oberheim OB-8, Oberheim OB-Xa, electric guitars, bass guitar, drums, Linn LM-1, Simmons SDSV.

Did You Know?

• Tipper Gore reportedly co-founded the Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) in 1985 because she witnessed her daughter Karenna, who was 11 years old at the time, listening to "Darling Nikki".
• The PMRC published a list of 15 popular "filthy" songs, with "Darling Nikki" first, and later became known for leading to the use of the Parental Advisory sticker on album covers.