“Moonbeam Levels” by Prince

Prince cut "Moonbeam Levels" in 1982, in the final stretch of sessions for his album 1999, and then left it off. It went into the vault, came back out in 1983 when he shortened the ending and may have weighed it for Purple Rain, and went back in. Susan Rogers, his engineer, counted it among her favorites and kept seeing it slotted into running orders for several of his albums, only for him to pull it every time. It finally surfaced on the album 4Ever as the first Prince track officially released after his death.

The credits list nobody else: Prince sings lead and backing vocals and plays electric guitar, electric bass, piano, synthesizer, drum machine and electronic drums. It's a rock song carrying heavy freight, death and nuclear war among its subjects, which makes that dreamy title feel like sleight of hand.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.