“When Doves Cry” by Prince

"When Doves Cry" was the lead single from Purple Rain, Prince's sixth album, in 1984, and it exists because director Albert Magnoli needed a song for one stretch of the film: the Kid caught between his warring parents and his romance with Apollonia. Prince came back the next morning with two songs, and this was one. His biographer Per Nilsen traces it to his relationship with Susan Moonsie of Vanity 6.

He wrote, arranged, produced and played it himself, electric guitar, drum machine and synthesizer, and it's a starkly strange record for a pop smash, all tension and hard angles, his voice pleading over a beat that offers no comfort. It gave him his first number one on the Hot 100, and Billboard named it the top-selling single of 1984. His own video, doves and bathtub included, made network executives nervous.

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