Song · Prince
“When You Were Mine” by Prince
From the album Dirty Mind (1980)
“When You Were Mine” by Prince appears on 4 radio countdowns from 4 stations between 2018 and 2023. It was first released in 1980 on the album Dirty Mind. Its best result is #108 on The Current's 893 Essential Songs. In the combined RockLists rankings it is #2,434 indie & aaa song of all time and #305 of the '80s.
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"When You Were Mine" comes from Prince's 1980 album Dirty Mind, and it's a one-man show: he wrote it, arranged it, produced and engineered it, sang lead and played everything on the credits, from bass, drums and electric guitar to synthesizer. The secret weapon is a cheap-and-cheerful organ sound in the Farfisa mold, actually coaxed out of an Oberheim OB-X, which gives the song a garage-band bounce under its synth-pop sheen.
It never got a proper single release, only a promotional 12-inch alongside "Gotta Broken Heart Again" and "Uptown", and it turned up again as the flip side of "Controversy" in 1981. The studio take later landed on The Hits/The B-Sides in 1993, and a live version on One Nite Alone... Live! in 2002.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Indie & Adult Alternative
All Rock Formats
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 108 | The Current | The Current's 893 Essential Songs | 892 |
| 2020 | 1561 | WXPN | WXPN 2020 Greatest Songs of All Time | 2020 |
| 2021 | 391 | 90.9 The Bridge | 90.9 The Bridge Top 909 Songs of the '80s | 909 |
| 2023 | 275 | The Colorado Sound | The Colorado Sound Top 850 Songs of the 1980s | 850 |
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