Manic Monday
Prince wrote this song under the name "Christopher" (the name of his character in his movie Under the Cherry Moon).Prince first recorded this song with Apollonia 6. It became the Bangles first hit. The purple one discovered the Bangles after coming across the video for one of their early singles, "Hero Takes a Fall," on MTV. He showed up at a Bangles gig in Los Angeles, then joined them onstage at The Fillmore, where he played on their song "Hero."
Prince put together a very special mixtape for the group - one with two original songs he had written and wanted them to record. In our interview with Bangles lead singer Susanna Hoffs, she explained: "I went and picked up a cassette. It had two songs on it and one of them was 'Manic Monday.' The other was called 'Jealous Girl.' I have to look up that cassette. I know I have it. It's in a box somewhere. The demo just had a girl singing it. I think he was offering us the track so we'd sing it the same way. But we wanted to do the whole thing from the ground up."
The Bangles recorded "Manic Monday" with the appropriate trepidation that comes with a song written by a superstar. Hoffs recalls: "I remember going in and singing that song and being on the mike and it was kind of like red light fever. I knew it was a Prince song and I wanted to do a great job on it. I remember the producer was really excited; you pick up on those vibes and it's just the best feeling in the world. Recording is so psychological, there's so much pressure, because there's a lot at stake and you want to make sure you do your very best to get it captured on tape. It was taped back then. We didn't have ProTools, so you were always in danger of destroying something that was good already. Prince came to our rehearsal after the record was done, and he was really thrilled with how it came out. I think he might have said something like, , 'Oh, I was surprised you guys didn't use my track,' or something. But he was very happy with it."
The Bangles Manic Monday 1986
Unreleased original demo version of Manic Monday by Apollonia 6 in 1984
