Hear Prince’s Previously Unreleased 1979 Version Of “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man”

Hear Prince’s Previously Unreleased 1979 Version Of “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man”

Prince’s 1987 opus Sign O’ The Times is getting the deluxe reissue treatment as his estate continues to clear out the Paisley Park vault. The reissue adds 45 previously unreleased tracks to the original 16-song album, including the new version of “Witness 4 The Prosecution” we heard last month. Now another one of those excavated tracks has gone live.

This time it’s an extremely early version of “I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man.” It’s the oldest recording in this package, tracked at Hollywood Sound Recorders, Studio A on May 23, 1979, during sessions for Prince’s self-titled sophomore LP. According to a press release, “The track was retrieved from the vault in June 1986 and re-recorded, with Prince adding a solo and updating the sound, and that new version was given a prominent place on the unreleased Dream Factory and Crystal Ball collections before finally being released on Sign O’ The Times.”

You can definitely hear a difference! Could this ever take the place of the canonical album track? Hear both versions below and let us know if it’s qualified.

The Sign O’ The Times reissue is out 9/25. Pre-order it here.

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