Was Prince's 'Little Red Corvette' a '64 Mercury Montclair?
- edgarstreetbooks
- 5 days ago
- 2 min read
‘100 Greatest Soul Songs’ Book Excerpt
Frank Mastropolo
“Little Red Corvette” became Prince’s first song to crack the Top 10 pop chart at No. 6 in 1983. It reached No. 28 hit on the R&B chart. The song uses car metaphors to describe a one-night stand with a woman. Dez Dickerson and Lisa Coleman performed backing vocals.
Coleman told the BBC that Prince was inspired to write “Little Red Corvette” after a night with then-girlfriend Vanity (Denise Matthews) spent in Coleman’s Mercury Montclair.
“Prince was always borrowing my car because it was awesome,” said Coleman. “It was a ‘64 Mercury Montclair, pink and white, and it was just the perfect cruise-mobile on a beautiful day in Minneapolis.
“He actually put a couple of dents in it because it was so big. He’d come up to me and mumble, ‘Hey Lisa, sorry about your car.’ So I’d run out to inspect the damage, and there’d be a little dent with some yellow paint from a pole he’d reversed into, and I’d go, ‘Damn it. Watch where you’re going!’
“He was ‘sleeping’ with someone we knew called Denise Matthews, and she was ‘sleeping’ in the back of the car, too. I even found some of her hair wrapped around the handle that winds the window down.
“So I imagine they were making out, or doing whatever, in the back seat, and they probably had a wonderful moment of afterglow, which is when he got the seed of the idea. But it’s not a red Corvette, it’s a pink Mercury!”
Frank Mastropolo is the author of 100 Greatest Soul Songs: The Stories Behind Soul and R&B Music’s Biggest Hits, part of the Greatest Performances series. For more on our latest projects, visit Edgar Street Books.
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