The Prince

Complete Madness, 1982

Lee says…
Being as time is at the moment on my side and the sun is beaming down on this cold Monday, midday outside Alley Palley, echoes of “Wandering Star”, “Young, Gifted and Black”, Saturday morning skaters in stomping rhythm to “Liquidator” and many other tunes…
Anyway! near on one decade later I found myself writing a ‘right gem’, which was to be released in Sept. ’79 on 2 Tone (an old pal’s label). A tribute to yours and mine, ruler of Blue Beat, F.A.B. & Dice recordings, for those of you who have just walked in I’m talking about P.B. Mr. Rude Man himself! “The Prince” was wrote over a cup of tea and dunkies late one evening ’round Carl’s.
I’ll get to the point, I’ve waffled on for the past 150 or so words. The moment I heard there was a Mod revival in the pipe line I splashed out on some 45’s and a bike, ripped a few chords & Lyrics, jumped on the back of the train, and have hung on ever since.

One Step Beyond, 2023 CD reissue

Mike: When Jerry Dammers was starting 2 Tone and asked us to record our first single for the label, he asked us what tracks we had. We’d recorded those demos with Clive at Pathway: ‘Madness’, ‘My Girl’ – with me singing – and ‘The Prince’. ‘The Prince’ sounded brilliant – it was the best of the lot, and it just fit with 2 Tone’s vibe, because it was very reggae-sounding. Those early recordings were only supposed to be demos, but ‘The Prince’ sounded like it didn’t need anything else doing to it, so it became the first single.
Bedders: There was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing over whether we should actually put ‘The Prince’ on the album, because we’d already released it as a single on 2 Tone. It was going to be difficult to License it from Chrysalis, so we couldn’t use the 2 Tone version. But Dave Robinson insisted we put it on the album, so we re-recorded it.
Woody: I still think the original version of ‘The Prince’ at Pathway is the best. The one on the album is a bit clinical. But it would have been weird to drop in those original Pathway recordings halfway through the album, alongside the new tracks we’d just recorded – it just wouldn’t have sounded right. And it would have been weird not to have ‘The Prince’ on the album at all
Chris: When people ask me, “What’s your favourite Madness song?”, I think it’s this one. And again, like I said about Mike, when I first heard it I thought, “Oh, okay, Lee can write all the songs.” It was a bit derivative of Prince Buster – in fact, Lee copied the sax solo off some old Prince Buster song, ‘Texas Hold-Up’. But this was the song that really got us going. I remember walking down the street shortly after it came out, and hearing it playing on the transistor radio of some blokes working on a building site, and I thought, “This is it. We’ve made it.” I was quite an underachiever.

The original recording first appeared on ‘The Prince’ 7″ (2 Tone)

The song was re-recorded for the ‘One Step Beyond…’ LP (Stiff)

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‘ON STAGE 2’ – SECC Hall 4, Glasgow 12 Dec 2006

‘ON STAGE 3’ – MEN Arena, Manchester 13 Dec 2006

‘ON STAGE 4’ – Telewest Arena, Newcastle 14 Dec 2006

‘ON STAGE 5’ – NEC, Birmingham 16 Dec 2006

‘ON STAGE 6’ – BIC, Bournemouth 17 Dec 2006

‘ON STAGE 7’ – Brighton Centre, Brighton 19 Dec 2006

‘ON STAGE 8’ – Wembley Arena, London 20 Dec 2006

‘LIVE AT THE ASTORIA 3.12.07’ – Astoria, London 3 Dec 2007

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‘HACKNEY EMPIRE 25’ – Hackney Empire, London 25 Jun 2008

‘HACKNEY EMPIRE 26’ – Hackney Empire, London 26 Jun 2008

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