“Let me be your baby doll…”
Quite insanely, “Baby Doll” – the song Kylie supplied lyrics for, and Prince wrote music around – has just casually washed up on the shores of the Internet, 32 years later.
She’s spoken about the lost track’s existence for years now in interviews, granting it near mythological status.
The story goes something like this: a diehard fan of The Purple One since her teenage years, Kylie finally met him backstage after his Diamonds and Pearls show at Earls Court in June of ‘92.
She somehow mustered the courage to ask Prince what he was working on at the moment, as she was in the early days of developing what would become her extremely important Kylie Minogue ‘94, which would prove Kylie’s staying power in pop beyond her sugary-sweet Stock Aitken Waterman pop days with edgier, ahead-of-their-time classics like “Confide in Me” and “Put Yourself in My Place.”
Kylie and Prince hung out after their meeting backstage, including an invitation extended from Prince to Kylie to his famed studio Paisley Park in Minneapolis. Before that, while hanging in London in a hotel room surrounded by his studio equipment, Prince put her on the spot and said “Where are your lyrics?” Gulp.
At that point in time, she hadn’t yet been writing songs. Nonetheless, she rushed home and wrote some lyrics to forward along to the legendary musician. He structured a track around it, then almost immediately had a demo turned around and delivered by a driver as a cassette sent right to Kylie’s apartment door. She stood stunned, home alone, holding the tape with Prince’s version of the song.
The cassette’s gone missing over the years. And that’s sadly where the song’s saga has always ended… for now.
In recent interviews, Kylie’s said she believes her record label wasn’t interested in the idea of him producing it all himself, so she never got to record it herself – though she’d love to now, especially after hearing the Prince Estate might have a copy. (It was also reportedly set to appear as one of the Vault tracks recorded between 1990 and 1992 on a Diamonds and Love compilation to be released by The Prince Estate in the Summer of 2022. After the project was refined to include only songs from the Diamonds And Pearls era, the songs recorded after October 1991, including “Baby Doll,” were axed.)
This is definitely the song: in 2018, she even recalled the lyrics (“Let me be your baby doll, sugar and spice and all things nice / let me be your paradise“) in an interview, which syncs with this track.
It’s unclear how or why “Baby Doll” is here at last, but…WOW. Even if it’s just a demo, the funky track feels like such a cool fit for Kylie from that time, and sounds like a hit from a parallel universe. Kylie being a Prince nerd is also evident: these lyrics are as flirty and suggestive as a Vanity 6 banger. Who knows what could have been. Or might still be!
Photo credit: Deconstruction Records / NPG Records
