You’ll Never Guess Who Gave ‘Manic Monday’ To The Bangles

Once in awhile, you learn a piece of rock trivia that just blows your mind, and this one certainly qualifies!

The lead guitarist of The Bangles, Vicki Peterson, recently talked with Guitar World, and mentioned that none other than Prince himself was a big fan of the band!

“He would come to our shows and sit in,” Peterson said. “We’d get a note from the tour manager, ‘Prince is here and would love to play with you.’ It was like, ‘What? Here, take my guitar, please!’”

Peterson said Prince loved their 1984 debut album All Over the Place, and especially liked the song “Hero Takes a Fall.”

In fact, he liked The Bangles so much, he sent over a couple of demos for them to consider. One of them was “Manic Monday.”

“It was very well mapped out,” Peterson told the magazine. Prince had intended for the band to just add their vocals over his tracks. “Normally, people were happy to take his tracks, because he’s Prince. But we wanted to do the song our own way.” Peterson explained.

So the band reworked the song, adding their own instrumentation and vocals.

Prince approved of the new version, according to Peterson. “Luckily, Prince liked what we did,” she said. “He came to a rehearsal, listened, gave us the thumbs up and walked out. All in his enigmatic style.”

“Manic Monday” ended up hitting No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.

What was No. 1?

Prince’s song “Kiss!”