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The Cocoa Boys (initially listed as The Coco Boys) is a track recorded by Prince alone on 14 September 1986 at his Galpin Blvd Home Studio in Chanhassen, Minnesota. Overdubs, including background vocals, horns and a bed of looped audiences, presumed to be from the 25 August 1986 show at Le Zénith, Paris, France, where It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night was recorded, were added at a later session.
Along with When The Dawn Of The Morning Comes and Crucial, the song was written specifically for the planned musical The Dawn. Other songs recorded earlier (Heaven, God Is Everywhere, Others Here With Us and All My Dreams) were also considered for the film, but the project was ultimately abandoned, and the song was never intended for any of Prince’s many late-1986 album projects.
The song also has the lines ‘All the boys and all the girls, you are the new kings of the world’, later reused in Positivity, as well as a chant of ‘We are beautiful, it’s gonna be beautiful night’ from It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night.
The Cocoa Boys was the name of a band of fictional brothers Joey and Frankie Coco, included as characters in the musical. The Cocoa in the band name is supposedly a play on words in the fictional story of the song. While the band names changed, the idea of rival bands was reused in the initial 1987 draft of the Graffiti Bridge movie.
In September 2020 the song was released as the eleventh track of Vault Tracks part 2, one of the discs with previously unreleased tracks included with the Sign O’ The Times Super Deluxe Edition.
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Recording Information
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Recording Sessions
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| Date
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Studio
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Additional info
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| 25 August 1986
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Le Zénith,
Paris, France
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looped ‘audience ambiance’ of main show (assumed)
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| 14 September 1986
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Galpin Blvd Home Studio,
Chanhassen, MN, USA
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Tracking (Version 1; live drums), overdubs unfinished
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| 14 September 1986
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Galpin Blvd Home Studio,
Chanhassen, MN, USA
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Tracking (Version 2; Linn drums) overdubs, mix)
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| 14 September 1986
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Galpin Blvd Home Studio,
Chanhassen, MN, USA
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Overdubs, including horn, mix
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| 22 November 1986
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Sunset Sound - Studio 3,
Hollywood, CA, USA
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Overdubs
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Recording Personnel
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Versions
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Released Versions
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Unreleased Versions
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| Title
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Version
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Additional Info
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| The Cocoa Boys
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Studio
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unfinished live drums version.
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| The Cocoa Boys
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Studio
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Version before background vocals, horns and other overdubs
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Additional Information
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See also
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Trivia
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- The intro of The Cocoa Boys opens with the same Sequential Circuits Prophet VS, FILMUSIC (patch 69) preset synth opening heard in U Got The Look, Make Your Mama Happy, Eight and Nine.
- The pseudonym Joey Coco was used by Prince as the writer of of at least eight songs for other artists: 101, Baby Go-Go, Cool Love, Neon Telephone), Telepathy and You’re My Love, with Jill Jones' My Man and Violet Blue listed as Prince compositions on her album, but registered to Joey Coco at the Library of Congress.
- It is unclear why the character in the song and planned musical The Dawn was Joey Cocoa but used as a writing synonym as Joey Coco.
- It has long been alleged that the song was played as an instrumental jam during a soundcheck session on 25 August 1986 at Le Zénith, Paris, France, hours before the Parade Tour show (along with recordings of Susannah’s Blues, Strange Relationship, Last Heart, a cover version of The Temptations’ I Can’t Get Next To You and a first run-through of It’s Gonna Be A Beautiful Night, which was then recorded live at the show), but this is now considered to have been misinformation.
- The lyrics refer to three different dances that Prince (often together with other band members) would sometimes incorporate in live shows during 1986-7: the 'Detroit Crawl', the 'Wooden Leg' and the 'Kangaroo'.
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References
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