6 Songs You Didn't Know Prince Wrote For Other Famous Musicians

Simply put, there has never been — and there likely never will be — a musician like Prince. The Minneapolis-raised icon was a brilliant singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist who deftly mixed pop, rock, and R&B to create some of the most timeless hits of the 20th century. From his debut in 1978 (released just months before he turned 20) until his tragic passing in 2016, hardly a year went by without some sort of studio or live release from His Royal Badness gracing record store shelves.

Incredibly, that prolific output wasn't limited to just his own records. For every hit Prince kept for himself, there were countless others he gave away, recorded by friends and bandmates like the Time and Sheila E. and hitmakers like the Bangles, who parked the Prince-penned "Manic Monday" right behind his own "Kiss" at the top of the charts in 1986. Here are six Prince tunes — some obvious, a few obscure — recorded by a wave of talented artists you might not have known had any shades of purple in their discography.

While perhaps not a household name, André Cymone is a familiar presence to anyone caught up on Prince's origins in Minneapolis. Cymone was born just 20 days after Prince, and the pair grew up together in Minneapolis and became fast friends. Prince even lived with Cymone's family as a teenager, due to a rocky relationship with his own father. After years of playing in local bands together, Cymone became Prince's first live bassist until he scored a record deal of his own. 

Cymone's biggest hit as a solo artist was "The Dance Electric," a funky number Prince wrote not long after releasing his blockbuster "Purple Rain" film and album. In traditional fashion, Prince played nearly all the instruments on the final track, with Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman of his band, the Revolution, singing backup. Cymone moved to behind-the-scenes roles as the '80s wore on, co-writing and producing songs like Jody Watley's "Looking for a New Love" and Adam Ant's "Room at the Top."

At the height of his fame, Prince was no stranger to controversy, pushing boundaries with his often sensual appearance and lyrical content. Things reached a fever pitch in 1985, when the Parents Music Resource Center put the record business on blast, spurring the government to nearly declare war on rock music. The PMRC's worst offenders were rounded up in the "Filthy Fifteen," a list of raunchy tunes that inadvertently helped inspire the eventual use of the Parental Advisory sticker on albums.

Prince's "Purple Rain" album cut "Darling Nikki" topped the Filthy Fifteen, but another song he wrote came in just below it. Though credited to "Alexander Nevermind," "Sugar Walls," the brazen dance-pop cut by Scottish singer Sheena Easton, was another Prince-penned and produced masterpiece. Easton returned the favor three years later, duetting with him on "U Got the Look," off the critically-acclaimed double album "Sign O' the Times."

Look through the credits of Kenny Rogers' 1986 album "They Don't Make Them Like They Used To," and you'll find another Prince composition written under a false name — this time credited to "Joey Coco." "You're My Love" is a most unexpected foray from the Purple One into country territory. And to hear the story from the beloved, bearded Texan himself (no stranger to R&B crossovers thanks to a No. 1 hit written by Lionel Richie), all he had to do to get a song from Prince was ask.

"Back in the '80s, I had contacted [Prince] through a mutual friend to ask if he would write me a song ... and he did," Rogers recalled on Facebook in 2021 (as reported by Rolling Stone). Rogers' only disappointment was that, unlike many of the hits Prince wrote for others, this one was entirely re-recorded as a slick pop-country number, removing Prince's instrumental and vocal contributions entirely (but adding backing vocals from R&B hitmaker El DeBarge). The demo Rogers received from Prince was released on the album "Originals" in 2019.

While this might be the most famous song Prince didn't originally record on the list — Irish rocker Sinéad O'Connor took the track to No. 1 in America for four straight weeks — "Nothing Compares 2 U" has its own considerable history. You might not even know the group that recorded it first. That honor goes to the Family, a group Prince put together after his "Purple Rain" co-stars the Time broke up.

"Family" is, unfortunately, a rather inaccurate term to describe Prince and O'Connor's relationship. Though O'Connor was profoundly moved by "Nothing Compares 2 U" — famously shedding a tear in the close-up music video to her version — she later described difficulties with Prince, culminating in an incident involving a pillow fight that turned violent. "It certainly didn't change my opinion of him as an artist, which was the only opinion I could have had," O'Connor later told People. "But having said that, though, I won't lie. I didn't like the man."

A much happier collaborator with Prince was Martika, the pop star best known for the 1989 No. 1 hit single "Toy Soldiers." (Ironically, that song was replaced at the top of the Billboard charts by Prince's own "Batdance," from the soundtrack to that year's hit comic book film "Batman.") For her second album, "Martika's Kitchen," Prince served as one of the head chefs, earning writing and production credits on four of the album's tracks.

Lead single "Love ... Thy Will Be Done" was, according to the singer, a product of divine inspiration. "One night, I was sitting in my room and about to say some prayers," she told Number One magazine (as reprinted in the liner notes for "Toy Soldiers: The Best of Martika"). "I thought I needed my own prayer. I wrote one of my own and turned it into a song." With Prince guiding the music into an intimate, rhythmic track, "Love" was truly heaven sent, becoming a Billboard Top 10 hit in 1991.

Prince truly had an ear for female pop stars in the early '90s. Canadian singer Celine Dion released a self-titled album in 1992 (her second to be recorded in English instead of her native French). In addition to Dion's duet with Peabo Bryson on the Oscar-winning title theme to Disney's "Beauty and the Beast" and the Top 5 ballad "If You Asked Me To," the album featured "With This Tear," a gentle, lovelorn tune whose liner notes didn't hide Prince's writing credit.

Like many gifted a song by Prince, Dion has remained grateful for the opportunity to record it. In the liner notes to "Celine Dion," she dubbed "With This Tear" "one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard and felt." In 2026, when Prince's estate released his own vocal version ahead of the posthumous collection "Timeless," Dion echoed her previous praise. "'With This Tear' was a gift from Prince that I will always treasure," she wrote in an Instagram story (reported by Musicradar). "To now hear his version, shared for the very first time, feels truly special."