Songfacts®:

• It's far from his most lascivious song, but this early Prince track finds him letting a girl know that when he sees her, his thoughts turn dirty. It's not the most sophisticated pickup line, but it certainly makes the intention clear. A few years later, Dexys Midnight Runners scored a huge hit with "Come On Eileen," a song where lead singer Kevin Rowland reveals his dirty thoughts.
• The keyboard riff in this song was created by The Revolution's "Doctor Fink." He was the first band member to receive a songwriting credit on a Prince song.
• "Dirty Mind" is the title track to Prince's third album, and also its second single, following "Uptown." After making inroads in the world of pop music with his previous (self-titled) album, which includes the radio-friendly hit "I Wanna Be Your Lover," Prince put out an album so racy, promotional copies sent to radio stations warned program directors to audition the songs before putting them on the air. It's the kind of album record companies send back when an artist delivers it, but Prince had a special deal with his label, Warner Bros., giving him total freedom, so they had to issue whatever he devised.
  
  Predictably, the album didn't push his pop fortunes forward, and neither did his next one, Controversy. After that, Prince tightened up his songs and toned down the sex so he could expand his reach. It worked. Starting with his fifth album, 1999, he had a run of hits that made him one of the biggest stars of the '80s.
• MTV wasn't on the air yet, but unlike most American artists, Prince still made videos for some of his songs, including "Dirty Mind." Like most of his videos from this time, it's pretty basic, showing Prince and his band performing the song on stage. It's his last video to feature his bass player, Andre Cymone, who left to start a solo career in 1981. Cymone's debut song, "The Dance Electric," was written by Prince and became a hit on the R&B charts.
  
  When MTV did go on the air in 1981, they didn't play Black artists, but by 1984 Prince was in heavy rotation with songs like "Little Red Corvette" and "When Doves Cry."
• This song was featured on the soundtrack to Cameron Crowe's 1984 comedy The Wild Life.