One year ago today, Prince passed away at the age of 57.
It's incredibly sad, unspeakably so, that it took Prince passing away for a song like "Moonbeam Levels" to finally see the light of day on an official release, appearing on the recently-issued two-disc Prince 4Ever collection.
The song itself was written and recorded in 1982 for Prince's 1999 and then promptly dropped from the track listing at the eleventh hour. According to longtime Prince recording engineer Susan Rogers, the song was also considered for Purple Rain and Around The World In A Day, but, both times, Prince would ultimately remove the song prior to final mixdown and mastering.
The song would resurface yet again; this time while compiling songs for the never-released Rave Unto The Joy Fantastic album (not to be confused with the commercially-released Rave Un2 The Joy Fantastic, which came out in 1999).
The song itself has all the earmarks of the period (1982-1983) and one can almost imagine hearing the song blasting out of car radios during the summer, like any number of other Prince favorites, but you can also hear why Prince kept kicking it to the curb: there just seems to be a lack of momentum in the entire proceeding
Ultimately, though, the song never saw release during Prince's lifetime. As to why, one can only surmise, but the song itself does share some melodic similarities to "Darling Nikki" from Purple Rain.