When Prince released the Controversy album 40 years ago, " Do Me, Baby" was an undeniable standout. But the song had a long history prior to the album's release on October 14, 1981.

To mark the album's 40th anniversary, The Prince Estate and Warner Records have unveiled a 1979 demo of the song that shows it evolved quite a bit over the years.

From a press release:

A demo featuring Prince and his best friend and creative collaborator André Cymone was initially recorded in 1978. Then a year later, Prince fully reimagined the track as a solo recording during the April 1979 recording sessions for Prince at Alpha Studios in North Hollywood, CA, with overdubs added in the same period at Hollywood Sound Records in Hollywood, CA.

From that 2" multitrack master tape, a cassette rough mix – recently discovered in Prince’s legendary vault and labeled in the artist’s own handwriting – was rendered but ultimately shelved. This special release of “Do Me, Baby (Demo)” has been newly mixed to match the original demo cassette specs by Prince’s GRAMMY-nominated engineer Chris James, and mastered by Prince’s longtime collaborator and multiple GRAMMY-winning engineer Bernie Grundman.

The history of the track has a bit of controversy, too. In an interview with the Quietus in 2018, Cymone said he created it first, "That song was musically something that I'd written. Oddly enough, I'd written it for my girlfriend of the time. It wasn't called 'Do Me, Baby' but some of the lines were the same, and the music was the same."

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Now, the song is newly available both as a special replica cassette (only 1,981 copies produced) that mimics the look of the source audio in Prince's vault, and a 7-inch etched purple vinyl single featuring Prince's hand-written lyrics.

Check it out here: