"If I Was Your Girlfriend"

In 1987, Prince crossed a bridge that few others had when he released “If I Was Your Girlfriend” because it defies cultural concepts of gender.  Steve Huey writes that Prince’s song is, “a playful yet profound attempt to bridge gender differences.”  Because of this clashing of genders, it did not become a big hit in the United States. On the same album, Sign ‘O’ The Times, there were three songs among the top 50 charts, but “If I Was Your Girlfriend” was not one of them.   Prince’s inspiration, its lyrics, and its history are all key to how one of the most important and most interesting androgynous songs of all time came to be.