During the early sessions for what would eventually become ''Sign o' the Times'', Prince and
Susannah Melvoin would often tell each other stories of their childhood memories. At one point, Susannah brought forward a story of Cynthia Rose, a girl that she and her twin sister
Wendy used to know at their school. Cynthia was often ignored by classmates, but Susannah took a special interest in learning more and more about Cynthia. Whenever Cynthia was asked what she had for breakfast, her response was often "starfish and pee pee". Susannah would further explain this odd answer: Prince would become so fascinated with the story that he felt he had to make it into a song, on one condition: the phrase "pee pee" had to be replaced with a different word, which would become "coffee". Susannah agreed, and after writing down what she had told him on a piece of paper, he went to his home studio and began recording the song. To give the song its magical and unusual feel as depicted in the lyrics,
harp sounds were created on
synthesizers, while Prince's initial drum kit was doubled with a
reversed
LM-1 drum loop. After spending ten hours recording with engineer
Susan Rogers, the latter woke Susannah up to listen to the track, and Prince, with a smile, simply stated "here it is!". The couple both found to have loved it when they listened to it, and it would remain a part of album configurations for Prince's next album until it was eventually released in March of 1987. ==Legacy==