"Dirty Mind" was the follow-up single in the U.S., and title track to Prince

Prince (musician)

Prince Rogers Nelson , often known simply as Prince, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Prince has produced ten platinum albums and thirty Top 40 singles during his career. Prince founded his own recording studio and label; writing, self-producing and playing most, or all, of...

's third album

Dirty Mind

Dirty Mind is the third studio album by American musician Prince, released October 8, 1980 on Warner Bros. Records. Produced, arranged and composed primarily by Prince, it contains prominently sexual lyrics and incorporates musical elements of funk, dance and rock music. The album debuted at number...

, released in 1980. The song is built around a keyboard riff created by Doctor Fink

Doctor Fink

Matthew Robert "Matt" Fink, better known by the stage name Doctor Fink, is an American keyboardist, record producer, and songwriter. He is most known as a member of The Revolution, the backing band for pop musician Prince. Fink won a Grammy Award...

, which dominates the song. The demo-like song lacks a chorus, and is a stark departure of the smooth R&B

Rhythm and blues

Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...

 sound of Prince's first two albums. The lyrics concern sexual thoughts, which are fairly representative of the other songs from the album. The single's B-side

A-side and B-side

A-side and B-side originally referred to the two sides of gramophone records on which singles were released beginning in the 1950s. The terms have come to refer to the types of song conventionally placed on each side of the record, with the A-side being the featured song , while the B-side, or...

 is the ballad "When We're Dancing Close and Slow", from the previous year's Prince

Prince (album)

Prince is the second studio album by Prince, released on October 19, 1979. It was a quickly written album in reaction to his debut For You. It took seven weeks to complete. The album needed to have hits and sell well to make up for the blown budget on his first release...

. "Dirty Mind" only reached number sixty-five on the soul chart and did not crack the Hot 100 . Along with the tracks "Uptown" and "Head", "Dirty Mind" reached number five on the dance charts .