When Prince died, he left a LOT shocked. Many people mourned him and found themselves in disbelief. Dwight Yoakam wasn't any different.
As he told People magazine, “I went to the studio, and everyone was kind of experiencing a bewildered sort of shock about it, and I felt deeply saddened. The fact that he was found alone at his compound just seemed … a tragic punctuation to the sense of the loss for millions that he had brought such joy to with his music…We were all lamenting it, and I said, ‘It just feels like we should record “Purple Rain.”‘ I had always loved the simplistic beauty of that melody and refrain.”