Who wrote it
Manic Monday
Written by Prince — not The Bangles
‘Manic Monday’ was The Bangles’ first big hit, and like most bands they’re assumed to have written their own breakthrough. They didn’t: it was written by Prince, credited on the release under the pseudonym Christopher, who handed it to the band and then kept it off No. 1 with a single of his own.
The credit
Who wrote it
Definitive version The Bangles’ 1986 single — the only version released in Prince’s lifetime.
How we traced it
The song is credited to Christopher, a pseudonym Prince used at the time; his authorship is confirmed by his own catalogue and by The Bangles, who have described being given the song.
Prince wrote it around 1984, originally intended for the side project Apollonia 6, before it went to The Bangles.
The detail that gives the authorship away: in April 1986 ‘Manic Monday’ was held at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 by the No. 1 single — Prince’s own ‘Kiss’. He wrote the No. 2 and performed the No. 1 in the same week.
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Fact-check
The attribution problem
The song is so associated with The Bangles that the writing credit is assumed to be theirs. It isn’t — and the real writer is one of the most recognisable names in music, which is what makes the correction land.
‘The Bangles wrote ‘Manic Monday’’
It was their debut hit and the song most identified with them, so the composition is assumed to be theirs.
Written by Prince under the name ‘Christopher’, and recorded by The Bangles — who performed it, but did not write it.
Context
Why Prince gave it away
Prince spent the mid-1980s writing far more than he could release under his own name, placing songs with other acts — sometimes under pseudonyms like ‘Christopher’ or ‘Alexander Nevermind’. ‘Manic Monday’ was one of these.
That the writer was Prince, rather than an anonymous staff songwriter, is exactly why the credit surprises people: a band writing its own hit is unremarkable, but a global superstar quietly authoring someone else’s is a story.
Prince held No. 1 and No. 2 at once — one as the artist, one as the writer.