I’ve never made it secret that I love my 80’s music satellite station.  (I have tried to make it secret that I love the love song station… terribly though.)

So of course it’s natural that I would rediscover The Artist Formerly Known As The Artist Formerly Known As Prince That’s Now Known Only As Prince’s I Would Die 4 U while bouncing around the dial.

A refresher from 1984 (in the form of a strange college project in 2009):

Then the thought occurred to me, could this be the first song that used leet speak in its title?

The Jets had a hit in 1988 with Rocket 2 U…

…and in 1990, Sinead O’Connor struck gold with Nothing Compares 2 U (which was also written by Prince) 

But there was nothing sooner.  Or was there?

Now if I had actually done all this homework, I probably would have stopped at Prince’s I Would Die 4 U.  I wouldn’t have even delved to the album that preceded Purple Rain and 1999 called Controversy.  (Released in 1981, it had a song called Jack U Off.)  So does that make it official that Prince started leet speak since he has three of the earliest appearances of it?

Not quite.

In 1977, there was a funk band known as Graham Central Station, and they put out an album (and song) called Now Do U Wanta Dance:

But even better than that – the first song on the album is called:

Happ-E-2-C-U-A-Ginn

Can we be sure PR1NC3 knew about Graham Central Station?  According to Wikipedia:

In 2011, Graham Central Station opened for Prince on Prince’s “Welcome 2 America” tour.

Isn’t it ironic?  Don’t U think?

(SIDENOTE: Thanks to my brother-in-law and fellow blogger, Judd, for the research.  Check out his insightful site Pancake Dominion by clicking here (or over there —>)…)