Songfacts®:

• The first new Prince track to be released posthumously, Prince sings here of nuclear war and death.
  
  Yesterday I tried 2 write a novel but I didn't know where 2 begin
  So I laid down in the grass tryin' 2 feel the world turn
  Boy loses girl in a rain storm, nuclear World War III
  All that's left is pain and sorrow, as far as he's concerned
  
  The piano-heavy rock ballad was cut in 1982 during the same sessions that resulted in Prince's fifth album, 1999. It didn't make the final tracklist, possibly in part because the title song had a similar apocalyptic theme.
• The song leaked in the mid-'80s and made in onto number of Prince bootlegs and was considered for inclusion on his aborted 1988 project Rave unto the Joy Fantastic Prince acknowledged the cult following of "Moonbeam" by slipping it into concert piano medleys on a couple of occasions, but the song was never given an official release until November 22, 2016, when it was the sole previously unreleased track on the posthumous 40-track greatest hits collection Prince 4Ever.