On June 7th, 1978, coinciding with his 20th birthday, Prince released his first-ever solo single, “Soft and Wet”, off his debut solo album, For You. The tune—which was co-written by Prince’s early collaborator, Chris Moon—kickstarted The Purple One’s solo career, hitting #12 on Billboard’s Hot Soul Singles and breaking into the Hot 100 rankings at the #92 slot. In 1990, the song would get a second life after it was heavily sampled by MC Hammer on “She’s Soft and Wet” off Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em, the album that contained MC Hammer’s iconic crossover hip-hop hit, “U Can’t Touch This”.

Yesterday, Chris Moon posted an unusual listing on eBay, offering up his portion of the legal rights to “Soft and Wet” for $490,000. For those with nearly half-of-a-million dollars to spare, to sweeten the deal, Moon is also throwing in a copy of Moon’s original contract with Prince in addition to digital copies of the original, album, and MC Hammer versions of the song.

Moon summarized the history of the song and its creation on his extensive eBay listing, noting:

My name is Chris Moon, and I discovered Prince during the mid ’70’s in Minneapolis at my recording studio named MoonSound…Not only did I discover the then 16 year old recording artist but I also co-wrote 3 of the 4 songs on his original demo tape that got him signed to Warner Brothers Records plus I co-wrote his first hit song named “SOFT & WET”…

I wrote the lyrics and Prince wrote the music. When he was getting ready to release his first album with Warner Brothers, we signed a song royalty agreement in which we equally shared in the writing credits of the song. I got the writing royalties for the lyrics, he got the writing royalties for the music and ECNIRP took the publishing. He have been sharing in the royalties of that song over all these years and still do.

Moon also explained why he was choosing to sell his rights to the song at this point in time:

I have owned SOFT & WET since I wrote it, I have enjoyed hearing the song countless times over the years, been paid well and am proud of it. I would now like to see someone else enjoy owning it, it has achieved everything and more for me so I feel it is time to pass the torch to a Prince fan who will continue to cherish and enjoy owning it as much as I have. If you love Prince and his music I cannot imagine anything better than co-owning his first hit song with him.

You can take a listen to “Soft and Wet” below, and for those with an extra half-million burning a hole in their pocket, you can purchase the song rights here.

[H/T Pitchfork]