Always cry for love, never cry for pain

Prince Rogers Nelson 1958-2016

The following is a sentimental overlay of what Prince means to me, and my thoughts on what he means for music.  Hit the jump for more.

Before I was born my parents made a home for themselves in my dad’s hometown of Minneapolis.  They used to see Prince walking around with groups of women that were almost always taller, if not prettier, than him.  This was all during his rise to mega-stardom with 1984’s “Purple Rain”.  When I came along in the summer of 1988, Prince had achieved full-fledged legendary artist status and was a few months past what’s perhaps his best album “Sign ‘O’ The Times”. My parents and my doctors took nine months to figure out why I was sick all the time.  I had, and still have, a serious allergy that was throwing my immune system for a trip. As hippies bound to the naturopathic, my parents found the best way to ease their infant’s colic was by dancing around with me in their arms. They danced me to Talking Heads, FineYoung Cannibals, Tom Waits, Patti Smith, and, of course, Prince. I’m convinced that the sanctuary of music and rocking motion they generated for me had a profound effect on my developing brain. I think that’s one of the reasons why, ever since I have been able to reflect on consciousness, music has been so important to me. Since those early days, Prince has been one of the most significant protagonists in my musical story – a story that sowed the lavender seeds of a deep and visceral connection to love in sound.

We moved to Idaho when I was three because, according to my mom, dudes were smoking crack outside of our house and my dad was interested in hiking in real mountains. As a little boy, I loved purple; I wore purple sweats and turtlenecks all the time. I was very effete and started playing the violin when I was five.  I recall dancing and playing music as major sources of joy back then. I used to sit in front of our stereo and vibe to whatever was blaring out into the living room. Word to my parents for showing me all kinds of music and starting me young on an instrument – I can’t imagine a life that isn’t back-lit by a varied and eclectic soundtrack like the one they brought me into.  Prince was in heavy rotation.

For my whole musical life, Prince has been there. A steady, connective undercurrent of the best music has to offer.  Rock, Hip-Hop, Funk, Pop, Gospel, Blues, Jazz - Prince was all of them at the same time.  He was our modern Mozart.  If you think that sounds ridiculous, just take a look at what people that actually know what they’re talking about have written about him and his influence (NPR Music – New Yorker Music – Passion of the Weiss - Noisey)  Virtuoso from a young age.  Adept and natural on all instruments - especially spectacular and at home on his guitar.  Just listen to this, and this and this.  They're everything.  He was a fundamental piece of that sacred space within sound.

In the same way he blended and unified musical thought and traditions, he brought people together. Disparate people, like my Austrian grandma and her fat little toddler American grandson (yaboi) whipping around in the Minnesota snow. Prince is the fucking man in Minnesota. Prince was the man in the US.  Prince was the man across the world. Try to think of another forty year old dude wearing pretty much what Ellen DeGeneres wears to a school play on the weekends, heels strapped, being the coolest dude out.  This since he was telling Dick Clark he played “thousands” of instruments and throwing the most spectacularly sassy number four I have ever seen.  It means a lot to a kid like me that has always been eccentric and weird, who comes from a family and group of friends that are also eccentric and weird, that somebody as non-“normal” as Prince was as cool and confident as he was. This may sound like bullshit, but I think he was so loved because most people, ironically, aren’t normal.  It’s the “normal” ones that are few and far between.  Prince was able to speak for so many of us that feel like we don’t really fit the mold like we're supposed to – maybe it’s because you speak a different language or eat a different food at home, or maybe it’s because you’re gay, or maybe it’s because you don’t want to go to college, or maybe it’s because you’ve always liked math more than you liked talking to other people.  Whatever it is that makes you diverge from the mean, I think the fact that motherfuckers like Prince that own the shit out of their weird are out there gives us some sense of footing among the pressure of modern, western society to conform.  Fuck that, man.  Do your damn thing. Prince embodied that spirit and we loved him for it.

It seemed that throughout his career, Prince could just show up anywhere and people would lose their shit.  He could walk out on any stage with his guitar and rip some chords or kick the keys, and then peace the fuck out and leave everyone wondering how their mind had just gone through six cycles of wonder in the last minute and a half and who that little man was that sonically threw down so thoroughly in that brief amount of time and derived the crowd down to their atoms only to build them right back up to their highest peak. Think about what it means for him to wear a form fitting yellow body suit with a sheer ass area and perform “Get Off” on the ’91 VMAs flanked by an active BDSM squad; then 25 years hence have the President of the United States invite him and Stevie Wonder over to play a private show for 500 people. That President, Barack Obama, released an official statement of condolence from the office of the executive and commander in chief upon Prince’s passing. Bless you sir.

 Think about Prince talking about AIDS when almost every other cat was too scared to mention it in song or most anywhere else for that matter.  Perhaps most importantly and most broadly, he expressed in the deepest way that probably dopest plane you can exist on as a human being is the highest one – where love and compassion reign supreme.  Carnal love, love of spirit, love of others, he told your soul that most important story through his music.  Listen to the guitar on “Darling Nikki” and tell me you don’t know exactly what he’s talking about in the context of a rightly fine pum-pum riddim.  Listen to “Nothing Compares 2 U”, yeah he wrote that, and tell me you don’t know exactly what he’s talking about in the context of somebody you caught feelings for not liking you back – that’s a soul’s unadulterated pain coming through. Prince was so important to so many people because he brought all races, social classes, spiritual backgrounds, nationalities, together under this banner of  “celebrate sex, celebrate love, don’t be an asshole to people that aren’t like you, and give your soul and your deepest self some walking around money and strut that shit out”.
 

Prince was a spiritual dude, and so are many other of his musical peers (including, of course, Stevie who did his best not to cry). I may not believe in god, but damned if I don’t believe that music is love’s most pure permutation in any art form. You can’t tell me you hear “The Beautiful Ones” and your hairs don’t stand up on end thinking about somebody you love.  Vonnegut perhaps said it best when he wrote ¨The only reason he needed for the existence of God was music.¨ Music may be the closest thing I understand to others’ interpretations of god or gods.  Prince was an incredibly effective conduit for that melding of love and compassion and sexual attraction and creativity into a flow so clean and pure that it hit you like a truck and left you reeling just trying to process the magnitude and permutations of his communication.

And if you like Prince, and you’ve shed some tears (I know I have and so have a lot of my grown ass friends) thinking about how sad it is that he’s gone, I thought of a few music-related things that have lifted my spirits.  Maybe they’ll work for you too:

• Go to a record store and buy a CD, cassette, vinyl, whatever.  Don’t buy some bullshit, buy something that is going to stretch you musically and make you think about what you’re listening to. If you don’t own any Prince, go buy some. I’m not going to recommend a particular track or album here, but if you need a place to start “The Hits/the B-Sides” will give you a good footing.  Prince loved this record store in Minneapolis he used to frequent called “The Electric Fetus”. We used to go there when I was little.  I think Prince would have wanted you to go to your local shop, but showing The Twin Cities some love in their time of hurt isn’t going to be a bad move either.
• Listen to music with your friends and dance your ass off.  I found this activity particularly cathartic when Prince was on the stereo for about five hours last Saturday and I was wearing purple and very intoxicated. Maybe all it takes for you is two songs to feel better and you can hang it up.  Maybe you like Drake and you want to sorta mope around in an over-sized, ribbed turtleneck and talk about how sad you are that you ran out of maple syrup and your cell phone is broken – whatever floats your boat.
• Play music.  Learn a song that is hard for you to learn, or dust off a few old ones. If you don’t know how to play anything, maybe pick up a harmonica or a kazoo or add a new song to your shower repertoire. Prince would have liked to know that people were out there honoring him by searching in the sonic galaxy he so beautifully explored.
• If you know somebody that’s interested in a certain type of music, buy them your favorite CD or vinyl from that genre and give it to them.  Write them a paragraph about your favorite songs and why they’re your favorite.  Music is more infinite than ever, and I know I appreciate a guide.  There’s nothing like a new song that knocks your socks off, and they’re easier to find when you’ve got the help of someone you know.

So I’m going to go about revisiting the vast expanses of Prince’s monolithic repertoire that I’ve either forgotten about or never even heard of.  You can also be damn sure that my mom (who texted me the day after he died and said “I’m wearing purple, but I’m still blue”), my putative lady and I are going to dance to Prince at my wedding if I ever get hitched.  And you can also be sure that if I ever have a kid, I’m going to be dancing around with that kid in my arms to some Prince as soon as they cut the cord.  And if that kid grows up and asks me “Dad, why is this Prince your favorite artist?” I’m just going to say “It’s because his music is all about love.  Love is a good and beautiful thing.  It’s why you’re here. Prince is the best one I’ve ever heard at telling love’s story. And you know what else, sweet thing, it’s because you and I have both been listening to him sing songs about love since before we were born”.

I’ll leave you with this, most tender tribute to an artist that will carry Prince’s torch.  Earlier this week, LaGreezy and I agreed that this is the most important thing on the internet.  Here, D’Angelo, who struggles mightily not to break down, brings you “Sometimes It Snows In April”.