Back in Prince’s early days, we boring Minnesotans, and particularly men, really didn’t know what to make of him. But he clearly spoke to the ladies and if you’re hungry in Rome, you better learn to like pasta…if you know what I mean…..and I think you do…!
Prince taught us to find the groove. Sexually of course, in songs like “Cream,” “Get Off” and “Pussy Control,” but also musically. Tunes like Erotic City, “Raspberry Beret” and “When Doves Cry,” in addition to being smash hits, were able to master timing in such a sophisticated way as to prompt us to look boldly to our receding hairlines and downsized futures even as our erect spines and the dancimus majora muscles in the gluteus titenov were stimulated to an orgastic frenzy.
Prince also had a way with words (and punctuation), “dig, if you will, that picture” and “the horses wonder who you are” are lyrical snippets which will stay with me forever and cause me to remember that Prince died around the 400th anniversary of Bill Shakespeare’s death.
Back in the mid 70’s my brother went to a Minneapolis dance club called Uncle Sam’s that had straight on rock n roll music mostly – a dancing, sticky beer spilled floor pick up joint in an iffy part of town. They had a smaller back stage for small acts so my brother drifted back there to see what was happening.
A skinny kid with a bad complexion got up on stage with a guitar and a boombox to accompany him. He proceeded to let rip with a few spear thrusts of electronic “out there” jangly originals….which were met mostly by eye rolling silence and indifference from the the few other back room stage attendees who really wanted to just get back to the big dance floor for some Leonard Skynyrd covers and another overpriced beer, or maybe to score a line and entertain the off-chance of getting laid.
My brother lingered a minute as the skinny kid got off the staged and passed near him on the way out. My brother noticed how small he was, the bad skin, the few claps of ‘pity applause’ he’d gotten and just felt sorry for him, thinking “What a loser. That kid needs to give it up, find something else to do…”
Of course, you can see the punchline of this story coming; the loser kid was The Kid, Prince, and that kid later went on to own that club, after it became “1st Avenue”….and did a few other things.
You know who Prince reminds of? Brian Wilson. That’s right. The dude is not cool, right? Or maybe I should say they’re odd. Brian Wilson is pasty and pudgy, not surfing and impressing the SoCal crowd. Prince has musical mavens for parents, but he’s not eating butterburgers in ice shacks, fishing for pike in the Great Lakes. The flannel shirts look funny on his little frame. He doesn’t know a hockey stick from a twirler’s baton.
Do these outcasts shy away from the light, do the wallflower, hoping not to get picked on? That’s what Knute would have done if he didn’t hide among the average. No, they said, “i’m gonna make me some music that’s going to change the world.” Brian Wilson took his cool brothers and cousins and said, “Wait for my cue, now sing.”
Prince said, “I’m gonna play every instrument or I’ll recruit some total foxes to play on my count and fake fellate me on stage. I’m gonna wear purple ruffles and mascara.”
They did it exactly their way and everyone followed. There’s a lesson for Knute here if he can figure it out. Oops, got to get the kids to a birthday party.
(This is the greatest Prince story of all time. It is from Dave Chapelle’s TV show when they did Charlie Murphy’s (Eddies brother) dramatized retelling of a late night party at Prince’s home featuring a pickup basketball game and pancakes. One of the funniest things I’ve seen on TV ever.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4UkSIcm_y7Y
