Fun fact: during the "Purple Rain" era, Apollonia was married......and it was also reported she was dating Prince around this time. yikes.

Beautiful thread! I love those Gif's.. with Prince & Apollonia...

OldFriends4Sale said:

CharismaDove said:

I loved that ending scene when Prince is beloved again, kisses Apollonia...

One thing I thought that was weird, though, was that the audience/Billy had a problem with Prince because they had no idea what the hell he was even singing about (Darling Nikki, Computer Blue).. so Prince follows it up with a song about colorful rain (?) and then a number where he confesses he's not a woman or man and follows it up with I-am-the-Messiah lyrics, and this somehow all just works?

I'm kinda surprised this song became a huge hit because of the lyrics... they would probably be looked at as blasphemous back in the day

[Edited 2/26/15 22:06pm]

Once he dedicated the song to his father (whom everyone knew attempted suicide) all the ice melts

Outside of knowing what Purple Rain actually means it clear in the lyrics he is talking about making amends.

The song slayes everyone, after that the songs following are uptempo fun banging songs

morningsong said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

You mean these hand signs? Uh....yeah....uh still do, at home, I wouldn't recommend it while driving.

The things my children had to live through growing up.

[Edited 2/26/15 16:17pm]

lol Yep those hand signs, I don't know anyone back then who did not practice them and do them lol

OldFriends4Sale said:

"I Would Die 4 U"

Once again, this is all Prince. At first he wanted me to play the bassline on "I Would Die 4 U" manually. So we tried it during rehearsal first, which I could pull it off, but it was not easy. And sometimes I would get off rhythm a little bit because you had to be so spot on, and you had to play it with two hands! So Prince says, "Well, Matt, why can't you play it with one hand and play the chords with the other hand?" And I said, "You try it." But neither one of us could do it. So I told Prince, "I got an idea. Let's try to sequence this one." Unfortunately, nothing in our arsenal could sequence it properly, so we created a way to put that bassline part in the sequencer and then have it lock up to the Linn drum machine with MIDI. But the Linn drum didn't have MIDI so Prince's tech guy created a MIDI interface for it. So I would have the sequencer ready to go during the live show and then all Bobby Z would have to do is hit the play button. We did some groundbreaking technological things that day.

-Dr Fink

Dr Fink has always been straightforward and honest.

paulludvig said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

"I Would Die 4 U"

Once again, this is all Prince. At first he wanted me to play the bassline on "I Would Die 4 U" manually. So we tried it during rehearsal first, which I could pull it off, but it was not easy. And sometimes I would get off rhythm a little bit because you had to be so spot on, and you had to play it with two hands! So Prince says, "Well, Matt, why can't you play it with one hand and play the chords with the other hand?" And I said, "You try it." But neither one of us could do it. So I told Prince, "I got an idea. Let's try to sequence this one." Unfortunately, nothing in our arsenal could sequence it properly, so we created a way to put that bassline part in the sequencer and then have it lock up to the Linn drum machine with MIDI. But the Linn drum didn't have MIDI so Prince's tech guy created a MIDI interface for it. So I would have the sequencer ready to go during the live show and then all Bobby Z would have to do is hit the play button. We did some groundbreaking technological things that day.

-Dr Fink

Dr Fink has always been straightforward and honest.

I baited you with that piece

Of course, we all know Prince created the song, but the whole band is playing on it

Then Fink goes into how helped create that part of the song...

next...

No need 2 worry No Need 2 cry

OldFriends4Sale said:

paulludvig said:

Dr Fink has always been straightforward and honest.

I baited you with that piece

Of course, we all know Prince created the song, but the whole band is playing on it

Then Fink goes into how helped create that part of the song...

next...

He didn't help create it, he helped finding a way to play it live...

next...

paulludvig said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

I baited you with that piece

Of course, we all know Prince created the song, but the whole band is playing on it

Then Fink goes into how helped create that part of the song...

next...

He didn't help create it, he helped finding a way to play it live...

next...

which means he helped create it, what other studio version do you have??

Is this seriously the only reason you click on the thread...

Excerpt from LET'S GO CRAZY: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain by Alan Light, Copyright @2014 by Alan Light,

.

Its eventual companion piece, “I Would Die 4 U,” had a comparably breezy groove, though the lyric was something quite different. The title phrase, which would fill a dramatic moment in the Purple Rain script, was something Prince remembered his own father saying, but he transformed it from the notion of surrendering everything to love into an invocation of spiritual salvation; “I’m your messiah,” he sings, and “if you’re evil, I’ll forgive you by and by.” Dez Dickerson [guitarist for The Revolution] told Touré, for his 2013 study of Prince, that was titled after this song, that he takes the lyric at face value: “I think Prince had experienced something. I think he had a moving experience with respect to the idea of who Jesus is or was and he wanted to express it in a song. It’s not a very cloaked lyric. It says what it says. He’s saying he is Jesus.”

Ques.tlove reads the song more metaphorically. “I think, in his mind, he was lending voice to what he perceived as being the gospel message. I don’t think he’s literally saying he’s the Messiah, but in his own way, he’s speaking for the Messiah.” Years later, after Prince became a Jehovah’s Witness, he would continue to perform the song, but would make things much clearer by changing the line “I’m your messiah” to “He’s your messiah.”

.

The song contributed to the theme of redemption that would run through much of Purple Rain, but it isn’t one of the set’s most musically challenging tracks. “‘I Would Die 4 U’ and ‘Baby I’m a Star’—they were fun dance tracks and he did those things easily,” says Susan Rogers, who moved to Minneapolis in the summer of 1983 to help Prince set up recording equipment in the warehouse and at his home. “Just because he does them easily doesn’t mean that they’re not great, but I would venture to guess that he didn’t put nearly as much effort into those.”

(122) INT. CLUB -- NIGHT

Prince on-stage SINGING "I Would Die
For You." He's lost to himself now,
locked into a personal horror he alone
can see. The CROWD is pressed against
the stage, mesmerized by his
performance. Billy Sparks is also drawn
in, amazed at the power being generated
from the stage. Prince sweeps the
audience with his eyes, then fastens on
Vanity earnestly, SINGS directly to her.

The MUSIC continues as we...

CUT TO:

U're just a sinner I am told
Be your fire when U're cold
Make U happy when U're sad
Make U good when U are bad
I'm not a human, I am a dove
I'm your conscience, I am love
All I really need is 2 know that U believe (Yeah)

"I Would Die For You" continues as we--

CUT TO:

I would die 4 U, yeah
Darlin', if U want me 2
U - I would die 4 U

Yeah, say it one more time

U - I would die 4 U (U)
Darlin', if U want me 2
U - I would die 4 U
2 3 4 U

I would die 4 U {x2}
U - I would die 4 U

PHILADELPHIA DAILY NEWS

Saturday, July 28, 1984
Section: FEATURES
Page: 20

RECORDS

PRINCE OF AN ALBUM IS HIP, DANCEABLE

By DAVE MARSH

PRINCE AND THE REVOLUTION
PURPLE RAIN
(WARNER BROS.)
*****

Prince may be the closest this decade will come to a figure as musically complete and ambitious as Jimi Hendrix; certainly, if Purple Rain resembles anything, it is the expansive, psychedelic, turbulently cosmic world of Electric Ladyland. Prince works with a larger, if not broader, palette, using synthesizers and what sounds like a genuine orchestra to fill out the tight, touch, funky and rocking playing of his band. And the best songs here - "When Doves Cry," "Purple Rain," "I Would Die 4U," "Let's Go Crazy" - strike with true potency. On the other hand, nothing Prince has ever done is fully coherent, and that's a glaring problem here, where he seems to be making some kind of statement. That it remains indecipherable needn't bother anyone looking for some hip, danceable, hummable music, but it will trouble those who would like to see this performer have the decades-long career his talent deserves.

BTW the Scottish band CHVRCHES does a fantastic cover of this.

emesem said:

this thread made me tear up a bit.

OMG me too, and I was feeling weird about it now i'm not.

we were all so young and this was so exciting and so much fun.

great thread! Really takes us back down memory lane such a magical era,wasn't it?

SoulAlive said:

great thread! Really takes us back down memory lane such a magical era,wasn't it?

I know it's been 30yrs since, but I can still remember the feeling of hearing this song and songs from the Purple Rain era, it was so new and exciting even songs like IWD4U that wasn't as 'complex' as some of the others. This one always was endearing to me

OldFriends4Sale said:

Averett said:

One of my favorite Prince tracks ever. Thank you for the post

It's fun when everybody in the audience does this^when he sings I Would Die 4 U.

http://www.notcoming.com/...purplerain

Purple Rain

I’m not a woman. I’m not a man. I am something that you’ll never understand.

—Prince, “I Would Die 4 U”

.
.

.

.

.

.

.

Of course, part of the function of Purple Rain is to stage and narrativize Prince’s own transgressive racial and sexual persona, to make his fabled desire for controversy (which Prince would soon anthemize) palatable, even saleable to a wider audience, during a period of Reagan-era retrogression at that. Thus the film’s eager, even somewhat forceful, mixing of gritty realism with sexual and celebrity fantasy. Frances L. may shoot himself in the head towards the film’s close, but all will soon be well: The Kid, after all, has a new song to perform. This song, the film’s title track—a full four minutes in its radio edit, a full eight-and-a-half in the film version—is just the deus ex machina the film needs to mend all burned bridges between himself and his father, girlfriend, and bandmates (and as dei ex machina go, it’s pretty badass).

By this point, the film crosses over into pure fantasy, as eros and élan—and, why not?, a little church music—serve to heal all wounds. In the warm light of celebrity, all of The Kid’s problems are apparently solved, and all that’s need to spread the love is a final, magnificent, and triumphal gesture: to stand atop an amplifier and jizz all over the crowd with a hose-guitar.

By Leo Goldsmith ©2013 NotComing.com

OldFriends4Sale said:

U're just a sinner I am told
Be your fire when U're cold
Make U happy when U're sad
Make U good when U are bad
I'm not a human, I am a dove
I'm your conscience, I am love
All I really need is 2 know that U believe (Yeah)

.

.

The ending lyrics catch you but the whole entire song from start to finish is one of his greatest lyrical songs of all time in my opinion. Not a woman, man, friend, or lover... I choose to believe he's speaking metaphorically as a messiah... I take it as an inspiration of greatness... Thx Old Friends!

I gotta add the "I Would Die 4 U" with cowbell to this thread

http://rebloggy.com/post/...9509251536

[Edited 3/27/15 21:51pm]