paulludvig said:

You guys act like It's an outlandish interpretation, but it has been discussed before: http://prince.org/msg/7/354234

Out of all the illnesses, why AIDS? Why did U yourself actually post, you thought it was AIDS?

With all my knowledge about AIDS then, I never thought it was about a physical illness.


Throught Prince's music up to that moment, his canon of purple music, always suggested a struggle of love or lust, love over selfishness (pain greed) prior to this album release the single 4 Kiss gave us Love or Money. Till I find the Righteous One, Computer Blue, countless examples of 'civil wars' that would suggest inner struggles.

Even the nature of Computer Blue, when you read the movie script 'expressing the Prince is going down on himself'


But the song also never suggested an 'inner' civil war either. Why are 'we' actually concluding the 'civil' war was internal?

I wonder was Christopher Tracey the character yet when it was premiered on 6.7.1985?

Jesse died soon after a long fought civil war

soon after I wiped his last tear

.

Sometims it snows in April

Sometimes I feel so bad

Sometimes I wish that life was never ending

And all good things they say never last

.

sing the chorus again

.

Sometims it snows in April

Sometimes I feel so bad

Sometimes I wish that life was never ending

And all good things they say never last

.

Bobby Z, U in the house?

BrownMark, U here?

chorus

Sometims it snows in April

Sometimes I feel so bad

Sometimes I wish that life was never ending

And all good things they say never last

And all good things they say never last

Oh go watch the movie. You've been around long enough.

OldFriends4Sale said:

paulludvig said:

You guys act like It's an outlandish interpretation, but it has been discussed before: http://prince.org/msg/7/354234

Out of all the illnesses, why AIDS? Why did U yourself actually post, you thought it was AIDS?

With all my knowledge about AIDS then, I never thought it was about a physical illness.


Throught Prince's music up to that moment, his canon of purple music, always suggested a struggle of love or lust, love over selfishness (pain greed) prior to this album release the single 4 Kiss gave us Love or Money. Till I find the Righteous One, Computer Blue, countless examples of 'civil wars' that would suggest inner struggles.

Even the nature of Computer Blue, when you read the movie script 'expressing the Prince is going down on himself'


But the song also never suggested an 'inner' civil war either. Why are 'we' actually concluding the 'civil' war was internal?

Because AIDS affects the immune system. Perhaps not exactly an autoimmune disease, but still.

OldFriends4Sale said:

I wonder was Christopher Tracey the character yet when it was premiered on 6.7.1985?

Jesse died soon after a long fought civil war

soon after I wiped his last tear

.

Sometims it snows in April

Sometimes I feel so bad

Sometimes I wish that life was never ending

And all good things they say never last

.

sing the chorus again

.

Sometims it snows in April

Sometimes I feel so bad

Sometimes I wish that life was never ending

And all good things they say never last

.

Bobby Z, U in the house?

BrownMark, U here?

chorus

Sometims it snows in April

Sometimes I feel so bad

Sometimes I wish that life was never ending

And all good things they say never last

And all good things they say never last

That is a good question. Little Girl Wendy's Parade was changed to Christopher Tracy's Parade. The reference to Tracy in SISIA could have been changed to fit the movie (like Anna waiting was changed to Vicki Waiting for the Batman movie).

EmmaMcG said:

TrivialPursuit said:

It's about the main character, Christopher Tracy. Prince refers to him by his last name. To me, the name is a metaphor, meaning just when things start to come to life and bloom, it can snow and destroy all that. In the movie, Christopher and Mary Sharon fall in love, and just as their relationship finds a solid ground, her father goes after Christopher and kills him.

Go watch the movie. It's great fun.

No need for him to see the movie now that you've spoiled the ending.

I SWEAR!! TrivialPursuit, you IDIOT!!

OldFriends4Sale said:

paulludvig said:

You guys act like It's an outlandish interpretation, but it has been discussed before: http://prince.org/msg/7/354234

Out of all the illnesses, why AIDS? Why did U yourself actually post, you thought it was AIDS?

With all my knowledge about AIDS then, I never thought it was about a physical illness.

I think the homoeroticism of the song, the theme of a male loved one passing and the time in which it was released all lead naturally to such a conclusion. The song is sung by a man, about another man. In 1986 AIDS was primarily known as something that affected gay men, and was not too much earlier than this referred to as 'gay cancer'. The civil war lyric, whilst completely open to interpretation also fits this idea; an internal battle [of the immune system].

.

Again, this is to a listener without knowledge of the movie and how the song fits the characters within. It was probably completely unintentional, but I certainly don't think the homoeroticism of the song was unnoticed by Prince as he always liked to flirt with people's perceptions and even in a song like this I think he knew some people would get the wrong impression and he liked provoking that kind of reaction in listeners as way of testing his audience.

TrivialPursuit said:

paulludvig said:

I thought it was about a man dying from a terminal illness (aids?) - "a long fought civil war" meaning the body at war with it self.

.

My new favorite GIF.Thank you, Triv.

NouveauDance said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

Out of all the illnesses, why AIDS? Why did U yourself actually post, you thought it was AIDS?

With all my knowledge about AIDS then, I never thought it was about a physical illness.

I think the homoeroticism of the song, the theme of a male loved one passing and the time in which it was released all lead naturally to such a conclusion. The song is sung by a man, about another man. In 1986 AIDS was primarily known as something that affected gay men, and was not too much earlier than this referred to as 'gay cancer'. The civil war lyric, whilst completely open to interpretation also fits this idea; an internal battle [of the immune system].

.

Again, this is to a listener without knowledge of the movie and how the song fits the characters within. It was probably completely unintentional, but I certainly don't think the homoeroticism of the song was unnoticed by Prince as he always liked to flirt with people's perceptions and even in a song like this I think he knew some people would get the wrong impression and he liked provoking that kind of reaction in listeners as way of testing his audience.

I definately picked up a flirting of homoeroticism

4 me even back then I was very conscious of Prince's twin/Gemini thing, dualities of individuals

I always saw it as him singing to himself

Genesia said:

TrivialPursuit said:

haha and it is pulled directly from the Org. It looks like he broke a heel.

Yes that is what I thought too - he broke a heel and then "damn - now I get my white pants all dirty"

OldFriends4Sale said:

I definately picked up a flirting of homoeroticism

4 me even back then I was very conscious of Prince's twin/Gemini thing, dualities of individuals

I always saw it as him singing to himself

Yeah, that's a good angle too. I've never thought of that. If you think about the movie, the singer of the song is surely... Tricky? So I think I prefer your theory!

NouveauDance said:

OldFriends4Sale said:

I definately picked up a flirting of homoeroticism

4 me even back then I was very conscious of Prince's twin/Gemini thing, dualities of individuals

I always saw it as him singing to himself

Yeah, that's a good angle too. I've never thought of that. If you think about the movie, the singer of the song is surely... Tricky? So I think I prefer your theory!

I believe I'm correct in sayiing, when the song was premiered live at the Masquerade Ball, Prince said to Jerome 'you wrote it'

TrivialPursuit said:

EmmaMcG said:

TrivialPursuit said: No need for him to see the movie now that you've spoiled the ending.

"Tracy died soon after a long fought civil war..." Besides, even if we know he's dies, the death scene alone and it's corniness cannot be spoiled until one sees it themselves. hahaha

[Edited 10/9/16 11:35am]

Ow, man! Now you've really spoiled it!


So what, this gem, simply an auto-homo-erotic sigh?
Joni said it: "Sex Kills", even good sense.

It's a song about losing your best friend. Be it by death, or by the passing of time.
Keep in mind that, for a very brief moment, Susannah was considered for Mary Sharon.
Maybe the SISIA lyrics were intended to be sung by Mary/Susannah.
I firmly believe it's Susannah we hear in the intro.

So I would push the bar even further. SISIA is an auto-transgender-erotomaniac sigh.
Prince sings like he's Susannah crying on Prince's toom.

I think people mistake the uncanny ability of Prince to fully embody his feminine side for homosexuality, even platonic.
It ain't all that. Prince is the ultimate queer, an heterosexual dying to know what it feels like to be a woman. And maybe on SISIA, he was trying to sing as a woman.

But really, is it necessary to drag (pun intended) SISIA in such freudian territories?
It's one of the most beautiful songs about loss, and Prince's heroic courage is to sing it completely naked, all feelings exposed. Women sing like this almost naturally.
The only thing I've heard that comes close to SISIA is "Song To The Siren" by Tim Buckley.
It's about an androgynous emotional state. A man can hurt like a woman.
Well, it's all in "Heartbreak Hotel", after all.

[Edited 10/11/16 18:16pm]

Do we know that the song was written specifically for the movie?

bonatoc said:

I think people mistake the uncanny ability of Prince to fully embody his feminine side for homosexuality, even platonic.

Homoerotic =/= homosexual.

.

The song being sung by a man, about a man is what makes it homoerotic, even if that was never the iintention. Even if the song was sung explicitly from the POV of Mary Sharon, this would still stand - it's more about the listeners experience, than the intentioned meaning of the writer.

databank said:

I don't think the song is literally about Christoher Tracy or UTCM. The civil war sentence alone, no matter how u interpret it (literally or illness or anything) makes zero sense in the contxt of UTCM. It's just a story in a song sharing a character's name and being more or less thematically related to UTCM.

.

Perfectly stated.

.

The great thing about this song is that it not only works perfectly well if you forget about the movie entirely, it actually works better. The song is so much more universal than the film.

.

And I say that despite my undying love for the movie, which is among my favorites of all time.

emesem said:

The AIDS or drugs thing was a common interpretation back in the 80s. Perhapz some of you young'uns dont remember but AIDs was kinda a big deal in the 80s

a common interpretation by fans of Prince or people listening to this song?

Stigmas of that nature still influence the outlook and spending of many, particularly by those who had a role in making the press and money related decisions (including him), that's why.

Clearly he didn't want to be the AIDS awareness (or any other disease's) poster child/ambassador in his remaining time.

Same like he seemingly didn't want to adopt kids when he couldn't have them.

Can't public figures make these choices too?!

Anyway, Roll Call for anyone else who isn't bowled over by this song and/or can separate the death date and weather fixation from some of his other work that deserves more discussion than this song. Yay!

sonshine said:

Genesia said:

This is the only gif I ever made in my whole life. I'm still proud of it.

It's great. Hysterical actually. I can't help but LOL everytime I see it no matter how many times I see it.

I swear everytime I see this gif I have the Benny Hill theme song play on a loop in my head

MarcelS67 said:

paulludvig said:

"…You guys act like It's an outlandish interpretation, but it has been discussed before: http://prince.org/msg/7/354234…"

"…Exactly and someone wrote the following back then(which basically goes for all art I think):…

“

…I think songs have a general meaning that the artist gives them, but most listeners interject with their own beliefs or ideals to make the song more meaningful to them. Unless Prince told you personally what mindset he was in when writing this song and what it actually means, one can only hypothesize about the implied meaning. So what this thread has become is a potpourri of inferences about something that probably not as specific as we want to make it out to be. Maybe the song's meaning is complex, maybe it's straightfoward. This is simply an argument of opinions so there's no need to get so heated ”…"

Dead on the money, MarcelS67!

I like the cut of your jib, young man!

Song lyrics are the lexical equivalent of Rorschach tests.

Everybody sees/hears something different in inkblots/song lyrics depending on their personalities — their life experience — their education — their imagination — their …

Just like nobody's intepretation of the amorphous splotches on this page can be claimed as THEE definitive explanation, no fan's intepretation of Prince song's lyrics is The One And Only Definitive Explanation™.

Anybody who thinks their's is The One And Only Definitive Explanation™ — of ANY song's lyrics; not just Prince's — is deluding themselves. Unless, of course, they themselves wrote the song in question.

I just saw four pussies.
They passed too quick for me to grab'em.

Okay, I have one.
What about Saint John singing about Jesus?

Or Jesus singing about himself?
à la "I Would Die 4 U"?

"Civil war" still makes sense.

Ow, I still prefer if it was about a passed friend.
I have absolutely nothing against homo-erotica,
it's just that from time to time, it's pleasant to have Prince
singing about grief instead of Wonderful Asses (which believe me, I'm a great fan of).

Because if I go down that path, next thing I know I'll believe
"The Love We Make" is about when Prince and Jonathan Melvoin were doing it behind the drum set.

I love SISIA too much to put it under the microscope, anyway.
If it's to identify what kind of stool creacked that way, okay.

If we reduce the song to Prince having a love affair with himself,
if that was the intent,
there are plenty of other songs where the result is better achieved.