smokeverbs said:

I've seamlessly edited out the rape parts of Lust U Always and Extra Lovable, and I don't miss them.

Maybe your'e missing dark humour.

Prince does not have to educate the masses or the millenials or whomever.
He's talking about his irrepressible desire for his girl. Not advocating anything.
It's probably the output of his conversations on the pillow:
Rape is a fantasy as common in women as threesomes or lesbians are in men.

Again, time and context. And that goes for the songs as well:
What is the subject, and when does the line come in the song?

I think Prince kept his feet on the ground because he knew he was an artist,
and artists are not in charge of making sure dangerous concepts or ideas
are created by taking excerpts of their work and placing them out of context.
Their work is to express themselves as sincerely as possible.

Futhermore, the violence of sexuality and the world is undeniable.
I don't blame Prince for his vulgarity or for putting on track what he felt on a particular day.
He has the right to be pissed off at the world, and his girlfriend.
He has the right to sing stupid things just because he wants to get laid so much.

Being so sincere about oneself is precisely what we should respect in Prince's life.
As someone else said, it's a journey.

Prince's work is not a bunch of holy immaculated scriptures.
TBO is not a love song: It's fucking menacing, it's a growing threath.
So go censor that as well.

[Edited 11/6/16 8:33am]

udo said:

bluegangsta said:

I was wondering how long it would take for the 'where do we draw the line' argument to come up. If you haven't conceded a valid point so far in the conversation, I doubt you ever will - you're clearly too busy stereotyping young people with insults to assess your own intellectual and social shortcomings.

.

Where dow we draw the line is important.

So we decide to censor Prince's lyrics.

Then what is next to censor? What matter insults someone?

So we censor that one too.

And next... Etc. If you cannot grab that reality then there is no discussion possible.

.

Then the millennials.

Especially from the former US of A news reaches us that millennials in schools over there behave quite childishly.

This is no insult but a matter of fact. I see stuff about safe spaces, snow flakes, etc.

This not by choice but by a different type of upbringing, a different type of family environment than previous generations. This situation shaped their behaviour.

.

I then see a parallel between the 'need' to censort works of art (P's lyrics) and the intents of some extremist millennials.

Why have you got an issue with millennials? I am not one but they have never seemed particularly different to me!

sunset3121 said:

udo said:

.

Where dow we draw the line is important.

So we decide to censor Prince's lyrics.

Then what is next to censor? What matter insults someone?

So we censor that one too.

And next... Etc. If you cannot grab that reality then there is no discussion possible.

.

Then the millennials.

Especially from the former US of A news reaches us that millennials in schools over there behave quite childishly.

This is no insult but a matter of fact. I see stuff about safe spaces, snow flakes, etc.

This not by choice but by a different type of upbringing, a different type of family environment than previous generations. This situation shaped their behaviour.

.

I then see a parallel between the 'need' to censort works of art (P's lyrics) and the intents of some extremist millennials.

Why have you got an issue with millennials? I am not one but they have never seemed particularly different to me!

Teens in the eighties were street-wiser.
Tougher, in a way. They turned into adults sooner.

bonatoc said:

sunset3121 said:

Why have you got an issue with millennials? I am not one but they have never seemed particularly different to me!

Teens in the eighties were street-wiser.
Tougher, in a way. They turned into adults sooner.

Was I? Did I?

That's the thing. Some of the kids are more streetwise than I was and some less so. They seem to be highly variable now like they always were.

bluegangsta said:

I will rape you, if I must. - Lust U Always

I guess I'll have to rape you. - Extralovable

You drive a man to rape, you know you do. - U

Should lyrics like this be censored in future releases?

I don't think there is any victim blaming happening here. In order for that to be the case the references to rape would need to be past tense. As it stands there is no victim. That said, Prince removed the lyric from Extralovable.

[Edited 11/6/16 9:56am]

sunset3121 said:

Why have you got an issue with millennials? I am not one but they have never seemed particularly different to me!

.

Because generation gap.

Or rather: because some of them show a lack of tolerance.

Or a lack of adult behaviour. Or both.

I experienced some of this earlier this year.

Since then I studied them some more.

.

So it is not about a black and white sectarianism but about understanding what and why.

It's only censorship if the government does it. Otherwise, it's an editorial decision.

bonatoc said:

smokeverbs said:

I've seamlessly edited out the rape parts of Lust U Always and Extra Lovable, and I don't miss them.

Maybe your'e missing dark humour.

Prince does not have to educate the masses or the millenials or whomever.
He's talking about his irrepressible desire for his girl. Not advocating anything.
It's probably the output of his conversations on the pillow:
Rape is a fantasy as common in women as threesomes or lesbians are in men.

Threesomes and homosexuality are not crimes. Rape is. The reality of someone trying to rape you is not the thing fantasies are made of. P went there in his 20's. I don't think it is what the 50+ year old P wanted to be associated with.

udo said:

sunset3121 said:

Why have you got an issue with millennials? I am not one but they have never seemed particularly different to me!

.

Because generation gap.

Or rather: because some of them show a lack of tolerance.

Or a lack of adult behaviour. Or both.

I experienced some of this earlier this year.

Since then I studied them some more.

.

So it is not about a black and white sectarianism but about understanding what and why.

Yeah right! While we are all so mature and tolerant I suppose. You sound like a grumpy old man

sunset3121 said:

bonatoc said:

Teens in the eighties were street-wiser.
Tougher, in a way. They turned into adults sooner.

Was I? Did I?

That's the thing. Some of the kids are more streetwise than I was and some less so. They seem to be highly variable now like they always were.

Not sure about that.

Would you feel safer with a GPS tracking system and a call away from your relatives at any time
when you walk down the street?
Or with survelliance cameras at every single street corner of your neighbourhood?

Would you feel safer or get more paranoid?
Conspiracies were not a thing, 30 years ago.
Nowadays the constant feed of informations aborbs any energy/attention that would be required by fact-checking. Useless info and lolcats, they erode your capacity of discernement.

So does the Org, in a way. We're all stuck into hobbies that help us deal with the intolerable violence of it all.
That's why we keep our relatives so close. We didn't make a more relaxed society with machines.

The only world there was was real. Millenials deal with the abstract world so much
it takes them hours of their real-world life (non-refundable) to stare at a screen, daily.

I won't go as far as trying the experiment,
but imagine I tweet this headline: "Why does Prince get any sympathy? He sings about rape in his songs!".

These are the times when the more I say something shocking,
the more I can have my Warholian climax, even if only for 5 minutes.

Good luck for staying as cool as me (or you) with lyrics such as "rape",
in such a paranoid, stalker, mind-rapist world.

P.S. : Having seen a gazillion of porn, binge drinking, or participating in group sex at the age of 15 does not make you "street-wise". I wanna make sure we're talking about political and social counsciousness here.
When you see the picture of Clinton and all the kids turning their back on her to make a selfie, it gives you a clear state of situation, even if it looks as a somewhat anedoctical picture.

[Edited 11/6/16 9:12am]

sunset3121 said:

bonatoc said:

Maybe your'e missing dark humour.

Prince does not have to educate the masses or the millenials or whomever.
He's talking about his irrepressible desire for his girl. Not advocating anything.
It's probably the output of his conversations on the pillow:
Rape is a fantasy as common in women as threesomes or lesbians are in men.

Threesomes and homosexuality are not crimes. Rape is. The reality of someone trying to rape you is not the thing fantasies are made of. P went there in his 20's. I don't think it is what the 50+ year old P wanted to be associated with.

So you're stating Prince actually promoted the practice of "rape" in the above examples,
instead of singing what he was feeling like that day.
His lyrics are not fantaisies, they're a political tract.

As for age, hey, even a guy in his twenties doesn't compare to who he was at 11.

Prince lyrics represent nothing more than a state of mind.
Sexism is the new racism : say to your girl you feel like grabbing her by the hair tonight,
that must be rape as well, I'll go denounce myself to the authorities.

Don't go lecturing me about what rape is in real life, I'm not 11 anymore.

I could understand him not wanting the rapey lyrics out there. Even if he was trying to be funny, it does cross a line that he probably decided he didn't want to cross. It's different than including the odd F-word here and there.

The best parts of the original Extraloveable come before the rape part anyway. I would be okay with a fade out during the laser gun moment. I like Lust U Always, but never loved it and would be okay if we never got it. The version I have sounds pretty good.

I would rather the stuff not be censored, but it should be handled in a way that is also respectful to who Prince was before he died.

Good points.

I would like to stand to my belief that when using "rape",
Prince's intent was to point out how much insane energy could come out from his own sexual desire.

What woman would like to be called an "Irresistible Bitch"? And yet...
And yet, in Prince's sonic fantasy world,
he gets away with it, because there is place, time and context.
And humour. Lots of it.
It's a song about desire, and everyone gets it.

I do agree. There is nothing fun about rape.
Every sane man redoing the song would edit it out.
But the R word songs are probably followed the next day by stuff
about eternal love, flowers, perfume and shit.

I'm glad Prince didn't censor himself at the time he wrote these lyrics.
It shows erotica's dangerous, intoxicating, urgent side: it's not always about bubble bath slo-mo orgasms.
Sometimes harsh words can't be repressed, especially if you get all horny with the mike.

[Edited 11/6/16 10:54am]

NorthC said:

Are Extra Loveable or Lust U Always really so much worse than The Stones' Midnight Rambler or Brown Sugar? And those were officially released!

That's what im saying. You ever see the award shows where they have to beep nearly the whole song?

lust said:

Seems most here are fine for these songs to be given a full public release by the estate in the name of art. Would the same apply if there was a song in the vault that with equal passionate conviction in spoken lyrics talked of taking a 5 year old child and fucking his or mouth? Should the estate censor that by leaving it where it is? An extreme example, yes, but by the arguments given should also be put out.

Irrelevant. The pedophile song you describe does not exist except in your imagination, therefore the comparison is pointless.

databank said:

bluegangsta said:

I will rape you, if I must. - Lust U Always

I guess I'll have to rape you. - Extralovable

You drive a man to rape, you know you do. - U

Should lyrics like this be censored in future releases?

Hell no!

Censorship is an abomination, particularly when it comes to works of art. Songs are stories. Stories are fiction. Fiction has to depict despicable things every once in a while because such things are part of the human reality.

If those songs ever get released, and I hope they will, they must be released as such.

The mere fact that we are discussing this shows how disrespected songs are by comparison to other forms of art. If Prince were a writer or a movie maker and we were talking about releasing an unreleased short story or a short film, it wouldn't cross anyone's mind to ask that question. Songs are not necessarily autobiographic: not every Prince lyric does reflect real thoughts or real personal experiences. Some do. Some don't. Unless proven otherwise, songs are to be treated as works of fiction ans, as such, left alone.

Okay, I've got to say that two of the songs in question did eventually get released during Prince's lifetime after he changed the lyrics himself. He made the call, as the creator of Extraloveable and U, to get rid of the "objectionable" lyrics already (and clearly they are objectionable, because people are objecting to them). He might have done so with Lust U Always as well, and we just don't know.

We've all heard the evidence that he considered using the rape lines, but are they any more the "real lyrics" than anything he struck out at any other point in the composition? We happen to have in our possession a record that those lines existed, and the song's form at that moment in time has been elevated in our minds as the "original" (and thus to some degree specially valued) version, but that's kind of artificial. Prince might have decided the line was no good before he even went to bed, and never intended any future revisiting of the song to have that line. Those crap lines about money that were taken out of Purple Rain--that version isn't "the" Purple Rain. Yes, he had these lines in these songs at one point, and for at least two of them we know he also removed them--just like he did the bass in When Doves Cry. We really need to keep in mind that these outtakes are not necessarily finished "works of art"--some are, but many of them (at least in the form we're familiar with) are more likely rough drafts. And if so, and if later drafts included elements that were different than the ones that we're familiar with (which is a matter of which ones were leaked, not which ones were "finished" or "best" by any one's judgment, and certainly not Prince's), the later form might be more justified as the one released by the estate--because it was the last one, and thus probably represents the more "final" of the drafts. If that happens, I don't think it really counts as censorship.

They're not going to release everything (even if we want them to), so some choices have to be made. As far as we know, Prince didn't have a list of "I want these tracks out after I die, in these forms," and if he did, he apparently didn't get it to anyone who could make sure it happened. I agree that no one should be "censoring" or modifying Prince's work, but the fact is that what we're talking about are materials that he never made official--most either are incomplete or lost out to other work when Prince made the call on what to release. As someone interested in his work as a whole, I want to have everything--the history of his development is in every single note--but there are many reasons for not including certain tracks in certain forms--and at least one of those (Prince wouldn't want it) is a valid one not deserving of the censorship label. The fact that I can be part of this conversation indicates that I don't always respect Prince's choices as an artist about what work should be public--but I can't really blame anyone else for trying to do so in making choices about what to release now that he isn't around to make the call.

djThunderfunk said:

udo said:

Genesia said:

It's only censorship if the government does it. Otherwise, it's an editorial decision.

Bullocks! Utter nonsense! You pull this shite out your arse?

lust said:

djThunderfunk said:

Irrelevant. The pedophile song you describe does not exist except in your imagination, therefore the comparison is pointless.

I disagree. Hypothetical examples in order to test someone's position is a valid mechanism in a situation like this. The argument is that artistic freedom negates all else. Well, does it? However, finding reasons to not have to confront the question is understandable.

Fine. In FANTASYLAND where Prince wrote the pedo song that only exists in your mind: NO. It should not be censored. Happy?

That said, I wouldn't want to hear your imagined song. I have heard the songs in question that do exist here in the real world and I plan to listen to them many more times.

Art, like words, only has the power given to it by the audience and therefore can only hurt those that allow themselves to be affected by it. Actual rape (and of course pedophilia) has victims that are harmed and should not be allowed. Art which reflects the reality that these things exist do not inherently cause harm and in a free society should be allowed. Those that are offended are free to shun that which they do not approve of. Pretty good system if you ask me.

sro100 said:

lust said:

udo said:

.

The fact that you even think about this stuff means you suffer from political correctness.

Can't we see stuff in context anymore?

Is it a millennial thing?

It is the same as the hoopla with Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet in the Netherlands, every year.

The fake-black Zwarte Piet is perceived as derogatory, discriminatory, etc by some idiots.

Yet in the historic context nothing is wrong with these figures.

Taking issue with rape is a bad case of political correctness? Umm...ok mate. If that sort of behaviour passes as acceptable in the lowlands, then I'll stick to the high ground.

Taking issue with rape isn't political correctness, taking something not meant literally out of context is.

If they edit it with an "Owwaa" prince yelp im ok with it

Genesia said:

sro100 said:

Bullocks! Utter nonsense! You pull this shite out your arse?

Assholery, on the other hand, can be perpetrated by anyone. Exhibit A. ^

Yeah troll. "I vaguely remember in my college days" people like you: Those that can dish it out but can't take it. You love being an arse in other's threads.

djThunderfunk said:

sro100 said:

Genesia said:

sro100 said:

Yeah troll. "I vaguely remember in my college days" people like you: Those that can dish it out but can't take it. You love being an arse in other's threads.

Awwwww. Babies are so precious. Even big 50-year-old babies.

Wow you have the ability to look up a profile! Score One for Troll King! The 56 year old Troll King who was in college way way before Prince made 1999! Hurray for Troll King!

[Edited 11/6/16 15:11pm]

lust said:

Thanks for your honesty. Not sure the tone is necessary but that's ok.

Fair enough, but I have to point out that this is the problem with text communication. Tone can be very difficult to discern. The tone you percieve and the tone I intend may not be the same.