Quite recently I've taken quite a liking to "The Rainbow Children." I know it's a polarizing record due to much of its subject matter hinging on Prince's then newfound embrace of conservative religion, but for me the musical atmosphere of the record makes up for that: it's one of his tightest and perhaps most sophisticated records in that regard.

With all that said, can someone give me a clear picture of who exactly the 'Rainbow Children' are, and what exactly is being told by the Vader-voiced narrator? I feel like it's a simple storyline, and yet the lyricism is so dense I never really feel I've gotten the whole story (for example, I've listened to the album start to finish about five or six times and still don't understand what exactly Prince is prattling on about in "Muse 2 the Pharoah," a song I otherwise greatly enjoy).

Anyone want to help me out?

If you look into the beliefs of the Jehovah's Witnesses...... all the answers are there.

I'd say it doesn't matter to understand the full message because it's a first and foremost a work of art about religious beliefs, not a religious leaflet aimed at propaganda.

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For that reason, even if I do not share some of the perpectives apparently expressed on the record (or expressed by JW's in general), I never really cared about what Prince said. I was much more interested in how he said it and I find that, lyrically speaking, TRC makes for a pretty interesting piece of poetry, maybe one of Prince's best in terms of the whole record (i.e. not just the sum of its parts).

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The opacity of certain statements is something I appreciate for it is what makes, in my opinion, good poetry. I'm inclined to think that a poem that you fully understand on first reading may be talking to you, but usually doesn't make for a very good piece of literature.

The narrative is a basic retelling of Adam and Eve, sin and redemption, with a peppering of the Jews being out of Egypt and finding the promised land. It's only a slightly better narrative than the Vanessa Bartholomew phone calls on album.