Does anyone remember the episode of "The 700 Club" in 1985 where they were complaining about explicit lyrics in rock music?

The show was mainly about hard rock and heavy metal but "Purple Rain" was big at the time and they featured Prince also. They talked about "Darling Nikki and they went all the way back to the "Prince" album. They complained about the line in "I Wanna Be Your Lover" that goes "I wanna be the only one you come for". They said Prince was "sneaky" and snuck that evil line in.

Then they started talking about the "Dirty Mind" album and the songs "Head" and "Sister". They were absolutely appalled by the song "Sister".

This show totally tripped me out. I remember watching it with a friend that was trying to seduce me and throwing suggestive hints but I was too much into the show to notice.

vainandy said:

fundies are fuuuuunny. how the heck can you "sneak" in a line such as that? if p were to have posed full-frontal with a raging hard-on on the prince album cover, would that qualify as "sneaky" too?


they didn't say anything about the album cover, did they?

jeezus says it's a sin to pose in your undies on an album cover! OMGREPENT!!!!

Well, although I don't share a lot of Pat Robertson's theology, I can't see what is so off about the comments he made. Prince's songs (especially the ones referenced) were very edgy and proposed a very skewed vision of sexuality. I love listening to the old stuff myself, but anyone who takes it seriously as a template for how to act themselves is a little touched in the head. Prince was a kid (not "The Kid") when he wrote those songs. He seems to have grown up and distanced himself from it. I would imagine if he ever has children he'd distance himself even more.

What's worse is the attitude that the stuff is harmless to anyone who listens to it. There is a population of people (read kids and teenagers) who can take an artist's persona very seriously. I teach adolescents every day of my life and see how they adopt the negative aspects of the culture they are in. They haven't developed filtering mechanisms yet to discern what will build them up and what will tear them down.

I'm a huge fan of Prince. But I'm not shocked by people who take issue with some of his lyrics.

It's been so many years ago and I only saw it once. I don't think they talked about the album cover. A lady started talking about the song "Sister" and said that Prince was singing about having sex with his sister. Pat Robinson said "Whaatt?!" Once he got on "Sister" he wouldn't get off it. Earlier they had been talking about heavy metal music and the skulls and evil symbols and images in these songs. When they got on Prince, they forgot all about the heavy metal music.

They also had an interview with Little Richard (that was a few years old at the time). He was talking about his evil life and how he was an "evil" homosexual but now he was a "saved" minister.
[Edited 2/28/05 21:02pm]

This was the 700 Club, cause I do remember watching some show around that time talking about how music was influincing the youth of the day. The guest was a youth preacher, he had a copy of Dirty Mind commenting on Price's attire and the " controversial, sexual " lyrics. Comparing that time to now or the past decade, that music was positively Disney.

UncleGrandpa said:

yeah...i've seen the pmrc stuff and it's like, "they were flippin out over THIS?"

I vaguely remember that too. I don't know if it was the same show but this was around the time where all these women were trying to censor records and several rock stars fought back to stop censorship. Records that contained explicit lyrics were stickered shortly after.

vainandy said:

You're right, the show I was thinking of was not actually The 700 Club, but the sentiment was the same.

filetgumbo said:

By today standards, Prince's dirty lyrics are tame.

I hate the 700 club.



Hate mongers.

TonyVanDam said:

Very.....