"Hurricane Annie ripped the ceiling off a church and killed everyone inside"

This lyric is taken from Prince's socio-political track Sign O' The Times. Pre-dating the Lovesexy proclamation that "Love Is God, God Is Love" and the conviction that "I know there is a heaven and a hell" by a year later, would you consider this lyric to be an example of Prince questioning the existence of a God? The line lends itself moreso to a belief in the theory of random chaos or, perhaps, a mans desperate struggle to understand/accept the existence of a divine masterplan in face of all the worlds sensless atrocities.

Your thoughts?
[Edited 4/8/05 6:49am]

ALL believers question sometimes.....but the same CD also contains ....

"The Cross"

No, I don't think he was questioning God's existence - the event mentioned actually happened. He was using real stories from a newspaper from that time and was just demonstrating how crazy the times were/are!

Mindflux said:

that 2!!!!

Mindflux said:

yes, the event may be real but one must still question the poetic justice in a natural disaster killing those worshipping the creator of such a catastrophic event in a house of God. This is the point i'm getting at.
[Edited 4/8/05 7:11am]

MidnightFunk said:

good point.

p.s
thanks for the offer.

PRNelson said:

your welcome....it's an open offer....

PRNelson said:

Hurricane Annie - Annie Christian - Anti Christ


We'll call him Nate - Nate as in Nativity


et voila

First the antichrist and then the second coming

PRNelson said:

I do appreciate what you're getting at! I'm just disagreeing There does not appear, to me, that there is any religious motive or sub-text in the song when you take ther lyric in context and neither does it work when you take it out of context.

Prince tells us how depressing and mad the world can be and how our priorities appear to be wrong, but puts it down to nothing more than being a "sign of the times". Rocket ships, sending people to the moon and poverty are all "real-world" situations that Prince is bemoaning - there is no inferrance that it may be because there is no God.

Furthermore, there is only "poetic justice", as you call it, about the church-goers dying if you are a believer yourself. For me, anyone dying is tragic - if the church was full of heathens or athiests then would that have been any less tragic, or would it have been retribution? You seem to imply that it would. What is clear is that it doesn't matter whether they were religious, or that this event happened to religious people in a religious place - its a tragedy all the same - and that is the point.

i don't think he was questioning god, i think he was questioning man and man's humnity towards one another. maybe indrectly he was questioning god in a "why are you letting this happen" kind of way. how old was prince when this album came out?

IstenSzek said:

Wow. That's cool. never noticed that.

IstenSzek said:

I always took that line personally. In a good way.

Mindflux said:

I get ya, good points. The point that made me think, though, was that hurricanes are natural disasters, not man-made. Thus, i saw it as Prince -a believer- questioning how a divine masterplan could cause so much pain to those who have faith in it.