Does anyone else think that the lyric 'then he changed the colors of the flag', in The Everlasting Now at least sounds autobiographical?

Did Prince ever 'mess with the flag', ever, anywhere,
and get criticized for it?

Some believe that this lyric refers to Sly Stone changing the color of the US flag on his cover of "There´s A Riot Going On", which might be true, but I think it is about the Gold Experience phase when he changed the red, white and blue into gold.
The whole "approach" behind that gold allegory of that era is too complex to discuss here because I gotta go in a few minutes, but I remember him being quite patriotic back then because he was quite angry at some awards show when some other group did something "unpatriotic" ..but I don´t recall exactly what happened.
I guess he took his " critical patriotism " from the mid eighties to another level in the mid nineties "Gold" era.
There was also a lot of numerology and alchemy involved, but like I said, this is another story.
You can see the golden Star Spangled Banner in many videos and live shows from that era, I also have a postcard from that era where the NPG is standing in front of it.

"Everlasting Now", I believe, is primarily about Larry Graham, but is laid out in such a way that it could ALSO be about P. The "color of the flag" line could reference There's a Riot Goin' On (which Graham played on), while at the same time refer to Prince's golden flag during the TGE tour.

"Now turn the page, at an early age
This brotha on stage, he was all the rage
He taught an integrated world 2 sing
The color U are don't mean a thing
Everybody's a star all the everyday people sang

He changed the funk, put it in a bag
Then he changed the colors of the flag"

This section of the lyric cites 2 Sly and The Family Stone songs - 'Everybody Is A Star' (Double A side to Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)", reaching #1 in 1970) and 'Everyday People' (reaching #1 in 1969) - both songs credited to Sly Stone as sole writer. larry Graham performs on both recordings.
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KoolEaze said:

I've never heard any of this before. I'd like to know more about this.

I believe he is talking about Sly (and Larry). In addition, one could surmise a reference to George Clinton who had a black and brown flag accompanying some logos around the time of "Chocolate City."

langebleu said:

Also, at one of the Paisley Park performances of the song, when Larry was on stage, Prince pointed at him during the line "I knew this dude, he was very cool, until he went 2 school...". Kinda obvious!

purplecam said:

What exactly do you want to know ?
Orgnote me if you want.