Quite a few of you know about this paper I've been working on for first year of Masters (I'm at Université Paul Valéry, Montpellier France)... I'll post it bit by bit. Very long, but I hope youall enjoy it!


The Utopian Prince - A Spiritual (R)evolution

In the beginning God made the sea
But on the 7th day, he made me
- My Name is Prince (1992)

Prince, best known as a singer of "dirty" songs, is also a creator of spiritual worlds par excellence. Contained within these worlds are numerous dualities and contradictions - saints and sinners, twinship, male and female, fire and water, deaths and rebirths, slavery and ownership, heavens and earth. All of these elements define Prince’s oeuvre, and the series of spiritual worlds contained within:

I know from righteous I know from sin
I got 2 sides and they both friends
- My Name is Prince (, 1992)

In this exposé, I will explain why Prince’s Sister represents the start of a very personal spiritual journey, as he moves from utopian dreams to real-life, self-created utopian worlds in search of a soul mate, the missing twin which, in fact, represents an artistically-portrayed fractured and fractioned inner self. His haunting battle with Warner Bros. Records would open up new artistic and spiritual horizons for him as well. Finally, his search ends with The Rainbow Children (TRC, 2001), in a "covenant" which he swears "will be kept this time." This report, by no means exhaustive, is an overview of a few major spiritual themes found in Prince’s music. Any one of these - or any one of Prince’s albums, for that matter - deserves an exhaustive examination of its very own. There are seemingly endless spiritual highlights to be explored in his songs, albums, videos and even more personal spheres.

He has created an entire lifestyle around his art, a carefully-controlled artistic wonderland centered at Paisley Park studios, in snowy Minneapolis, where he has even invited fans for spur-of-the-moment jam sessions and spiritual discussion. Prince’s artistic life is all-encompassing; the personal is artistic, and the artistic, personal. His public image, complete with name changes, face-painting, his own record company and the online utopia found at www.npgmc.com, are more than publicity stunts or money-making schemes: they are an extension of Prince’s personal ideals. "May you live to see the dawn" a trademark parting slogan, became "Welcome to the Dawn," as a new world beckoned, a spiritual paradise that Prince would call The Everlasting Now (TRC).

As a spiritually-focused artist, Prince romantically identifies with the natural elements, idolizes beauty and searches for the missing twin sister-figure with whom he will reunite the three aspects of love, fractured by the Apollonian Greeks: eros (sexual attraction), agape (spiritual love) and philia (brotherly love). His love of symbolism is such that, for a time, he renamed himself with a symbol.

Prince, now a middle-aged man looking back at a career of already over a quarter of a century, is currently in a state of nostalgia and revival of his original musical forms (Musicology, 2004). He no longer seems to be struggling with the romantic contradictions of his career’s first two decades, but will doubtlessly continue to evolve spiritually over time.

"Sister," or, the Original Sin

My sister never made love to anyone else but me
She's the reason for my, uh, sexuality.
- Sister (Dirty Mind, 1981)

Only 1 minutes and 33 seconds long, Sister is a playful, punkish "ditty." Its lyrics convey a measure of shrieking emotional pain disguised beneath strutting, adolescent machismo. Far from being a true story (in spite of long-lived rumors to the contrary) Prince might have written it to get revenge for some slight he suffered at the hands of his older half-sister while staying with her in New York City to pursue a recording contract. It marks nonetheless an important thematic development in Prince’s work, in comparison to the more conventional material found on his first two albums. By flouting one of the Occident’s most unanimous moral taboos, that of brother-sister incest, Prince doubtlessly set out to shock but in doing so, also reveals a Byronic brand of Romanticism.

In order to understand the not readily apparent spiritual qualities of the song Sister, from Prince’s Dirty Mind album (for which he, not incidentally, thanks God in the liner notes), it is necessary to examine the archetypal meanings of incest and twinship. Born June 7, Prince would make much of what he believed was his Gemini, dual nature; and as a result, the exploration of artistic and metaphysical ramifications of twinship would become a dominant theme throughout his career.

According to ancient myth, incest was the beginning of all things. Incestuous relationships are at the center of Egyptian creation mythology, as are the Greek and Roman versions. Scandinavian mythology also involved incest themes. Regarding the Christian religious tradition, with which Prince most strongly identifies throughout his career, the Bible at Genesis 1:17 that Cain has a wife. Who was she? One might deduce that it was his sister.1

Interestingly, the Sister in question here is exactly twice Prince’s age, making her a "mother/sister" figure and literally his "double:"

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse
My sister was 32, lovely, and loose

Much later, Prince would incorporate symbolic incestuous implications, albeit more metaphorically, in songs about his first wife, Mayte Garcia. The song written for their wedding day, Friend, Lover, Sister, Mother, Wife, recalls a line from Percy Bysshe Shelley’s Epipsychidion:

Spouse! Sister! Angel! Pilot of the Fate... (1302)

She appears as an angel in the videos for The Holy River (Emancipation, 1996) and Same December (Chaos & Disorder, 1996), and he calls her his "saviour:"

we’re like 2 petals from the same flower baby
we’re like 2 branches from the same tree
(2 drops of water from the same sea)

- Saviour (Emancipation)

The phrase "two drops of water from the same sea" evokes the image of a shared womb. Interestingly, in a 1996 televised interview with Oprah Winfrey, Prince (who had by that time changed his name to "",) admitted his fraternal feelings for Mayte:

: I feel like she was either my sister or we were the same person or something in another life. It -- there's a closeness that -- that you know is right and you don't argue with.

OPRAH: Well, isn't this all kind of weird?

: Well, it depends on how you look at life.3

For one looking at life from a traditionally Romantic standpoint, the above-described love reunites the three aspects fractured by the Greeks: philia (brotherly love), eros (sexual love), and agape (sacred love). The term "Romanticism" defines Prince’s artistic outlook in general. Its 19th century American version has been defined as a movement that "stressed strong emotion, imagination, freedom from classical correctness in art forms, and rebellion against social conventions." 4 Another source define it as "the exultation of feeling above intellect, or of hope above knowledge." 5 The very definition of the word "utopian" seems to exist in the Romantic imagination. In the American Heritage dictionary, utopian is "excellent or ideal but existing only in visionary or impractical thought or theory." 6

Prince of the early 1980s was not merely a Romantic, but a "New Romantic:" Per Nielsen mentions that in 1981, at the peak of the this club movement in Europe, Prince attended a New Romantic soirée in Amsterdam and was so impressed at how "beautiful" everyone looked that he would soon adopt this style for the film Purple Rain.7 But even now, he continues to dress outside of his time.

Sister is also an important early example of Prince’s metaphorical sexuality-as-spirituality. One could just as well rewrite the line, "She’s the reason for my...sexuality" to say, "She’s the reason for my... spirituality." On his next album, Controversy (1981), the song Sexuality clearly defines a new spiritual world created by a "new breed" of people.

Prince’s female side, which he would further emphasize in later years, comes to the fore in Sister. The female-over-male power dynamic is implicitly stated in the song’s refrain:

Oh, sister
Don't put me on the street again
Oh, sister
I just want to be your friend

In an overview of the lyrics of this song, we see that the female, sisterly side is what will "save" Prince from a cold, material world, a theme later elaborated on his Emancipation album. Interestingly, by early 1982, he had found a "twin" in the form of singer Vanity, a/k/a Denise Matthews, his first protégée among many (as producer of the group Vanity 6’s only album, 3x2=6, 1982). In hindsight, it seems she was exploring the same spiritual/sexual terrain as Prince, while insisting on their intellectual similarities and compatibility, rather than "saving" him as he seemed to expect from a female twin-figure. Although their youthful romantic relationship did not last long, she too, like Prince, later adopted a more formal system of religious belief and is now a minister in her own right.8 Thus Vanity was first in a long line of female alter-egos, who operate as a form of persona-projection, in order to express a feminine side of himself. Perhaps this is true of all "Pygmalion"-like male/female efforts?

In Prince’s first utopian place, which appears on the Dirty Mind album in the song Uptown, his protagonists enjoy an atmosphere of social and sexual freedom, in an idealized, nostalgic vision of Minneapolis’s mid-70s music scene:

Where we come from, we don’t let society tell us how we’re supposed to be
Our clothes, our hair we don’t care
It’s all about being there.

This song too moves along at a jaunty pace, less frantic than the hyperkinetic beats of Sister. It is a fun, carefree pop song, characterized by its jaunty synthesizer riffs that characterize what soon became known as "the Minneapolis sound." Prince’s explorations of Uptown would continue on his next album, Controversy, and his definition of this world elaborated.

In conclusion, from the Dirty Mind era forward, two types of utopia can be identified in Prince’s work: people-oriented "spiritual-paradises" or actual places idealized in the mind of the artist as "paradise on earth." By The Rainbow Children, the two meld into a confident singular statement, when they deconstruct the man-made "Digital Garden" of the devil’s design (populated by "the Banished Ones" comparable to Controversy’s "tourists"):

And with every phase of the deconstruction the Everlasting Now became evermore reality.
- The Work Pt 1 (TRC 2001)
[Edited 9/29/05 19:15pm]

"Sexuality," or, Sex as Mediator between God and Man

The Controversy album contains Prince’s first unambiguous spiritual statements, complete with a recitation of the Lord’s Prayer (Controversy), a description of the anti-Christ (Annie Christian) and a blueprint for a new world (Sexuality).

From the first "oooowwwaaah!" - Prince’s battle cry to arms, the frenetic, insistent rhythms of Sexuality call a "new breed" of humanity to revolution: "I’m talking about a revolution we’ve got to organize." A "New Age Revelation," condemns racial segregation, and even the concept of race itself.

Neither money nor clothes are needed in this world; an idea that has already been made clear in the chant from Controversy’s title track:

People call me rude
I wish we all were nude
I wish there was no black and white
I wish there were no rules.

Nudity here plays a dual role. Initially licentious and shocking, it is also an innocent reflection of humanity in its original, Biblical state: Adam and Eve before their fall into sin. Nudity is a rejection of modes, in more than one way. On 1992’s album (otherwise known as the "symbol" album), the tender ballad And God Created Woman recalls this original state of innocence, infused with spirituality:

And we were naked and did not care
There’s a time 2 take and a time 2 share
2 in love, all around and all aware
Flesh of my flesh (flesh of my flesh)
And God created woman (woman)

Other dualities present themselves in Controversy. The "black and white" dichotomy of this song is not uniquely in reference to race, but also applies to extremes in rule-making: Prince juxtapositions the line "I wish there was no black and white" with "I wish there were no rules." Also:

I don’t understand all the things people say
Am I Black or White
Am I straight, or gay?

Later, Prince will employ black & white to make a point about good and evil; for example in the white half-masks of the Partyman video (Batman, 1989, the masks are worn on the left, or feminine side of the face); and black and white face-painting in Same December (Chaos and Disorder, 1996), in line with his condemnation of the commercial "star" system.

In Sexuality, he qualifies those dominated by "the system" as "double-drags" or "tourists" with "half of the staff of their brain" on vacation. Here again is a reference to half-ness, to something missing. If this were half of the brain, it would pertain to the right, or creative/emotional side, from which spiritual information may be accessed.

Even in what could be interpreted as Controversy’s "blasphemies" impart an alternative spiritual meaning. The inset poster that came with this album, shows him taking a shower next to a crucifix. On one hand, this is a provocation, but this could also represent an act of cleansing before the eyes of the Lord, and an acknowledgement of Christ’s sacrifice in order to make that cleansing possible.

On the Purple Rain concert tour, he clarified the above points by publicly repenting for giving in to sexual temptations in a performance that anticipates Temptation, the closing track of his next album, Around the World in a Day (1985). Midway through the concert, after coming on to the audience with the admission that he has "a bad case of... sexual temptation," he moves into abbreviated versions of "lustful" songs from his 1999 (1982) album, Let’s Pretend We’re Married and International Lover. Then God speaks to him with thunder from heaven, and Prince responds by sitting down at the piano to croon the story of God’s creation, ending the song in a utopian statement:

God made U, God made me 2
He made us all equally...
(God, originally the B-side of Purple Rain, 1984)

The lessons continue. A bit later, the end of Computer Blue, a computerized voice announces:

"Poor, poor lonely computer... it’s time you learned love and lust - they both have four letters, but they’re entirely different words." In later songs, Prince would contrast "love" with "sex" but his meaning is the same: eros without agape is alienation from God.

Next on the program is Darling Nikki, and at its end, we hear the lyrics that are normally backward-masked at the song’s end on the album version:

Hello, how are you? I’m fine, ‘cause I know that the Lord is coming soon. Coming, coming soon...

Prince truly "repents," at this point, in several phrases he will incorporate in the ending of Temptation ("I’m sorry, I’ll be good. This time, I promise"). To drive the point home, he goes back to the piano for a performance of the painfully romantic The Beautiful Ones. The sufferings that true love brings become his Calvary.

From this repentant precedent, Prince’s spiritual world is no longer dominated by the dualities of the color purple, which he appreciated for its "dark, passionate foreboding" and royal9 as well as spiritual qualities. From the time of PR’s follow-up album, Around the World in A Day (ATWIAD), purple became a symbol of his spiritual search. In the title song, peoples climb a "purple ladder" in order to access "a government of love and music boundless in its unifying power, a shower of flowers," transcending the American government’s "red white and blue." Musically, the album recalls the optimistic, psychedelic late 1960s, and is most often compared to the Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper album. However, The Ladder and Temptation are dominated by strong gospel influences: the former recalls a church choir and the latter, an animated pulpit confession.

ATWIAD thus pulls the listener to a rainbow world, presaging The Rainbow Children and introducing a new utopian place called Paisley Park, after which he named his recording complex. But Paisley Park was "much more than a studio," according to a Details magazine interview:

"it has become Prince's extended family, over which he presides as benevolent patriarch."10

Until today, this creative heaven-on-earth is located in Minneapolis, MN, because "it’s so cold, it keeps the bad people out." 11

Poised between the rainbow world of ATWIAD and the apocalyptic is the socially-conscious Sign O’ the Times (SOTT). On this album appears an "evil" manifestation of Prince’s personality named Camille; a character he would publicly destroy on the Lovesexy tour. In contrast, at the end of the SOTT concert film, Prince appears as a modern-day humble for a touching performance of The Cross, exhorting the listener to faith in the Christ as a solution to mankind’s problems. Prince would later change the song’s lyrics in concert performances (a practice first started on the PR tour) to "The Christ." 12 Also midway through the SOTT film, we observe Prince and his band bowing their heads together in thanks.
[Edited 9/20/05 1:35am]

"Lovesexy," or The Prodigal's Return

Is it any wonder that Prince appears nude on the cover of this overtly spiritually album? He blooms out of the center of a white flower, while a purple one appears behind his head, like an aura or the representation of the 7th chakra, which in traditional Indian medicine, appears at the top of the head and symbolises spirituality. The flowers surrounding him, to which he appears to be attached by an umbilical cord-like stem, are white tinged with pink, colors of purity and innocence. Prince is reborn in a baby’s skin, staring off into the distant heavens, with his right hand over his heart in a vow to higher powers. He bares his soul as he bares his body, in an auto-erotic image of spirituality ("love," agape per Prince’s definition) perfectly melded with sexuality ("lust" or "sex" or eros), epitomizing a new spiritual realm, Lovesexy. Prince defines this as: "The feeling u get when u fall in love not with a girl or boy but with the heavens above." Lovesexy is the precursor the TRC’s "Everlasting Now," which he describes in the song Everywhere:

There’s a place I want to go
Where the milk and honey flow
Without God it wasn’t there
Now I feel it Everywhere

Prince introduces the one-track formatted Lovesexy (a guarantee that the listener will get the full message from beginning to end, as the artist intended) with Eye No, where he professes his belief in heaven and a hell, God and the devil (which he names "Spooky Electric").

At the beginning of the title song, he calls out for "new power, new power - give it to me." Likewise, in what is possibly his most beautiful key-based ballad, Anna Stesia, he asks a mysterious woman for power against the dark forces of loneliness and sexual desperation:

Anna Stesia come 2 me
Talk 2 me, ravish me
Liberate my mind
Tell me what you think of me
Praise me, craze me
Out this space and time.

Who or what is Anna Stesia? Prince has already sung about a symbolic Annie Christian, who reflected a spirit of evil. Anna Stesia, however, he hopes will teach him to love "the right way, I mean the only way," thus bringing him closer to God:

Maybe - I could learn to love
If I was just closer 2 somethin’ (closer)
Closer 2 your higher self
(...)
Closer 2 heaven (Maybe) closer 2 God
(Closer 2 God)

A further clue to her identity lies in following line:

Gregory looks just like a ghost
And then a beautiful girl the most

Anna is evidently not an ordinary girl, but rather, a manifestation of spirit as a holy "ghost" named Gregory, who materializes into angelic female form. "Gregory," a name carried by three Church fathers and several saints is of late Greek origin (Gregorius) and means "watchful" or "alert."13 The holy spirit is a spiritual "anaesthesia" that allows him to reach painfully into the viscera of his own soul and at the same time, grants him the consciousness to understand what he finds there.

Anna Stesia is but a mediator between Prince and Christ, who he goes on to address personally:

Save me Jesus, I've been a fool
How could I forget that you are the rule
You are my God
I am your child
From now on, for you I shall be wild
I shall be quick I shall be strong

He vows to carry on the Lord’s work:

I’ll tell your story no matter how long...
We’re just a play in your master plan
Now, my Lord I understand...

Prince concludes the song with a rousing gospel refrain that exhorts the listener to taste the joys of agape:

Love is God, God is love
Girls and boys love God above...

In the concert performances of this period, the Lovesexy tour, he dies and is reborn. The first part of the show is dominated by the earthly, corrupt Prince - a shameless seducer. He gleefully runs through a repertoire of his "dirty" songs: Head, Jack U Off, Sister, Erotic City, etc. Midway through the show, after performing Bob George (after which this character, played by Prince, shoots his lover, played by dancer Cathy Glover), he is carried off the stage and comes back for a second part focusing on redemption, in a far more elaborate form than even that of the PR tour.

Lovesexy, a musically and thematically well-integrated album, contains Prince’s most complete spiritual statement to date, but he recognizes that as long as there are problems in the world, there is work to do. "Hold on to your soul, we have a long, long way to go," (Positivity). The Rainbow Children states this more overtly:

We’ve got so much work 2 do.
Everywhere...
(Everywhere, TRC)

The New Power Generation, or, Children of the Apocalypse

Prince, who plays just under 30 instruments, came to the music business as a one-man band. The names he chose for his back-up band give us insight into his spiritual evolution. In 1979, he named an experimental rock back-up band "The Rebels."14 Better known is "The Revolution," immortalized in Purple Rain. After the latter disbanded in 1986, Prince would welcome listeners to a "New Power Generation" (NPG) in Eye No. To this day, his independent recording label bears this name, as does his online music club.

is a concept album, originally conceived as a "funky rock soap opera"15 in which Prince is forced to confront the ramifications of true love and in turn, protect it. Mayte Garcia, who joined the NPG as a choreographer on the Diamonds and Pearls tour (his first one with the newly-dubbed band), is introduced on this album as simply "Mayte," who plays a "Crown Princess of Cairo" living in fear of her father’s murderers.

opens apocalyptically, and ends hopefully. In the first track My Name is Prince, the listener is confronted with anarchic and elemental, clashing and converging sounds; near- perfect cacophony. The past is being destroyed and a fiery phoenix is waiting to rise from the flames. In the album’s final track, The Sacrifice of Victor, Prince addresses a congregation (not unlike the introduction to Let’s Go Crazy), asking them to turn to the book of Victor, and proclaims "eye know joy lives round the corner," in yet another rousing, gospel-inspired number.

The My Name is Prince video opens destructively with riots in the streets and fire lighting the obscurity in the song’s video. Prince appears in a mask of chains, symbolizing slavery. Another destructive "prop" is Prince’s golden gun microphone, seen in videos from this album and in live performances.

Menacing, devilish laughter greets the listener at the beginning of 7, and we quickly learn that these refer to the story’s evil protagonists, who:

"...stand in the way of love and we will smoke them all / with our
intellect, and our savoir faire."

The "7" are the murderers of Mayte’s father, but the number also seems to bear some relationship with Prince himself. By standing in the way of love, they foreshadow the "banished ones" of TRC. In the video, Prince is destroyed seven times, then comes back to life for a new beginning. In the Bible, as in Hinduism, the number 7 has divine connotations: There are seven days of Creation, the seven angels of Revelation impart spiritual messages to impart, etc. Thus it seems that Prince is undergoing a divinely-inspired judgement, or purification.

In doing so, Prince borrows Biblical imagery from the book of Revelation, namely chapter 13:

Prince: And we lay down on the sand of the sea...

Revelation 13:1: And he stood upon the sand of the sea, having ten horns and
seven heads, and on his horns ten diadems.16

Prince: And before us animosity will stand and decree / That we speak not of
love only blasphemy

Revelation 13:5: And there was given him a mouth speaking great things and
blasphemies...

Interestingly, the subject of these verses is a wild beast, given authority by the "dragon," or the devil. Prince emphasizes the sincerity of his beliefs, on his goodness; insisting that his accusers will one day fall:

And in the distance, 6 others will curse me
But that’s alright, (that’s alright)
4 I will watch them fall (1, 2, 3,4,5,6,7)

In a utopian scenario, the following lines recall the first verses of Revelation 21:

Prince: There will be a new city with streets of gold
The young so educated they never grow old
And, there will be no death 4 with every breath
The voice of many colors sings a song
That's so bold
Sing it while we watch them fall.
Rev. 21:2: I saw also the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming
down out of heaven from God...

Rev. 21:4: And he will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death
will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore. The former things have passed away.

The children in the 7 video - miniature Princes and Maytes who may inhabit this new world - are precursors of the Rainbow Children. These are the children who come out of the destruction of the old world, and into the new. There is a glimpse of gold, and the "many colors" of the rainbow, as a symbol of genuine hope for a peaceful future. But first, the old order must be destroyed.

Love, like a rose in bloom
All of the Rainbow Children will feel it soon
2 the east, word travelled about this energy
Until it reached the Banished Ones
Who just wanted this love to cease.
(Digital Garden, TRC)

Emancipation or, The Devil comes dressed as Light

"The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression."

- The Poet (1844), Ralph Waldo Emerson


Get busy big baby cuz when dem devil come
Dem devil come dressed as light
Maybe they gon’ fool the untrained mind
But nobody eye know gon’ bite.
(Muse 2 the Pharoah, TRC)



In 1993 – on his 35th birthday, Prince renamed himself “.” Not until January, 2000 would he once again reclaim his birth name, and until then, he was known as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince,” awkwardly abbreviated by the press as “TAFKAP.”

Prince’s battle was not only against the darker forces within him, but also those on the outside. His artistic differences with Warner Brothers Records went beyond legal boundaries, into the spiritual realm: owning his work was tantamount to owning Prince himself, his soul.

A public display of this sentiment is found in the infamous “slave” he began to write on his cheek from late 1994 in public performances and videos until 1996, when he had finally fulfilled his legal obligations to Warner Bros Records. Meanwhile, posing as an anonymous “Tora Tora,” recalling the Japanese war cry, first heard by Americans at Pearl Harbor, he produced an album with the New Power Generation, called Exodus, always performing masked with the group. “To ra,” pronounced as separate syllables, means “the attack has begun,” then “success has been achieved.” Pronounced together, “Tora” is the Japanese word for “tiger.”17 The Exodus album, as the title amply suggests, is full of emancipation messages. In its title song, another name for the NPG surfaces: The Children of the Sun.18 “Would you rather be dead, or be sold?” he later asks in Muse 2 the Pharoah (TRC).

Gold as well as slavery appears as a prominent and repetitive motif through the mid-1990s, with much spiritual significance. An entire album is based on this theme (1995’s The Gold Experience). Gold flashes from all directions at the viewer in videos from : in lights, Mayte’s costume, jewellery, Prince’s “gun” microphone, etc. 3 Chains O’ Gold () may symbolize his own ability to express agape. Are the three chains of gold on his heart the three aspects of love: eros, agape and philia? As it has been demonstrated above, Prince’s battle is with himself as well as those on the outside. The old Prince dies 7 times, and is reborn with the ability to love the woman to whom he destines himself, Mayte.

The “” symbol itself is loaded with utopian significance, and has a link with several recurring themes in Prince’s work. What the Artist called his “love sign” actually closely resembles the alchemic symbol for soapstone, traditionally an important ingredient in the making of gold. There is a spiritual significance in the color “gold,” but it is also related to Romantic incest themes:

Occultist and psychologist Carl Jung, adds: 'Alchemy...exalted the most heinous transgression of the law, namely incest, into a symbol of the union of opposites, hoping in this way to bring back the golden age.'19

Thus Prince’s retrieval of his lost half is the golden key that opens a door to paradise. In his 1996 interview with Oprah Winfrey, Prince stated that “” was, in fact, a manifestation of a second personality within himself, discovered in the course of therapy. It was first created, he said, when he was mocked as a child for his small size, but he went on to thank Warner Bros. Records for giving him the opportunity to bring this personality forward:

OPRAH: Do you think that it would have happened to you had you not been enslaved?

: Oh, no. Absolutely not. And I -- you know, I -- some days I want to just call up the folks at Warner Bros. And just. 'I love you, man.'

OPRAH: Really?

: Yeah, just...

OPRAH: Because?

: Of the journey, and they're are part of the experience. I -- I'm thankful to them for giving me the opportunity to be here talking to you, you know? This record is really important for me because it's the first time that I've recorded an album, a complete album, in a state of complete freedom.

OPRAH: Will we feel the emancipation?

: Yeah, I think so. What -- what you have to understand is I play most of the instruments myself. So when I go in to do the guitar track, this is a happy, free man recording.20

The Emancipation album (1996), was his first independently-released album on his own label, NPG Records. Although ambitious, overlong and thematically disorganized, it is more light-hearted and optimistic in tone than the angry anti-corporate rocker Chaos & Disorder, his last release on Warner Bros. The jazzy Emancipation, on the other hand, seeks to make peace with the past.


Seemingly meant as a magnum opus - 36 songs in three hours on 3 CDs – Emancipation is an experimental mix of many forms, from big band to rap and even tap dancing (on Joint 2 Joint). It is clearly an emotional outpouring, as the album’s art symbolically illustrates as the “” rises up from broken wrist chains on the album’s cover. While not all of Emancipation contains strong material, there are many spiritual highlights, in line with previous themes already explored: Godly approval of oneness with the love of his life, and a rejection of fleshly values.



The costume and makeup Prince used in this period is spiritually significant. In Emancipation’s liner notes, Prince appears several times in monastic attire, a demonstration of the spiritually purer life he wished to undertake. In the liner notes promises to never sell-out again, because “In a perfect universe, dreams come true.” On the cover of these notes, Prince appears with a prominently drawn “slave” on his right cheek, a tattooed “” on a shaved portion of his head above his right ear and upraised hands in chains as the lightning of God’s anger flash down from heaven before him. He leaves judgement to God. At the start of The Holy River video, he paints “slave” on his face, but it disappears by the end.
[Edited 10/6/05 10:41am]

The Holy River, or, how Woman led Man back to Paradise

Whenever I look in your eyes, I can see a paradise
U’re my saviour, U’re all I ever need (Saviour)
- Saviour (1996)

Prince’s primary muse and fellow NPG band member, Mayte, became his wife on February 14, 1996. Together, they would create a short-lived paradise.

“She makes it easier to talk to God,” he told Oprah Winfrey, about Garcia, in the 1996 televised interview.

The inside liner notes are whimsical: a pregnant belly full of music rises from a mountain chain; nostalgic photos of relatives as well as childhood shots of Prince and Mayte pepper the landscape. Photos of the Paisley Park complex compliment songs full of hopes for their new life together (such as Let’s Have A Baby), and apologies for the past (like In this Bed I Scream, an apology to former friends and band members).

In the song that features the ultrasound heartbeat of his unborn son, Prince joyfully offers a utopian prophecy, integrating eros and agape:

Can’t U feel the new day dawning?
All believers will see
An end to suffering and every disease
Every waking hour will soon be spent kissing each other
Angelic sister and brothers
Clap your hands for one another…

But perhaps Prince’s strongest spiritual and personal statement on Emancipation is found on its strongest disc, number II, in The Holy River, a sincere outpouring of Prince’s heart to his woman in a gently melodic ballad. The importance of its spiritual message is made clear to the knowledgeable listener in what would be otherwise cryptic liner notes about this song:

“‘if we drown then we’ll be delivered.’ Anna Stesia / The Holy River…”

In The Holy River’s video, Prince and his band play from a paradisiacal backdrop; in front of a waterfall feeding a river, the source of which is heaven itself. Meanwhile, Mayte romps about dressed like a little girl in big boots and a comical, floppy hat, then literally as the angel who saves his life - albeit an earthly one, as indicated by the leafy crown on her head. At the video’s end, Prince stands in his own hand, emphasizing his own self re-creation and ownership of this utopian scenario.

In contrast to the Raspberry Beret video, for example, this time, Prince touches the sky. Bassist Rhonda S. and guitarist Kathleen Dyson are dressed in white, and sing while floating among the clouds, like a choir of angels. They later stand in the hand of a giant, God-like Prince, recalling another gospel motif. (“He’s got the whole world in his hands.”)

In The Holy River, Prince undergoes a baptism of sorts, to a new life. In Christian symbolism, baptism signifies death to the world’s desires; by rising up from the waters, one is “born again” to a spiritually cleansed future. Prince describes this in the chorus:

Let's go down 2 the holy river
If we drown then we'll be delivered
If we don’t then we’ll never see the light…

Prince marks “slave” on his face at the beginning of the video, and goes on to demonstrate that there are several facets to his slavery. Here, he sets himself free from a lifestyle based on eros and other physical pleasures: “Relationships based on the physical are over and done,” he sings. “U’d rather have fun/With only one…” He highlights “only one,” repeating it the word “one” five times altogether, then in a booming crescendo, slides into a bridge that credits his newfound joy to Jesus, not unlike Anna Stesia:

And then it hit ‘cha like a fist on a wall
Who gave U life when there was none at all?
Who gave the sun permission 2 rise up everyday?
Let me tell it.
If U ask God 2 love U longer
Every breath U take will make U stronger
Keepin’ U happy and proud 2 call His name
Jesus

In this case, the decision to unite these two souls in holy matrimony becomes the holy river; as one baptizes the other in tears of joy:

So I went on down 2 the holy river
I called my girl and told her I had something 2 give her
I asked her 2 marry me and she said yes, I cried
Oh, that night I drowned in her tears and mine…

He puts a emotional and spiritual crisis to an end, as described below:

U can still see the picture upon the wall
One eye staring at nothing at all
The other one trying 2 focus through all your tears…

In fact, the above imagery draws a long-time repetitive motif to a conclusion. It evokes the image of a face on the wall in the When Doves Cry video, which was also used in the Purple Rain tour. At the very end of the video, a purple tear slips from the eye of the face on the wall. The source of both Purple Rain and The Holy River are the heavens. In both instances, the tears cried are of a spiritual nature: one represents the pain of lack, the second, the joy of finding.

A “third eye” enters the picture, first in the video for Same December and secondly, in The Holy River. The former is appears at the center of a gold record (which might be the 1999 album), which finishes with an angry crash against a wall. The second blooms peacefully from the middle of a romantic pink rose. Prince followed up this motif in an introspective song called 3rd Eye, from the 1997 acoustic album, The Truth, which introduces a funky, New Age twist to the story of Adam and Eve’s fall from sin:

Ultimately, the only one
That can save U is U
Your God is inside and 4 that God U will do
Whatever it takes
If nothing else is true
The only one that can save U is U, yeah…

Thus this “third eye” seems to represent the eye of God, whether He is to be found within, or in the heavens as specified in other songs. A similar motif is found painted above a doorway at Paisley Park studios.21

In the end, to conclude this chapter of the Artist’s life, the union that began so hopefully would come to a tragic end. The Prince and his Princess were neither angels nor saviours, just a woman and a man: their relationship suffered after the loss of their son, Gregory, who died of severe cranial deformations within his first week; and their marriage would be annulled in 1998.

The Rainbow Children, or how Paradise was regained

And there's always a rainbow, at the end of every rain.
(Papa, Come, 1994)

Just like the sun, the rainbow children rise
Riding on the wings of the New Translation
See them fly, fly
The covenant will be kept this time...
(The Rainbow Children, 2001)

The Rainbow Children is Prince’s latest Utopian incarnation. Musically, it is perhaps his most diverse and experimental album. Jazz based, it incorporates elements of funk (The Work, Pt. 1, a James Brown sound-alike), Broadway musicals (Everywhere) and even a slice of satirical operetta (Wedding Feast). It concludes with a Purple Rain style ballad, Last December. And most importantly, it is his first album since Come to be released under the name Prince.

Here more than ever, Prince has a spiritual message to convey. Between tracks, a deep, computer-altered narration booms like the voice of God. In imitation of the Bible, its songs are listed in chapters. TRC’s liner notes are his most beautifully illustrated since ATWIAD, and contain most of the lyrics. This latest spiritual world has been strongly influenced by the strict Biblical interpretations of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, but as Music Critic Jim Walsh said:
Why has the news that Prince has embraced the faith of the Jehovah’s Witnesses been met with so much suspicion? Why should such a revelation surprise anyone, coming as it does from a man who has spent most of his 43 years, and his entire recording career, celebrating God?22
The Rainbow Children (TRC) is not only a concept album, but an epic and an allegory, first and foremost a Biblically-based story of God and his peoples, which also seems to find a secondary application in Prince’s relationships with his two wives: a first idealized and artistically “Romantic” relationship with Mayte and the second, more mature and realistic relationship with former employee Manuella Testolini, who was baptized as a Jehovah’s Witness at the same time as Prince, in the summer of 2002. She Loves Me 4 Me is a love song of uncharacteristic simplicity and honesty, quite unlike the Romantic idealizations of Prince’s past; Muse 2 the Pharoah comes closer to the latter. But this is not merely a song about an actual woman; she is also a symbol of God’s spiritual nation, who produces the Rainbow Children, “4 the future of the nation rests in her belly,” like God’s symbolic woman of the bible book of Revelation, chapter 12.23

In order to understand the lyrics, it’s important to examine the beliefs of Jehovah’s Witnesses, as they are understood in the coded “Prince-speak” of TRC. Likely the first Jehovah’s Witness text book that Prince would have likely encountered was entitled: Knowledge that Leads to Everlasting Life.24 They emphasize preparation for a new world to come on the earth, a paradise; insisting on the importance of political neutrality and spiritual separateness from “the world” of wickedness, which includes rejection of political organizations, in favor of divine protection:

The children will be laced with the protection of the word of God
The opposite of NATO is OTAN
(Muse 2 the Pharoah)

In the same song, Prince also shuns superstition, including his formerly much-cherished astrology:

And if the number 13 is such a bad luck number
When there’s no such thing as luck
Then the berries, talons, arrows and stars
Are all superstitions, what the…
(Muse 2 the Pharoah)

Above all, Prince emphasizes the preaching of his beliefs:

Don’t let nobody bring u down
Accurate knowledge of Christ and the Father
Will bring the Everlasting Now
Join the party, make a sound
Share the truth, preach the good news
Don’t let nobody bring u down
The Everlasting Now

Thematically speaking, The Rainbow Children (TRC) is far from revolutionary. Rather, it is a culmination of several repetitive themes: The search for a true love, reconciliation with the father figure, which may be a metaphor for God, as he repeatedly makes the difference between “the Father” and “the Son.” Family Name is a funky call to racial unity, Muse 2 the Pharoah says “Thinking like the keys on Prince’s piano will be just fine.”

Most strikingly, Prince reprises his very first utopian messages from Sexuality. In the title track, he reprises “Reproduction of a New Breed leader stand up – organize!” before calling the Rainbow Children to “rise!” in a rousing chorus. 1+1+1 is Three reverses a line from Sexuality, in reference to “tourists” (here called “The Banished Ones”): “What’s to be expected is 3 minus 3… absolutely nothing.” Only here, Prince finally ousts the “tourists” from his Utopian world, so the result is positive. This may also refer, like 3 Chains O’ Gold, to the split elements of love. “There’s a theocratic order,” he repeats, as the elements are reunited under God. “Love is God, God is love…” (Anna Stesia)

Clearly, on TRC, Prince is no longer struggling… He is candid, on this album, about the moral changes he has made in his life (especially in The Everlasting Now). He has found some answers that satisfy him, and paints a happy ending, where “accurate knowledge of Christ and the Father will bring the Everlasting Now,” in other words, paradise on earth, now and in the future.

In conclusion, TRC ends much like his other utopian albums. On Around the World in A Day, Temptation leaves Prince on the next step of his journey, in his battle against temptation. Lovesexy ends with “hold on to your soul, there’s a long way to go.” TRC’s last words are a final call to unity, under God:

In the name of the Father
In the name of the Son
We need 2 come 2gether
Come 2gether as one.
(Last December)
[Edited 9/20/05 1:52am]

Notes

1 Camille Paglia, Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson (London: Yale, 1990) 41.

2 Shelley, Percy Bysshe, The Complete Poetical Works: EPIPSYCHIDION. 15 April 2005


3 The Oprah Winfrey Show. NBC. 21 Nov. 1996. Transcript. 5 Sept. 2005.


4 Kathryn Van Spanckeren, “An Outline of American Literature,” 15 April 2005


5 Will Durant Foundation, 15 April 2005

6 “Utopian.” American Heritage Dictionary. New College Edition. 1980.

7 Per Nilsen, Dance Music Sex Romance: Prince, The First Decade (London: Firefly, 2004) 90-91

8 See Matthew's official Website: “Evangelist Denise Matthew’s Pure Heart Ministries,” 2005, 5 Sept 2005

9 Per Nilsen, Dance Music Sex Romance: Prince, The First Decade (London: Firefly, 2004) 150.

10 Gret Kot, “Twin Cities Tycoon,” Details Nov. 1988. 5 Sept. 2005

11 The Oprah Winfrey Show. NBC. 21 Nov. 1996. Transcript. 5 Sept. 2005.

12 In December, 1997, Prince introduced “The Cross” with a speech about the meaning of stauros. In January, 1998, he debuted the song with new lyrics on the Essence Awards. The lyrical changes seem due to his studies with Jehovah’s Witnesses, who do not use religious symbols in worship, and believe stauros is more accurately interpreted as “tree” or “stake.”

13 “Gregory,” Behind the name: The Etymology and History of First Names, ed. Ed. Mike Campbell, 2005. 1 Sept. 2005.
Prince would name his infant son “Gregory.”

14 Per Nilsen, Dance Music Sex Romance: Prince, The First Decade (London: Firefly, 2004) 70.
15 “10th anniversary of the album.” Dawnation, the Independent Guide to Prince. 2005. 5 September 2005.
16 Bible verses are taken from the New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures, (New York: WT, 1984). This may be the “new translation” mentioned in The Rainbow Children.
17 “Tora Tora Tora.” 2005. 1 Sept. 2005.
18 The 1995 album Prince produced for Mayte is similarly entitled “Child of the Sun.”
19 “The False Gospel in the Stars,” Watch Unto Prayer, 5 Sept. 2005

20 The Oprah Winfrey Show. NBC. 21 Nov. 1996. Transcript. 5 Sept. 2005.


21 The eye can be seen on the Paisley Park studios website:

22 Jim Walsh, “For Prince, it’s all about sex, God and rock ’n’ roll,” Rev. of The Rainbow Children, by Prince, Pioneer Press. 14 June, 2001. 5 Sept. 2005


23 Revelation 12: 1-6.

24 During the One Night Alone tour, he often handed this book out to fans he met at concerts; as well as during impromptu “chat” sessions at Paisley Park, open to fans.

Works Consulted

Special thanks to JediMaster for his valuable input.

. Emancipation. 1996. NPG Records.

--- “The Holy River.” Emancipation. NPG Records, 1996. Music video. Dir. . New
Power Generation Music Club. 2005. 6 Sept, 2005.

--- “Same December.” Chaos and Disorder. Warner Bros, 1996. Music video. Dir. . New
Power Generation Music Club. 2005. 6 Sept, 2005.

--- The Truth. 1997. NPG Records.

“10th anniversary of the album.” Dawnation, the Independent Guide to Prince. 2005. 5
September 2005.

“The False Gospel in the Stars.” Watch Unto Prayer. 1 Sept. 2005.


“Gregory.” Behind the Name: the Etymology and History of first names. Ed. Mike Campbell.
2005. 1 Sept. 2005.
Knowledge That Leads to Everlasting Life. New York: WT, 1995.
Kot, Greg. “Twin Cities Tycoon.” Details Magazine Nov. 1988. 5 Sept. 2005.

Nilsen, Per. Dance Music Sex Romance: Prince, The First Decade. 2004. London: Firefly.

The New World Translation of the Holy Scriptures. 1962. New York: WT, 1984.
The Oprah Winfrey Show. NBC. 21 Nov. 1996. Transcript. 5 Sept. 2005.

Paglia, Camille. Sexual Personae: Art and Decadence from Nefertiti to Emily Dickinson.
1990. London: Yale.

Prince. . 1992. Warner Bros.

--- “7.” . Warner Bros, 1992. Music video. Dir. Randee St. Nicholas. Yahoo Launch
videos. 2005. 30 Aug. 2005.

--- 1999. 1982. Warner Bros.

--- Around the World in a Day. 1985. Warner Bros.

--- The Black Album. 1994. Warner Bros.

--- Chaos and Disorder. 1996. Warner Bros.

--- Come. 1994. Warner Bros.

--- Controversy. 1981. Warner Bros.

--- Dirty Mind. 1980. Warner Bros.

--- The Gold Experience. 1995. Warner Bros.

--- Lovesexy. 1988. Warner Bros.

--- “My Name is Prince.” . Warner Bros, 1992. Music video. Dir. Parris Patton. Yahoo
Launch videos. 2005. 30 Aug. 2005.

--- “Partyman.” Batman. Warner Bros, 1989. Music video. Dir. Albert Magnoli. New Power
Generation Music Club. 2005. 6 Sept, 2005.

--- Prince and the Revolution Live. Channel 5, 1987.

--- Purple Rain. 1984. Warner Bros.

--- Purple Rain (the film). Dir. Albert Magnoli. Perf. Prince, Apollonia, Clarence Williams, Olga Karlatos. Warner Bros. 1984

--- The Rainbow Children. 2001. NPG Records.

-- “Raspberry Beret.” Around the World in a Day. Warner Bros, 1985. Music video. Dir. Prince.
Yahoo Launch videos. 2005. 23 May 2005.

--- Sign O’ The Times. 1987. Warner Bros.

--- Sign O’ The Times (the film). Dir. Prince. Prod. Robert Cavallo, Joseph Ruffalo, Steven Fargnoli.
1987.

--- “When Doves Cry.” Purple Rain. Warner Bros, 1984. Music video. Dir. Prince. New
Power Generation Music Club. 2005. 30 Aug, 2005.

prince.org. 2005. 7 Sept. 2005.

Princefams. 2005. 7 Sept., 2005.

Prince Lyrics. 2005. 1 Sept. 2005.

“The Romantic Period, 1820-1860: Essayists and Poets.” BLASA, Belgian Luxembourg
American Studies Association, 5 Sept. 2005.


“Utopian.” American Heritage Dictionary. New College Edition. 1980.

Walsh, Jim. “For Prince, it’s all about sex, God and rock ’n’ roll.” Rev. of The Rainbow
Children, by Prince. Pioneer Press 14 June, 2001. 5 Sept. 2005
[Edited 9/29/05 19:16pm]

This is some serious, very enlightening stuff, as I let U know before. I will respond to the 1st section.

Firstly, your notion of Prince's quest for a 'Sister' or 'twin.' Forgive me if I am not interpreting you 100%

I have to agree and acknowledge. One strong example of this is Cat during the SOTT phase. Her clothes even matched Prince's peach at the time.

I believe, like you suggest, that she might have been a temporary twin, but Prince, IMO, saw her as the slutty side of himself. Disagree if U want. I cannot speak about Prince's other female dancers in later years because I do not know them well enough.

I believe that Mayte also fits in2 this 'twin' theory. She was the beautiful one, fulfilling (atleast temporarily) Prince's unification (as U mention) of love, sex, the spiritual realm and honesty. In Prince's art, though - she/the relationship didn't work. Hence, "She Loves Me 4 Me," where Mani becomes a part of this completion that Prince seeks.

Enough of this, there will be more later, I agree that Prince as the artist, even though he would hate this, is very connected 2 Prince the human emotional being.

I hope U continue 2 share your research, it is much appreciated.

Oliver said:

I think you're right about that.

I wrote another paper where I barely touched on Prince's propensity to adopt "protegees" as a sort of "persona-extension." I think this subject deserves its own paper. We could go on and on and on about all this... As it was, I couldn't say much more than I did on this paper, because I already went 2000 words over the limit!

Heiress said:

Personally, I think your work will be go far, esp in the future. Prince happens 2 b one of those artists where his artistic work is worthy of being analysed. It's just a shame that the youth of 2day are being directed away from quality music.

Just yesterday I read about how many hip hop artists are getting paid by brand names just 2 mention these in their songs. This totally justifies why Prince, as a musical pioneer, is fighting against the musical establishment; this is the point it has come 2.

Oliver said:

You've got to be kidding??? Oh my goodness. well, they'd might as well be paid for all the advertising they do. even RUN DMC with their "My Adidas." Goodness.

Thank you for your prognostic. Prince will be acknowledged as a sort of Van Gogh one of these days, no doubt. I'd like to write a book about rock n roll utopias. There's so much to say. I'll eventually post the paper I wrote about Prince's Camille and Madonna's Dita... a sort of comparative of the two sexual personae.

Are you doing some academic writing about music-related subjects? This field is wide-open.

Heiress said:

To be honest, I am not. I would LOVE 2. There's no excuse. But U should know that U have inspired me.

The things U mention in these articles make a person feel good, because even though there are hard-core fans out there, it shows that many of us really think deeply about the man and his music.

He must know that he has such respect. I'm still busy reading your other sections, will respond...

Oliver said:

Go for it! With all the love you'd put in the subject, you'd do a fine job. That's just it, we need to put love into what we do, isn't that right? Or else to me, anyway, our work is meaningless.

Maybe I ought to post this stuff to NPGMC too, what do you think?

Heiress said:

What I really think U need 2 do is write a book. I promise U that your insight will be appreciated, esp by those fams who want a no crap perspective. It will get a lot of ppl talking; even if u just publish a collection of articles. I encourage this.

Great writing and insight. This is what I enjoy on the org. Wish it wasn't so rare. U should think about creating a book. U already have your start.

THIS ROCKS!!

You've obviously put a heap of effort into this. I havn't gotten through it all yet, but it sounds great so far. I always wanted to write an assignment like this, but how can I surpass this?

thank you!!!

Prince is a 23 in numerology, as Madonna, he's powerful and the world can belong to him : he has achieved all the cycles in life and reaches the skies. In my religion, God sends a soulmate to each one. I guess Prince's character is so complete it's hard for him. But muses can go and travel in dreams, he for sure found a mate in each girl he met because of his great tolerance and appetite. He maybe thinks anna Stasia is a ghost, except it can be a powerful brain (an artist), his real soulmate he has to find, his gift from God. Even if he doesn't know where is this Lady, how she looks like, the link between them is natural and I guess they do spend time and share feelings that both express in their songs or drawings. They might belong to one and each other, they mite have spent lives together already in earlier times : only Him could tell !and Her, if she does exist ?

So glad to finally see your paper finished! I know this has been a long, difficult project, but you have really come up with a fantastic analysis here.

I won't even try to tackle the whole thing at once (and besides, this really deserves some nice, long discussion. Hey, if threads about whether Mani and P have split can go on for days, why can't one that actually delves into something of substance?), so I'll just address one aspect that Oliver brings up, at least to start:

Twinship. Oliver observes that Cat and Mayte were both representative of his "twin" during these time periods. Prince claimed that he discovered a seperate personality during a therapy session, and we really should start there. Typically, Split Peronality Disorder (often mistakenly called "shizophrenia", which is a completely different disorder) is a neurosis that occurs in response to a childhood trauma. In essence, the subconscious creates a seperate personality from the core to disassociate from the effect of the trauma. This disorder has been exagerrated in movies and TV for decades, most notably in the films The Three Faces of Eve and Sybill. In reality, both of these would be extremely rare, highly advanced cases. Prince, if he indeed has a dual personality, is a mild case at worst.

Prince certainly seems obsessed over the "Gemini" twin. His need to create various personas over the years is, in my opinion, his attempt to give some sort of name or definition to this other personality. This, in and of itself, shows that he must have a fairly mild case, as the more extreme SPD sufferers have full blown personalities that take over from time to time, complete with names, personal histories, etc. Prince stated in the Oprah interview that he wasn't sure if his other personality was a male or a female, which again indicates a fairly benign case. Prince feels a need to define this aspect of himself, and he often projects it onto other people. His obsession with Mayte as his "Soulmate" could be connected to this, in that he might have felt that his twin was seperated from him, a la Plato's Symposium. He certainly seemed to put that idea into motion with the album, with songs like "...And God Created Woman". This need to feel "completed" is a common one, but in Prince it seems to be extreme.

Throughout his career, Prince has created exterior characters to represent other aspects of himself. During the early 80s, he distinctly split his masculine and feminine attributes, and personified them with The Time and Vanity 6. Both were oversexed, strong, and predatory. Morris Day was the over-the-top gigalo/pimp, while Vanity was the whore goddess. Really, there was very little difference between these two, other than the represenation of the male/female dichotomy. As he moved into the mid-80s, he started to gravitate towards an ideal of a spiritual side vs. sexual side. At one point, he intended to make St Paul Peterson (of The Family) into his foil, with him being protrayed as a kind of white, overtly sexual nemesis to Prince's more spiritual self. This never came to fruition, but he revisited the idea with Graffiti Bridge, with the spirit-filled Kid fighting a worldly Morris.

In the end, I think he has tried many different attempts to create both exterior and interior expressions of his fractured self. Whether it be through his various psuedonyms of Jamie Starr, Alexander Nevermind, Camille, Chrisopher Tracey, Azifwekare, , etc., or via such "characters" as Cat, Mayte, Vanity, Apollonia, Morris, St. Paul, Sheila E, etc. He is constantly struggling to find a definition for this "other".

Of course, recent years (post his return to using "Prince" as his name) have seen a whole lot less of this. Has Prince finally found a reconciliation with his "other"? Has he finally found balance, and a union of eros and agape? I think he most likely has, as reflected in the themes found on TRC.

Oliver said:

I'd love to carry this on. I'm such a stranger to the publishing world, however? I have to talk to my advisor about this. Thanks for the encouragement.

tricky99 said:

Thank you.

You probably have to be a big fan to do this much thinking about Prince. My friends think I'm obsessed.

toejam said:

This is looking at Prince from only one angle here... You could surely come up with your own viewpoints on this that would be absolutely relevant. Our man has done SO much in his short lifetime...

Please consider writing something yourself. Look at all the "Madonna-ologists" out there... I swear there must be 100s. Why aren't there Prince-ologists? (I call us "Musicologists." )

Rock on!

virginie74 said:

Yes. I have the impression he's lived 1000 lifetimes.

I have to post the other paper sometime, that I wrote about Prince and Madonna; you might enjoy that. Actually, it's a comparative of Dita (Madonna's "Sex" alter-ego) and Camille.

JediMaster said:

Hey Jedi! Thanks for all your help, all along. Your insights have been very important to me - especially the tip on the "Lovesexy" tour.

I'd have loved to see St. Paul as his "evil" alter-ego - that would have been hot!!

I swear to you, I really see a culmination in TRC. I will certainly need to flesh this out. I swear, each section here should be a long, expanded chapter.

And like I said to Oliver, the whole "persona-extension" bit of using foils and protegees is a major point that needs its own paper. I might work on that for this year (if they let me write about Prince again).

Hey Jedi, you might have to keep this thread going for me - I'm taking off to Paris for three days!! Lousy timing, yeah...
[Edited 9/20/05 7:06am]

I can't wait to read this...but I'm at work right now. I think the idea of writing an academic paper on Prince is awesome! What will your Master's be in?

Very interesting read.
Hope Prince reads it.

SensualMelody said:

That would be cool. I think he'd dig folks examining his work in this way. Sure beats the "is P sleeping with some Brazilian model" threads.

jone70 said:

It's English, with a minor in World Civilizations.

Yes it sure is great to work on something you feel passionately about - for once!

SensualMelody said:

I'd love to have his opinion.