Personally, I love it. It's an incredibly funky number, and I think if people had thought it was a "black album" outtake they would be declaring it to be a masterpiece. Now, I don't think it merits that title, but it is a damned good, funky tune.

nah...I don't really like it.

I'm not sure i understand... what do you mean by disregard for topic? It sounds like you are part of the prince camp and offended because someone's feelings where hurt.

PS, I love the song, and it would be on a "best of" compilation by me.

MickG said:

yeah...its one of my favs from the cd.

ufoclub said:

Yeah, this post had me scratching my head. Here's my decipherment:

MickG said:

I interpret this to mean that all songs reflect some truth about human behaviour, in some way or other.

ie. although the characters and situation are made-up by Prince

ie. Prince shows disgust for this situation of the gigalo and this rich woman - which he himself has created.

I think this is either saying this situation is inspired by the people Prince surrounds him by, of which he has a poor opinion; or that it shows Prince hasn't got a grasp on reality leading him to create very artificial cynical situations like this to sing about(?)

I don't get this - Prince isn't one of the characters in the song - unless it is trying to say the way Prince sings cynically about this made-up situation itself puts his character in a bad light, or that he must associate himself in some way with one of these nasty characters.

I agree with that, I think the entire made-up context of the song and characters within it are distasteful and unlikeable.

I take this to mean the underlying point of this song has been missed as with many of Prince's songs.

All in all, I take Mick G to be saying he saying he doesn't like the song because it is a very artificial situation with clearly unlikeable characters, and by creating this cynical commentary on some of the people he's met, it displays Prince's own cynical nature...?

Or something like that. I could be completely wrong!

chunky said:

What do you like about it? Sometimes I like this song, but sometimes I hate it. Don't you think that in certain points he sings out of tune?

that is hilarious. I loved the fact that he sung this in an eastern key that was incredibly catchy, but to your ears it was getting out of tune.... what different interpretations!

gyro34 said:

ufoclub said:

What's an eastern key?

This one and "Life Of The Party" are the two worst songs on the whole album.

vainandy said:

i can't believe you.

different set of notes that sound in tune.... western music, eastern music....

gyro34 said:

Cool song. One of the best on Musicology.

ufoclub said:

Could you be more specific? Are you comparing this song to some Eastern artist you like?

specific? Maybe the answer is in here, I just googled it.


One major difference between Western music and Middle Eastern music is that Western music tends to be based on a scale (sometimes called a key), while Oriental music is based on a maqam. In the words of San Francisco musician Mimi Spencer, a maqam is "something more than a scale, something less than a tune."

In typical Western music, there are 12 possible notes to choose from: A, A Sharp (also known as B Flat), B, C, C Sharp (also known as D Flat), D, D Sharp (also known as E Flat), E, F, F Sharp (also known as G Flat), G, and G Sharp (also known as A Flat). But only 7 of these notes are normally used in a given song. The 7 notes selected as the basis for a given song comprise a scale, and there are certain specific rules regarding which 7 notes can be used in a certain scale. For example, a typical Western song in the key of D Major will use only the notes D, E, F Sharp, G, A, B, and C Sharp. The scale also defines certain relationships between the notes for determining which notes the chords will consist of, and which chords will serve as the basic building blocks for a given song.

In Arabic and Turkish music, the maqam utilizes only selected notes from the full range of possible notes available, so in that respect it resembles the Western scale. But the maqam goes farther in its influence on the resulting music. It also consists of a melody scrap based on certain key notes from that scale and a certain tendency of movement. So a song written in a certain maqam must not only use the particular notes in that maqam, but it must also incorporate the melody scrap for that maqam into the melody line of the song.

Half Steps And Quarter Tones

In Western music, the musical notes are a half step (semitone) apart. For example, on a standard Western piano or harpsichord, each white key and each black key represents one of the 12 possible notes that can be used in Western music, and each is a half step higher than the key immediately adjacent to its left.

However, many (but not all) Middle Eastern songs use quarter tones. A quarter tone is a pitch that is halfway between two adjacent keys on a Western piano. So, instead of having 12 possible notes to use as the basis of building a scale, Oriental music has twice as many possible notes to choose from in building a maqam. It would be impossible to play a Middle Eastern song that uses quarter tones on many standard Western instruments such as pianos, trumpets, and saxophones, because certain notes would simply not have corresponding keys or finger combinations--they would fall halfway between two adjacent ones. (It is possible to tune some Western instruments to play music with quarter tones, but the standard instrument tuned for normal Western symphonic or concert band music would not be capable of playing quarter tones.)

gyro34 said:

My only regret is that I never got to hear The Chronic's version of the funk solo.

That is, of course, assuming that The Chronic was able to play something that he had to learn by ear and not read off a sheet. But as a University of Michigan graduate (very impressive!), I'm sure Mr. Three-Fine pulled it off.

ufoclub said:

Thanks, ufoclub. Prince never ceases to amaze me.

RodeoSchro said: