I was still cooking in the womb

Oh my god, this is a great question. I remember it like I remember my own name. I didn't see Purple Rain that summer because there was only one movie theater in my neighborhood and they didn't get it until the fall, however that entire summer the videos were all over tv and I was slowly starting to fall for Prince. There was one time when my neice was over that summer (she was about 7 at the time, I was 13, and I was talking to one of my friends on the phone. I was saying how some song was my favorite song, and she starts poking me, I was like, "WHAT?" she said, "what about the song with the guy coming out of the bathtub nekkid, you said that was your favorite song", and I said to my friend on the other line, "Oh yeah PRINCE, ok, 'When Doves Cry', now THAT's my favorite song, did you see the video??? He's nekkid!"

So like I said, over the summer my interest in Prince grew. Finally that September the movie came to my hood. My best friend Tanisha took me to see it a week after my 14th birthday which was Sept 21st. I saw it on September 27th. I was so completely blown away, I can't tell you. I remember walking home from the bus stop with her dreamily talking about how "fine" Prince was, and wondering if he was really dating Apollonia. How funny Morris was, and how cool Lisa and Wendy were. I rushed into the house to tell my mother all about the movie. Of course, she could care less, but I think she was amused by how excited I was. I remember singing all the songs in my head over and over so I wouldn't forget them.

The next day I called another friend of mine and convinced her to see it with me and I went again! By this time I was completely in awe of Prince and wanted to have all 9 of his babies! I begged my mom to get the album for me and she did! I flipped out when I got the free poster in the album. I remember reading the poem on the back cover so many times that I accidently memorized it, hehehehe. I also got that poster of him by a window holding the flower...dammmnnnn, he really was fine! ;D

In November the video came out and my friends Tasha and April and I would watch it every Tuesday night at Tasha's house when her mother was out at bingo. I stopped counting at around 75 views...

Damn, all of this is making me hella nostalgic. I loved that time so much. It's so wierd how long ago that was. That was also the year I started to high school, so it was a really special time...I really really miss it!

xoxo
Robin

The funny thing about this thread is that it makes you realize that the things that affect you the most, the things that stay with you the longest or that have the biggest impact, happen to you when you are very young.


Only when you are very young does stuff happen that makes your head spin. As you get older, the peaks and valleys of life even out, but a first love at 13 or a broken heart at 14 is forever...

Alasseon said:

So TRUE .

nurse said:

Here! Here!---

And in '84 M.J. was the clean cut African American talent to be reconed with and Prince was the freak in the public's eye.

Man, how the tables have turned.

1nonly said:

1nonly said:

Lol! Ain't dat da truth! Prince was the freak, the sexual misfit, the outsider, the "bad" one. Who would have thought that twenty-odd years later, he would be the married, conservative, religious musician who never had a drug problem and never went to jail?

The coolest thing about Prince's career is that he always did what HE wanted to do. Whether it was the smartest move or not, he did it his way and he lived long enough to see his reputation be rehabilitated from being the eccentric "has-been" to the true genius he really is.


His message, if there is a message, is to be true to your own star, regardless of what the world thinks. He could have played it safe his entire career, but then he would have been another one of the countless, nameless, faceless musicians, loaded with talent but no vision.

Alasseon said:

AMEN TO THAT!

I was 16. I remember going with a group of friends the day it first came out. The theater was packed & everyone was acting like we were at a Purple Rain Concert. It was great. What a reaction.

I was 8, and I couldn't see it or have the album. But I was allowed to have the 45 for the singles.

Yes I definitely wish I was older, I was really to young to remember the Purple Rain Phenomenom, u guys have some great memories and I enjoyed reading them, thanks for sharing them with us younger ones

I was a fetus 3 and a half months from birth when "Purple Rain" came out. I don't remember much, except that my two favourite records from that year were "Purple Rain" and "Born In The U.S.A."

17. Cool memories.

I will admit I was annoyed at all the bandwagon fans that I call "Rainers" who only liked him because he was so popular at the time.

I was either 12 or 13 when I saw it (can't remember whether it was before or after June 13). Funny so many of us were teens then!
Unlike others I don't remember the mid- to late 80s as a cool time at all, especially musically. p was like a light in the darkness of popular music (I just checked on some site and Whitney was no. 1 when I turned 15, with the fingernail-screetchin-on-blackboard "I wanna dance with somebody)!

The day I saw PR was amazing. I went with two friends from school, it was a sunny summer day. We were blown away. It was significant, too, coz these were two of the most poular kids at school, and I wasn't. But 1 (the MOSt poular - that's important when you're 12) became my best friend thru h-s, partly coz we were both so into Prince back then (he sort of lost interest over time and never became obsessed like me). He had actually got me into P, playing me a cassette of the dirty bits of LPWM - in seventh grade we all walked round "whispering": I sincerely wanna f*** the taste out of your mouth (I already liked 1999, and remembered liking Controversy too).
Seeing PR in the cinema was mindblowing - it was like a pay-off for all of us folks who thought: yeah MJ's talented but the music's kinda boring, and he's too poppy and teenybopper. Riding home on the bus swapping coolest moments: guitar breaks, Apples in the lake, P's hand-sliding (as mentioned), The Beautiful Ones, the dancing, Darling Nikki, Computer Blue. Amazing experience!
Then there was the grammies and the oscars - wild!

Funny thing was, I got into WDC from radio plays w/o realizing who it was. It just sounded SO different. Every new single from P in the 80s sounded different from everything out there (I used to wonder at first hearing LRC if it was a man or woman singing...)
I can remember the first time I heard each one of them on the radio, I think. Mostly it was in my bedroom with my clock-radio waking me up for school in the morning, or in the background in the evening while I did homework!

I was 15, and I had heard the songs, but really didn't know how much of an impact PR had made until the fall, when the songs were all over the place. I didn't see the actual movie til 1986, and boy what a moment! I just watched that movie tonight.

CleopatraJones said:

my nickname is Starchild....wutchu no bout da muthaship....LOL!!!!

Alasseon said:

AMEN TO THAT!!!!

14 years old.....

makes me a bit sad. I remember it all so clearly.

6.

ddin't see the movie, but let's go crazy was the first rock song i was in love with as a kid.

SupaFunkyOrgangrinderSexy said:

purple rain and like a prayer were my firsts...

Universaluv said:

Me too! I wuz in looooove.

1nonly said:[quote]



yeah i remember that... i remember seeing a making of that too...

SlamGlam said:[quote]

1nonly said:

Oh i was like 15 when it came out...

-5

July 7, 1985 on HBO - 13 years old. I couldn't watch a R rated movie in the theaters so I had to wait for it to come to HBO.

ah, the sweet smell of nostalia...

i was just a few months shy of my 8th birthday. we saw purple rain on opening weekend at an eric movie theatre near the pennsauken mart in pennsauken, nj.

i still can't believe my father permitted me to watch that movie. all those titties and language.