I just noticed a thread on another fansite about some aftershow in 1998 where Prince sung
"I've gotta go home y'all...
I've gotta go back to America
I've gotta go get ready for the bomb
Osama Bin Laden getting ready to bomb
America... you better watch out... 2001"



Could someone please fill me in on how this is a coincidence and taken out of context?
I am sure there is more to the story.

Was there a big when in 2001 USA was actually attacked by Osama Bin Laden??

Pretty wild stuff.

prodigalfan said:

I remember being on AMP (alt.music.prince - a haven for bitterness these days) when that happened and people were all over it. It was seriously strange. Prince ain't a prophet, but (in the immortal words of Courtney Love) "[he's] not psychic, but [his] lyrics are."

Actually, that song is in reference to February 26, 1993
I don't recall Prince ever singing "America you better watch out, 2001"

http://en.wikipedia.org/w...er_bombing

yes he did sing that-scary eh?

the osama bin laden bit he sang-not the 2001 ref tho

oh, so he did NOT sing about "2001"

well that is a little more comforting. I think most people thought Bin Laden would strike against USA again. Just the thought that Prince got the year right was a little uncomfortable. yaknowwhatimean??

best wait till langbleau gets on -he'll give u the direct quotes etc-tho it was a wee bit unerving hearing him sing that!

jonylawson said:

yes, can't wait to hear from him. He is very knowlegeable of Prince lyrics etc.

*shaking my head* it just really makes me pause and think about some of Prince lyrics. If you listen just superficially while chit chatting to someone else, you are only getting half of the message of the song.

sometimes I don't have the wits to wrap my mind around his metamorphic lyrics... too dayum hard! I guess on those days I should just listen to today's radio to rest my brain.
[Edited 4/17/06 1:04am]

Im pretty sure that Prince keeps up with current affairs.
Osama Bin Laden had been responsible with other terrorist attacks prior to 9/11.
He had been on the FBI's top 10 most wanted list for quite a while before the attacks on the USA.
It could have been an unfortunate educated guess that something might well happen.
[Edited 4/17/06 3:37am]

If I remember correctly, he sings "Osama Bin Laden is getting ready to bomb" It's from the Tivoli, Utrecht (Netherlands) aftershow, with Lenny Kravitz and Candy Dulfer, it's in a long jam towards the end of the show.

It was an amazing coincidence.

The jam was Osama Bin Laden gettin' ready to bomb and he combined it with 2001: Also Sprach Zarathustra (sp?). He DOES say '2001' in the jam but it's a cue for the band to play the 2001 melody line. There's a siren sound throughout it as well so it's very eerie. I thought it would have got picked up by mainstream press at the time but it didn't really.

prodigalfan said:

He most definately DID sing about 2001.

"Osama bin laden getting ready to bomb" is repeated throughout the song.
Then at one point (3 mins into it) it is followed by "America, you better watch out, 2001!"

If you think Prince sang about 9/11 in 1998, do you realise what you are saying? In effect you are essentially calling Prince a prophet, which is ridiculous and the point where fandom starts turning rather creepy.


There was a thread about this just a week or two back, and I think we covered it pretty well there, if only I could find the damn link.

As has been said, the 2001 bit is a trigger to play the Also Sprach Zarathrusta bit from 2001 as part of the jam at the time. He played that song several times before without making the Osama reference. The Osama bombing bit is a reference to the fact Osama had recently bombed American targets by that time, I think an American warship or some embassies?

To which, I recall, the Americans retaliated by bombing a factory that their intelligence said was a cover for Osama's people. In fact it just ended up being a normal factory. Typically accurate CIA intelligence, there.

Besides which, technically, Osama didn't 'bomb' America, he crashed planes, so it's not that prophetic.

oohhhh yeah prince is psychic.. Lmao...

What most people forget to mention is that in 1998, Osama gave a bold statement that he was going to attack America in 2001. People just shrugged it off, thinking "oh there's another crazy arab". We really did think we were invincible then.

Our "purple profit", may have just watched the evening news that night before the gig. That's all.
[Edited 4/17/06 6:29am]

I was there front row, when he said that stuff...
Best aftershow eva!

when did nostradomis come back as prince?????

prodigalfan said:

I started a post on this a while ago. Prince did mention that Osama was getting ready to bomb. I just found it interesting that Prince would sing that lyric but the US gov't had no clue. Coincidence or NOT, it happened.

The following words, as detailed above, were chanted by Prince during the intro go-go groove for the last song performed during the aftershow, 24 December, Tivoli, Utrecht.

'I've gotta go home y'all
I've gotta go back to America
I've gotta go get ready for the bomb
Osama bin Laden getting ready to bomb'.

The last line is repeated a number of times with some additional ad-libs (call-outs to 'Holland' etc).

Then, as the groove builds, Prince cues the familiar melody to Richard Strauss', 'Also Sprach Zarathrustra', which was used as the main theme to Stanley Kubrick's '2001: A Space Odyssey'.

The cue given by Prince at around the 2'15" mark is:

"Y'all ready? 2001 in here ... Holland".

Then, the 'Osama bin Laden getting ready to bomb' chant is repeated, followed by 'America, ya betta watch out, 2001, hit me' to cue the theme once more.

The reference to bin Laden was likely in the wake of the bombing of the American Embassies on 7 August 1998 in Tanzania and Kenya.

The reference to '2001' was the cue for the Strauss lead line, commonly played on the tour rather than a prediction of bin Laden bombing America in that year.


.
[Edited 4/17/06 8:51am]

Graycap23 said:

I find it interesting that you believe Prince would sing that lyric and think the US Gov't had no clue.

do you honestly believe Prince was privy to info the US Gov't did not have simply because Prince voiced it publicly and the Gov't did not?

dumbass said:

Don't go overboard on this.....

Its an amusing concidence but with all the public utterances Prince has made in his life it would be truly freaky if he HADN'T said something that could be interpreted as prophetic in hindsight.

dumbass said:

The governement knew alot more then they let us know!!

I flew back from nyc to sf on sept 10 and they grounded all the planes goin to the west coast for 3-4hrs!! for no good reason


we were on the tarmack for so long and it was only the west coast planes!!

I reached home by midnite and the planes had already struck 6am pst

Does anybody remember when he had his love4oneanother site, and the home page pic was what looked like a bombed-out pentegon?

I think it was around the time he released "The War"

Now that was freaky and strange even then, prince was starting to seriously freak me out!

asg said:

I think all you conspiracy theorists are really secret government agents whose evil purpose is to distract out attention from the real issues with zany theories about secret government plots!

Thats what I think.

If u remember the thread about Prince influencing History, i made public the fact that 11/9 attacks were actually made BECAUSE of Prince.

It's quite obvious: Prince was releasing around 10 songs every month on the NPGMC & the majors began 2 fear it would destroy their dirty industry, so they hired Al Qaida 2 do the 11/9 attacks so public opinion would b distracted from Prince, then send a message 2 Prince saying that there would b other attacks if he kept on releasing great music at such a fast rate.

Obviously it worked: Prince got afraid more people would die because of him &, beginning in 2002, the NPGMC released much fewer music.

So actually the US fought in Afghanistan against "mercenaries", while the Majors'directors (the real 9/11 criminals) were left alone in their huge Hollywood houses.

& the best era ever 4 any Prince fan was put 2 an end after one year of happiness...

.
[Edited 4/18/06 1:58am]

I believe in the possibility that Prince might be psychic.

shaomi said: