Recently, while reading prince.org, somebody mentioned the video for "Holy River". Since I haven't seen it for some time, I decided to sit and watch the video. And guess what - I really liked that, actually it even evoked some feelings. Not only is the song very good, but also the video, although as cheap as one can expect from Prince, conveys the emotion. I really like the scenes revealing Prince's "drinking problem" and then "the conversion" and finding the new way. It also made me think how different Prince sang about God and his faith back then (1996) compared to the present , but well, a lot has been said in this forum already about this.

Anyway, a couple of things made me wonder:

Mayte is featured prominently in the video, however all the shots are taken from "Empty Room" video. I suppose at the time of filming of "Holy River" video she probably wasn't able to show up (the tragic birth of the child) and that's why they decided to use the already existent footage.

There are several scenes of Prince himself from "Empty Room" video as well. I wonder whether it was because they already used Mayte's footage so it went along and included some of his shots as well (in other words, they used the cheapest way to produce a video ) or there was a purpose, which might be:

either Prince wanted a link between "Empty Room" - a song about being left alone by a lover - and "Holy River" - a song about finding the perfect love, thus underlining even greater the difference between his past and presence.

or, since he is dressed almost identical in "Empty Room" video and in the drinking scenes from "Holy River", the first part of the latter video is a sort of a sequel to "Empty Room" and the times illustrated in the video - in the past he was miserable, hurting himself with alcohol and now he is simply enjoying new life. This sequel-like linking is even more tempting since "Empty Room" is a sequel to "Zannalee" video, so the three videos would make a three-video saga about Prince getting funky with two girls, then feeling lonely anyway and then, passing through the unhappy phase and becoming saved by love, marriage and faith.

Ok, enough of this, let me know what you think if you care of course

PS. and of course one more thing... Prince (Artist at the time) looks fabulous in the video - he looked great in "Empty Room" (hmmm, the bathing scene) and the same goes for "Holy River" itself (hmmm, Prince shirtless and barefoot)
[This message was edited Sun Aug 18 10:27:51 PDT 2002 by agarze]

Unfortunately I never got to see any of these videos. They sound wonderful. I supposed you taped them rather than purchasing them as I have never seen them for sale in the stores. Am I correct?

AnimalKingdom said:

well, "Holy River" video WAS aired by MTV (at least MTV Europe) and this is where I got my copy from... but you can see the video at launch.com (the link is somewhere above).

As for "Empty Room" video, I got it through trading (thanks to this person who supplied me with the videos "Empty Room", "I Hate U", "Zannalee", "18 & Over" and others), but I bet you can download it at any of mp3 sharing servers...

There was a video for Empty Room?!

agarze said:

Ok lucky me owns "Empty Room", "I Hate U", "Zannalee", "18 & Over", "the same december" blah blah blah thank u thunderball hehe ... but there was a video 4 "the holy river' ... why didnt i know this??? damn him lol
[This message was edited Mon Aug 19 0:13:30 PDT 2002 by harmony]