Efan said:

My quibble isn't with the sentiment. It's with the writing.

Prince and every other lyricist on this planet should never ever write a social commentary song ever unless they know that 20 years in the future its gonna be 100% historically accurate . Either that , or people should really not over-analyze great song lyrics to the point of utter tedium when they clearly don't have the mental capacity to even say their A,B,C's correctly
[Edited 7/27/07 12:21pm]

Seems to me that HousequakeComSucks has understood it by now, at least there is no response from him /her anymore....

remko said:

Hense the famous quote....."Foot n mouth, leads to boot n ass"!!!! Thats why I sense some quietness in Housequake land.

moonshine said:

DO PEOPLE FROM SOUTH WEST WALES HAVE A MENTAL CAPACITY¿?

moonshine said:

'It seems a shame that so often nowadays fans of Prince devote their time to writing pieces based on what Prince/ may be saying in interviews,as opposed to what he says in his music'

I think you'll find that is because his music has nothing to say and that the world is more interested with his behaviour at interveiws than his music.
[Edited 7/28/07 22:12pm]

GiGi319 said:

Bien dicho.

remko said:

That's because the the moderator objected to his 'nick' so therefore 'booted him out of the Prince 'llapaculs' web page.

CONTROVERSY!

GiGi319 said:

that is so sad
i remember when SOTT came out- as a 17 y.o. at the time hiv/aids was a very scary/terrible thing.
around this time "grim reaper" commercials really brought home the devasting effects of hiv/aids- and the need 2 play it safe.
Prince's lyrics 2 this song really touched me- the video that accompanied it even more- with just words on the screen- he wanted his msg 2 come across- not just about aids , but the state of the world at the time in general, and at that time, he was pretty spot on IMO
btw - i only just watched this video about 10 minutes b4 i logged onto the org- talk about timing

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-----RESURRECT HousequakeComSucks ¡AHORA MISMO!

hey. Let's discuss the other lines, like the one about the rocket ship that exploded and we're still sending people to the moon...
maybe there's some space engineer poster who can rewrite this line too...

BmoreJazz said:

well, for starters....
we were not sending people to the moon in the eighties and have not done so since.....

Yeah! And it's not like we want to send them to the moon as a goal in of itself. The moon will be a launching pad for exploration of Mars in the future. Prince didn't know what the fuck he was talking about. I never realized how terrible this album was.

And "Play in the Sunshine." What the fuck...did he want us all to get melanoma? How irresponsible of him.

There is no record of Dorothy Parker ever taking a bubble bath, with or without pants.

"It." Um, Prince, there's nothing funny about bloodthirsty, ancient, killer clowns.

Coffee grounds are actually toxic to starfish, if you care to know.

But the bottom line is, at least Prince was responsible to correct one song -- The Cross. Thanks to Larry, Prince realized the truth about "stauros," and devoted his time to cryptically proving to his fans that The Christ (see, new song title!) actually died on a fucking pole, not a cross. On behalf of the rest of the Western world, I'd like to apologize to all Muslims for the image of the cross on the uniforms of murdering crusaders. The image on the uniforms should have been mere poles.

HousequakeComSucks said:

This is assuming they had access to the pills at that time. There are thousands of people who couldn't afford those medications in the 80s. Those who couldn't afford them died quicker than those who could. I think getting the topic out there for discussion is better than just assuming people already know everything.

it's funny how people can't tell what disease it was about right away, it's so obvious

remko said:

uhm.. yes.. that was a real event in January 1986 .. they did send a rocketship up of ppl and it exploded on live television .. that is what Prince IS referring to ..

Flowerz said:

They weren't going to the fucking moon.

KingSausage said:

they were going up in space.. what exactly is your 'plight'? he's saying that with all the failure of flying up there.. ppl are still trying to get up there.. .. what's the big issue?

Flowerz said:

The "big issue," or my "plight" if you so wish to deem it, is that the poster with whom you were arguing was CLEARLY saying that we weren't sending people to the MOON in the 80s. He/she wasn't saying that we weren't sending people into space on various missions, as anyone not living in a fucking cave would know. So, your post was pointless. That's my issue. Suck on it.
[Edited 7/30/07 14:56pm]

It's already been said before, but I have to chime in.

Social commentary in a pop song is not journalism. If you want to get 100% of the facts out on any issue, create a documentary, not a four minute song for the radio. Give Prince credit for mentioning it at all.

Sign of the Times was a sign of *it's* times. In the 1980's, if you were diagnosed with HIV, the perception, if not the reality, was that you were dead soon from AIDS.

Modern medicine had not yet caught up to treatment of the virus.
AIDS was in no way considered a "chronic" condition like "diabetes".

AIDS was considered, for many reasons, a death sentence. Blame the zeitgeist. Blame medical science. Blame "society" if you will, but the stigma and hysteria attached to this disease obscured any facts.

Twenty years later, we see people with HIV living long, productive lives.
While Rock Hudson may have been the first mainstream star to jolt people into awareness of the disease, Magic Johnson is living proof that HIV can be managed and controlled.

I'm glad Prince didn't try to hijack the issue in a bid to seem "relevant". He mentioned it as one of many topics in his music and he moved on.

KingSausage said:

Thank you KingSausage!
Indeed, my comment was to be read in the line of this ' discussion'
And yes, I can remember the disaster with the space shuttle discovery....
[Edited 7/30/07 10:03am]

KingSausage said:

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[Edited 7/31/07 19:04pm]

remko said:

.. and no.. was never an argument when i replied to YOU .. you guys are picking out little shit to bitch about.. flying to the moon/going to space.. so what! cause Prince didnt dot every i and cross every t.. it's the message of what he said..

Flowerz said:

Flowerz, did you read the whole thread?
if yes, you clearly don't understand the fact Sausage and i are having some fun by writing some sarcastic replies.
in fact we agree with you that it is about the message. (yes we do).

remko said:

Nothing is more pathetic on the .Org than when someone totally misses sarcasm. Good lord...

Remko, my friend, I think you and I should stop pushing the retarded kids down the stairs. It's too easy, and it's kind of sadistically funny when they cry about it...

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear...

Well I knew that the original poster was going to have some stupid fuckwit comment when they had to ask what the name of the disease was But I think they got the message!

HousequakeComSucks said:

Yeah what was that kid's name Ryan White

Levi said:

We'll I read somewhere the part about the cousin was true

At the end of the day the lyric doesn't specify a timescale of the bloke getting aids and then dying, nor his girlfriend.

End of.