Flowerz said:

Speak on it! Prince's era that might have involved a fascination with the occult is in the past anyway.

Flowerz said:

Please, post your thought. I'm intrigued. Thanks.

ThreadBare said:

may god have mercy on your ignorant soul

I thought we were all a little interested in death. It's the final part, the moment when we find out if any supernatural beliefs are real or whether we've been barking up a non-existent tree. I'm terrified of losing my loved ones.

I think its part of an artistic soul to be imaginative and that includes death being violent. All aspects of life to artistic people are highs and deep lows, this is how they are able to create.

However I think he also has showed us to have other preoccupations with love, sex and music.

His lyrics are the benchmark for me for other music as they are generally so well thought out and give a glimpse of his inner soul. however for the most part i think they are simply 'creations' like poetry or storytelling. I think you have to be very emotional inside, not necessarily overt, but in your head to feel these things like they are real in order to write. Prince is extremely talented as an artist and i think what we see in is lyrics are a mixture of reality; sensitive lyrics about love, marriage, birth etc and also fantasy lyrics; about stories, characters. His music also is written like this with such feeling, the music tells its own stories. Bland and artistry dont live together!

Sure he must have been influenced by life but that is not to say he must have actual preoccupations with these subjects - merely passing ones as is the wont of most artists musical or otherwise.

pinkrain said:

Amen. We all need the mercy of the God of the Holy Bible. I walk in His promise that surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. (Psalm 23)

But, please, stay on topic.
[Edited 6/6/08 3:52am]

why does religious aspects always take over threads?

did you read my post?

syble said:

.. i dont think songs of death is artistic...sounds morbid..anybody can write about misery... those type of Prince songs i avoid and do not play them... this may be why some people are not Prince fans, .. Prince fans question why alot of other people are not fans of his music.. well, some of Prince's music is 'out there' and it's strange... i think that with Prince fans, we all have some 'dark' part of us that Prince is relating to... cause we need help also .... but those type songs there, of death, dying, suicide, some of those songs Threadbare listed in his initial post... i do not listen to them... cause it's depression and that is not me...

ejnbmore said:

Trust me - nobody was worried about Y2K in 1981, unless they were a member of a doomsday cult or overly enamored of Nostradamus.

Genesia said:

exactly... who knew anything about Y2K.. in 1981..? nobody was thinking about that... during that time.. and i dont believe that's the reason he wrote 1999

I believe that Prince is fascinated by re-birth...Which obviously can not occur
without death, whether within one life-time or throughout the course of many.
I think this is played out in his constant self re-invention. It's a quest for completeness.
It's about Spiritual Evolution. It's deep, though not 2 b feared, but explored, for all our sakes.
Prince is a Soul Adventurer.
We are all on the same journey, whether we know it or not.
[Edited 6/6/08 15:23pm]

Cinnie said:

hey, i remember that, that was interesting!

Celeste7 said:

Again, let's keep the discussion of death broad enough to encompass the numerous references to violent death, murder and suicide. I hear what you're saying about rebirth. Though one would ask why Prince would focus so much on literal (and often violent) death, while making references to a Christian God whose Bible teaches that only Christ's sacrificial death (and resurrection) was required for such a rebirth.

At the very least, it amounts to an odd juxtaposition of spiritual themes, doesn't it?

syble said:

I understand your point about literary creations. But, that mixture of reality and fantasy that you mention, generally has seeds. Take an author. Elinor Lipman is a wonderful, gifted writer, IMO. She's Jewish and often finds ways to weave that part of her identity into subplots of her works. She does the same with mother-daughter relationships. That said, those themes resonate with her for a reason, and have prevalence in her work for a reason.

I want to understand the reason for violent death and suicide that crops up in much of Prince's work. Only lofty explorations of different states of being (which I think we've covered) won't suffice, given the specificity of Prince's violent references.

Look at it another way: Violence, killings and suicide recur in his work as a solution. Even the Letterman "Dolphin" performance: The suicide comes at the end of the performance. There's no exploration of rebirth. That's the element he uses to end the piece.

The same with "Got a Broken Heart Again." The suicidal gunshot ends the song -- it doesn't begin it.

ThreadBare said:

It may b an "Odd Juxtaposition", or just plain eclectic!! The spirit is free 2 explore as it will....

This is one mans attempt 2 make sense of the incomprehensible...
Why we r here?
How we came in,
n' how we go out again..etc.
U know, the big questions we surely all ask ourselves?

The literal references 2 violent death strike me as no more than musings over

the countless catalysts between this life n' what follows when the physical

body is spent. Christ's death was bloody violent, also, so I'm not sure I

understand where the anomaly lies?

Celeste7 said:

I was vague in raising the comparison: The examination of suicidal themes and messianic themes -- and I think, given Prince's narcissistic bent, that latter label is appropriate -- touches upon his references to Christ, might raise some interesting conclusions.

Sure, one could leave it at musing about different ways to end life. But the fact that he himself figures into a lot of the suicidal imagery and lyrics, and that he himself would write a song about Christ's death in the first person ("I Would Die 4 U"), is weird to me. Juxtapose that with the overt sexual nature of some of his songs, and I see how some might infer that Prince -- at least at some point during his career -- was comfortable thinking of himself as a messianic figure of sorts.

The difference being, of course, that a Self-willed, sacrificial death was followed by resurrection, in Christ's case.

Again, (self-willed, suicidal) death usually is the "solution" or literary resolution in many of his songs.
[Edited 6/6/08 17:03pm]

Well, without getting deep into it, I will say this; I always thought that P was somewhat afraid of death. Especially in the early 80's. Songs like Ronnie Talk To Russia" evokes fear that was common with the nuclear bomb at that time. P took it out more with the title track 1999. Which is an extension of Ronnie Talk To Russia. Let's Go Crazy is an extension of the 1999. On Let's Pretend We're Married, he mentions death again. But he's tieing it in with God "I'm in love with God, that's the only way. Cuz u and I know we gotta die some day.". Having to die is something that was on P's mind back then. Because it found it's way of coming out in his music and films. I think it basically was rooted from a fear of not being able to do his thing and become as big as he wanted to become with his career. I think that scared Prince. And the more closer he got to the type of fame that he wanted, the more scared he became of death. Like death will rob u of your dreams. That was a fear in P, I think. I think P felt that many others felt scared to die as well, so he felt comfortable in singing about it. The violent death....I went through a stage like that as well. In high school, I was somewhat on a death trip. I used to tell other kids, especially girlfriends, that I was going to die before I turned 18. 17 was the magic number for me. In art class, I made a 3D painting of a casket with my guitar laying in it and I had 17 flowers spread out in vases. When I turned 18, I was like "oh well.".

^Hmmm...I've heard people say that they were going to die by
a certain age, or that they couldn't see themselves live till 30 (or so),
and the impression I got was they said this because they didn't
know where they were going in life.

7: "And every evil soul will surely die in spite of
Their 7 tears, but do not fear..."

Face Down: "Dead like Elvis"

Lady Cab Driver: "Get me outta here, I feel I'm gonna die"

hhhmmmm?

wildgoldenhoney said:

Well, your impression of me was DEAD wrong, because at 17 and even before that, I KNEW where I was going in life. And what I was going to be. And that was to be a professional musician and musical artist. Which is exactly what I have become and so much more. My scenerio of being dead before I turned 18 had nothing to do with what I wanted to do or be. To make an "impression" like that of someone, u have to know the person. Which in my case, u don't or didn't.

Fascinating!

EchoofmySoul said:

Suicide, and an abusive father's suicide is a recurring theme. I appreciate the "up" ending of Purple Rain. No one's denying that. The exploration is more along the lines of the roots of that theme in "Purple Rain" and "Papa."

As for Graffiti Bridge. The movie is a cartoony musical complete with a paper maché-looking bridge. Doesn't a person's death seem a bit extreme, just to help settle "a war between bands?" Althought, considering the movies' relation to one another, isn't it interesting that death and near-death are used to help resolve the films' plots?

blackguitaristz said:

@ DEAD wrong (only because of the subject)

Sorry if it seemed like I put you in the same group with the people I knew.

One of those people who said that, actually did die though, he said that he
couldn't see himself living past 30, nor see life beyond that. He was in his early 20's when he died.
With the way he lived, it also showed that he didn't think that there was ever going
to be a tommorrow or any future for him for that matter. I think it may have been depression in his case speaking also.

Just curious, so you mention that your scenario was different before you turned 18, what was that scenario.

Remember in the movie Graffitti bridge when he had the gun and was talking to his dead father? He was depressed about the club, I waas saying 'Don't do it'! right in the theater!!

Flowerz said:

i think that may have just been for the rhyme.

JasmineFire said:

yes, but why dead? .....said, read, fed lol, bed, misled lol .... he could have written lines with those..... but he says dead..

Flowerz said:

O

M

G

!
!
!

I don't think there's any fascination with death particularly. Most of it can be explained away as either a) literary convention (especially in the movies - a death is often used as a catalyst for action in a movie) and b) Prince's obsession with Christian apocalyptic mythology.