Tame said:

None of that, though, deals with the recurring themes of murder and suicide. As I've stated before, my exploration is not solely about death as a transition from one state to another. It's about the lyrics and imagery that deal with him implying his and others' violent deaths as a way to resolve a situation.

NouveauDance said:

Or "Christian apocalyptic theology."

I'm not denying the use of death as a factor to propel plots. The fact remains, however, that violence, killings and suicide all play roles in all three of his films, making such factors as much a part of his characters as their respective musical abilities.

If it were death purely for the sake of transendence, why not introduce that transition through sickness or freak accidents? The latter, I know, is how Aura dies.

Flowerz said:

I didnt say songs of death were artistic!

I said artistic people are imaginative and therefore a 'violent' death as a theme is pushing the envelope of imagination. Depression is something that poetic people write about as it is part of life. Princes darker work is part and parcel of what makes the man and that is what you get from any true song writer or poet, you see glimpses of their character or you see characters they create.

I dont really care if other people dont get prince and dont like those songs.

Life is a mixture of emotion without the dark you cannot revel in the light.

To accept a song without condoning it or to listen to a song with a morbid subject withot taking on board that emotion is part of growth emotionally. You dont have to subscribe to a thought to hear it and with a song sometimes a sad song can be beautiful, you dont have to go there in your head but you can visit the sentiment behind it.

Flowerz said:

because you love someone till they are dead - til death do us part - etc etc

nothing that sinister just a rhyme and a sensible meaning as in the lyrics he
- married her instead - another rhyme and link that makes sense as she was
= on her way to be wed - just rhymes
- its a bit like bible bashing you can isolate stuff and make it say what ever you want it to say!

syble said:

yeah, but he could have written 'Love you in your bed' or 'Love you, so u wont wed' (something like that) ... why dead? and cause of the topic of him writing so much on death... i'd want a guy to love me til i cant walk lol but not til im dead lol

A wise man thinks about death...

Flowerz said:

I'm pretty sure he means "dead" in a figurative sense.

I've never heard that Prince is a necrophiliac.

Great topic.

I agree with the OP. The gun shot at the end of "Gotta Broken Heart Again" was Prince "killing" himself. I think it's symbolic of the naive Prince "dying." Because on the next song, "Uptown," he's totally transformed. This is where Prince really took off.

Uptown sounds like the birthing of a demon: "where I come from we don't give a damn / we do whatever we please." And once this spirit is freed, Prince goes to town with the death imagery. Controversy is loaded with violence: assassinations, crucifixions, strangling, blowing up the world.

So in this context death is a doorway to releasing primal energies. It stimulates creativity. So it makes sense that Prince would make ample use of it.

But it's downright spooky how cavalier Prince is when singing about death, particularly around the 1999 era. "People trying to run from the destruction / you know I didn't even care." "You and I know we gotta die some day." "This world is better not having a place to go." It's nihilistic, despairing stuff. Why give a shit about anything, if we're all just gonna die anyway?

That's the voice of a demonic spirit. It's a temptation to loosen moral values, live fast, and die young. It exploits mortality as an excuse to indulge our worst impulses. And Prince reveled in this sentiment wholeheartedly from Dirty Mind right up to Purple Rain.

It's not until the song "Temptation" that Prince shows any real fear of death. And the death songs on Parade are decidedly more somber and introspective. There's real mourning on "Sometimes it Snows in April." Maybe the success of Purple Rain quieted his inner demon, allowing Prince to write with more self-reflection.

This is especially true of Sign o' the Times, which repeatedly calls for making the good times last. "So much better when we take our time." "My only desire is to find some way in this doggone world to make this feeling last." He's actually cherishing life, not inviting death and destruction like before. Even Camille, a child-like demon voice, sounds happy on songs like Housequake, Rebirth of the Flesh, and Good Love.

So who or what is this demon? And why was it so pissed off? Part of it's romantic disappointment--he shot himself over a girl on "Gotta Broken Heart Again," after all. But that can't possibly account for the epic nihilism of Dirty Mind, Controversy and 1999.

I'd say the real culprit is good old fashioned Oedipal father hate. Look at how often Prince projects violence onto the father. It's his father who beats everyone up and attempts suicide in Purple Rain, a disapproving father figure guns him down in "Under the Cherry Moon." There's the abusive dad of "Papa," God the Father smites him in "Temptation," and there's Bob George, the deep-voiced head of the household who "pays the bills." Overall, Prince paints a pretty grim picture of the father.

In Graffiti Bridge, Morris seems to be the surrogate father. He's the one taking care of business, and demands that Kid grow up. He also has shades of mob boss, record executive, philanderer, pyromaniac, and clown. And it's with him that Kid has to make peace.

Dirty Mind opened with a reference to his "daddy's car," and the Lovesexy tour featured an actual replica of it. That the same image serves as bookends to his most fertile period underscores how important his father was to him. He actually had a motorized makeshift Thunderbird circle the stage for his big entrance and exit at every performance. It's an elaborate shrine to his father.

padawan said:

My goodness. Thank you. Your whole post was mind-blowing, but I'm floored by certain passages. I had to highlight them. It's posts such as yours, on this thread and others, that make me love the Org.

Thanks again. I absolutely agree.

And, then the control Prince is famous for trying to exert -- even to a comical degree in his Internet battles -- that, too, likely has roots in abandonment, depression and oppression. Wow. God bless ya.

padawan said:

Very interesting!

padawan said:

You are indeed worthy of the Jedi Council, young Padawan.

There's not much of a point in posting after Padawan. That was classic! I think the notion of an Oedipal root to much of this is really enlightened, though I never before unpacked it in quite those terms.

To me, Prince's obsession with death (and, yeah, I've noticed it too) has merely seemed an obsession with the ultimate -- and yet perhaps the most easily accessible -- power-leveraging device. Who exactly can't kill someone... or themself? Yet how many of us dares to? Prince seems recurrently to be making the statement that his life, his musings, etc. are engendered by such a profound spiritual tug-o-war that, dammit, he may just have to go even there!

Strange, but I think in some ways this is tied to narcissism... and yet a simultaneous guilt and suspicion that in his own celebrity and power there is utter futility. Prince's "death stuff" didn't seem truly noticeable until Dirty Mind, when he first began to enjoy a breakout celebrity. (Perhaps he wanted it, but wasn’t quite spiritually ready for it?) We saw more of it in Controversy; by 1999 it reached a cosmic scale; and, indeed, we saw it in living color in Purple Rain. And Padawan is correct -- until this point Prince "played" with death, making somewhat of the statement that, "even with all that I have, even as huge as I've grown, I feel I have no power… so screw everything.” Exploiting death, then, was his way of seizing power.

I agree that “Temptation” marked Prince’s first self-critique (at least on record) with regard to life/death and how casually he handled it. Recorded at arguably the highest point in his career – perhaps the scariest -- the confession of Temptation and, in a more subtle way “Paisley Park,” was that death (and, by extension, afterlife), were no longer Prince’s to play with, but God’s. Moreover, he seemed to say that while we might tacitly flirt with death and life thereafter, it is shaped by our conduct in this life. We might see a bit of this theme carrying over in UTCM, where I’d argue a song like “Sometimes it Snows…” was not merely about death, but the memory of a man who lived a noble life and, therefore, had in some way [earned a good afterlife… both in heaven and the memories of those left behind on earth. In like suit, SOTT and Lovesexy took on questions of life, death, eternity in a more cherished and spiritual sense… and this seemed to be where Prince stayed for awhile… until his fight with Warner Bros.

With Come, Prince seemed to default to his earlier “death as power” posturing. He “kills” Prince, complete with epitaph, and on David Letterman while performing Dolphin from The Gold Experience, he SHOOTS himself in the head -- blood and everything! Later, in “Dig You Better Dead,” Prince no longer threatened death, perhaps because he saw light at the end of the tunnel in his Warner Bros. battle… but he certainly suggested Warner Bros. and those who’d stifle his freedom in preference to the way he was a decade earlier valued a “dead” Prince. (Much later, speaking on this point in his life, he did admit to much of this era being driven by ego as much as some flight for "freedom.")

After that, I stopped paying enough attention to comment. But I will say I think with 1) the total freedom over his own work; 2) simply becoming older and less of a drama queen; and 3) a grounding in religious views, Prince is less inclined now toward the whole romanticization of death as power. I agree that now he seizes and wields that power in various other ways.
[Edited 6/10/08 20:29pm]

I declare, we've reached the deep end of the pool, y'all...



... you Org, you...

ThreadBare said:

Amen.

Or better yet, delete your accounts permanently

Interesting speculations -- will have to ponder as I hear and listen to each song. Of course, as a matter of life, don't most of us consider various life (and death) scenarios with each stage of our development?

I wonder if, as you say, his references to death are truly "fascination". Perhaps they're simply imagination or speculation? Observation of those situations around him? Realization that we all "gotta go" sometime? Anticipation of the promise of an eternal life?

Transference of painful and/or pleasureable episodes in life -- isn't that often the basis for artistic expression?

Doesn't necessarily mean he's fascinated.

"gun shot at the end of "Gotta Broken Heart Again"


Weird, I never heard it as a gunshot, I always heard it as dropping the microphone (like dropping it on the stage floor).

I Don't Like Mondays. Sorry wrong bloke. Although it would seem now that Prince also does not like Mondays.

padawan said:

God what an analysis, demons? youre not religious by any chance are you?

isnt it just possible that in uptown 'we dont give a damn' is actually just a song about young people having fun? i think youve read far too much into those lyrics.

Why must everyone always relate everything he has ever written back to religion. his inner demons? prince writes about life and that by its nature includes death. I font think he has a preoccupation with death. now if you wrote a thread saying he had a preoccupation with sex i would be more inclined to agree but again those songs were written as pop music, most pop music refers to sex, his were just more explicit for their time.

I think 1999 is saying why worry about the future just have fun now live for now. I dont think he didnt care about the destruction of others he didnt care that the world appeared to be ending, he was too in love with music and having fun.

I really dont hink he has a preoccuaption with death at all. Most of princes music is funky, and fun, some has more morose subjects but i feel they are in the minority. Christopher tracey was a theme and sometimes it snows was about the death of a friend and how you deal with that but he says life is never ending, which relates to princes one recurring theme of continuing life, afterlife and never ending life.

syble said:

That's exactly what he said, he couldn't understand why otherwise 'optimistic' people were SO concerned about the year 2000... because he wasn't. I agree with your post Syble... Dance Music Sex Romance are the things he was mostly preoccupied with...and as he believes in the 'afterworld' so strongly, he's just determined and quite happy to get there. See I do read your posts !!!!