So I'm jammin' to 3121 (the album) the other day and I'm really digging it. For those of you who hate the album , we'll just learn to disagree. I like the album personally, though I don't think it's brilliant or anything.
Anyways, while the song Lolita was playing it dawned on me that there seems to be this theme in a lot of Prince's music where women or portrayed as morally suspect or corrupt. At the very least, weak, and needing man to either set her straight or at the very least, having to find ways to break through the barrier of her moral ineptitude to gain her affections yet still maintain his strong moral standing.
Where Lolita is a "bad" girl who is trying to make a "cheater" out of Prince, he manages to fill a dancefloor with his "fellas" and "Lolita" so they can all have a great plutonic time despite her sluttiness.
Even on sprawling albums like Emancipation, a 3 hour opus filled with some of my favorite of his ballads, Prince still manages to slip in scenarios in which a female character is morally weak and needing him to "work" to keep her affections. "Do it like she like it so your baby don't wanna sleep around." prince sings confidently, suggesting that a woman needs constant sexual gratification or else she'll stray from her man. It's not a song about communication. It's not a song about respect. It's not a song about working through such things with each other---rather, it's a song about hiding the sausage just the right way else the woman will leave you ---well, that isn't too far from the truth, but it still points out this reoccurring theme in a lot of his songs where the female character is prone to leaving her man over things of this nature. Or leaving him for any manner of reasons. Always, the man in his songs suffers for this, or strives hard to keep her affections despite her flaws.

NOW, one could easily say that I think Prince is essentially a mysogenist. And this is not what I'm saying flat out. Because, songs like Pussy Control, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World, and Savior all paint the completely opposite picture--and some of them on the same albums that have this "Lolita/darlin Nikki" character on them.
He's shifts gears on us so frequently that anyone with a certain point of view, could find something in his material to back those views up.
And these love songs aren't just catchy--some of them are downright earnest and beautiful.
"Could you be, the most beautiful girl in the world. IT's plane to see, you're the reason that God made a girl...."---now THAT is beautiful lyrically. Simple. Plain. Direct. Just beautiful.
One could hardly hear that song and say that Prince hates women. Or that he thinks lowly of them.

But when his work is viewed as a whole, it ends up being...bipolar.


Your thoughts would be appreciated.

Imago said:

I hate when I get plutoed.

Interesting thread. Don't forget another category, the TRC category of women who are completely submissive to their men.

When you are central to an understanding...the scope of traits are rounded....rather than a psychologists approach to bi-polar as linear in nature.

Prince's songs that reveal the nature of a woman that He would believe to be his genetic match...are both illuminated and eliminated within the music.

Prince has played a royal teasing game on the music listeners...to see what behavior they buy and either carry, or use.

Love has all of the emotional and physical characteristics of Love's perspectives through the eyes of all people...However, there is a true match for each individual, as Noah says..."And two by two, they come."

It is a Promenade....Love. And finding that mysterious mate of yours is difficult...for the uneducated....Those that know what they are looking for...will find it.

Tame said:

A woman who is his genetic match would be his twin sister.
That relationship better remain platonic before some gets plutoed!

I don't judge, they're just women.

Labels are for cans, not people
[Edited 7/29/08 6:11am]

i think he is a romantic who's been burned too many times.

either that, or, the women he has met in life so far are alien clones, sent to test his resolve in the face of misfortune and to further the race of alien beings on planet Zargon

hope this helps.

your title question doesnt seem to add up to your discussion.

In what way are they pioneers?

Do you mean because they leave him?

I also dont think they appear to be morally corrupt in his music.

I think he merely sings about women as something strange and beautiful to him, something to hang on to.
I also think songs like lolita are about the tests he finds, the temptations he is in. He is recgnising another beauty despite having his own woman and is singing about that temptation. I dont think its intended to say she is morally wanton but that she is a temptation without trying.

Lets face it, his reality is so far removed from most guys in that women must through themselves at him. He is in the unique position of being wanted by many and thats what he sings about.

syble said:

Totaly I agree