I know it's purple blasphemy it took so long..maybe I did seee it previously but didn't remember . I never really liked the song as it seems childish sounding and I know it's a "must see" of Prince television, but..

Mayte all over the place was weird..it would have worked better if she wasn't doing her ballet all over the place but she is crucial to the ending death in arms scene..but lmao at the bodyguard carrying him out.

That ending took some cajones (balls for the rosetta stone inpaired).

The song reminds me of a passage in Three Chains Of Gold.

He doesn't look healthy here. I'm reminded of that because of how healthy and strong he looks now

almost 20 years later. As this was the slave era, I'm sure it was taking a toll on him physically and mentally, which I did read somewhere.

His voice wasn't too hot on this live cut but overall the experience is B+/-A-.

Again the suicide and being carried out is "like whoah"-(c)Mya

rdhull said:

I LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE that performance.

I mean, I love everything about it--the sound, the makeup, everything. Even Mayte's pointless presence was cool.

I love how David Letterman, after having made a bunch of symbol jokes during the evening, yells out an emphatic, "yeah!" at the end, then comes out and asks the other band members, "Is he alright?"

I just loved that performance.

One of my ignorant-of-Prince non-Prince-fan friends watched it with me (he was a Letterman fan), and he said, "Damn...This guy should play guitar like that more often...that was hot."

The Letterman performance was the first time I ever heard Dolphin. I absolutely loved it and was looking forward to hearing the recorded version when I got my copy of The Gold Experience. I was so disappointed when I heard it, everything was drowned in reverb and so washed out. The Letterman version is a thousand times better than the album cut.

I always loved this performance. I know it's super cheesey, but the performance

quite simply ROCKS. The band, the guitar playing, the layered sampled Prince b-up vocals,

the shorter percise version of the song. And you really feel as though he means it.

It's one spot-on Prince TV performance.

And yeah LOL @David Letterman after the comercial break he was asking Paul Shafer

"Is he OK?" and Paul saying "yes Dave I think he's alright" and then Dave says something

like "Paul.. the man was carried off of the stage!"

I can't remember now how I knew about it, but somehow I was tipped off that Prince

was performing that night on Letterman and if you couldn't get in for the filming (which I didn't),

you could still catch him coming out the side door of the theater after the filming.

So I went to check it out. There was also some kind of rumor going around that he

wanted peeps to write "slave" on their face to show support for T.A.F.K.A.P. so some of

the people waiting out by the side door had "slave" decoratively written on their faces.

There were a couple of police barricades set up on the sidewalk and quite a crowd had

shown up to see Prince come out after the filming. After a while a couple of NPG

members would pop up in the small window by the door and wave and everyone in the

crowd would get more revved for Prince to come out.

And then the funniest thing happened. Prince eventually came out of the side door and

of course everyone went total apeshit the second he appered. He had Maytae right next to him

still in her angel costume and they only had to walk the width of one city sidewalk with police barriers

on either side of them to reach the street curb and waiting limo, but in the few seconds it took

them to get to the curb, the crowd totally rushed them and Prince dove in to the limo and it sped off

leaving Mayte standing right there on the sidewalk while a second limo pulled up to get her!

We were all like: daaaaammn he was like FUCK THIS and left her on the curb!

chewymusic said:

I always loved this performance. I know it's super cheesey, but the performance

quite simply ROCKS. The band, the guitar playing, the layered sampled Prince b-up vocals,

the shorter percise version of the song. And you really feel as though he means it.

It's one spot-on Prince TV performance.

And yeah LOL @David Letterman after the comercial break he was asking Paul Shafer

"Is he OK?" and Paul saying "yes Dave I think he's alright" and then Dave says something

like "Paul.. the man was carried off of the stage!"

I can't remember now how I knew about it, but somehow I was tipped off that Prince

was performing that night on Letterman and if you couldn't get in for the filming (which I didn't),

you could still catch him coming out the side door of the theater after the filming.

So I went to check it out. There was also some kind of rumor going around that he

wanted peeps to write "slave" on their face to show support for T.A.F.K.A.P. so some of

the people waiting out by the side door had "slave" decoratively written on their faces.

There were a couple of police barricades set up on the sidewalk and quite a crowd had

shown up to see Prince come out after the filming. After a while a couple of NPG

members would pop up in the small window by the door and wave and everyone in the

crowd would get more revved for Prince to come out.

And then the funniest thing happened. Prince eventually came out of the side door and

of course everyone went total apeshit the second he appered. He had Maytae right next to him

still in her angel costume and they only had to walk the width of one city sidewalk with police barriers

on either side of them to reach the street curb and waiting limo, but in the few seconds it took

them to get to the curb, the crowd totally rushed them and Prince dove in to the limo and it sped off

leaving Mayte standing right there on the sidewalk while a second limo pulled up to get her!

We were all like: daaaaammn he was like FUCK THIS and left her on the curb!

Did you see Mayte's reaction? Did she look upset by that? Did she get rushed? Maybe she was supposed to go in the 2nd limo?

SDNafka said:

The Letterman performance was the first time I ever heard Dolphin. I absolutely loved it and was looking forward to hearing the recorded version when I got my copy of The Gold Experience. I was so disappointed when I heard it, everything was drowned in reverb and so washed out. The Letterman version is a thousand times better than the album cut.

^^ I've said that to myself many a-time about different songs. "The ______ (SNL, Lopez Tonight, bootleg, etc.) version is a thousand times better than the album cut."

rdhull said:

That ending took some cajones (balls for the rosetta stone inpaired).

Actually "cajones" means drawers (in a piece of furniture).

(that rosetta stone sentence had some cojones, by the way)

I loved afterwards how Dave was mocking Mayte's use of the ribbon and suggested to Paul that he should incorporate that into the band. At least that's how I remember it.

Ridiculous ending, ridiculous look.

Fantastic.. I loooove this performance.

I even saw a short mention in the danish paper B.T. (IIRC),

about Prince has "died" on the Letterman talkshow.

I can't remember if the clip was aired on danish tv back then in the fall of 94,

but I soon got the clip on VHS video tape - from another danish Prince fan,

damn clips were so rare back then, long before the internet...

Excellent performance,

and I have always loved the song "Dolphin" deeply.

That performance cracks me up everythime I see it.

Letterman makes it even more special.

chellemac said:

I always giggle when I see this performance. It was also funny how David said something about how you couldn't purchase the CD (Gold) and he wasn't sure why Prince was promoting it. My 13 year-old daughter thinks the song is stupid. "A dolphin mom?.........he wants to be a dolphin?" Followed by an eye roll.

i love this song, but the 1st time i saw this performance i was like wft??!!!!?.. his laboured breathing at the end made me wanna jump on his chest & give mouth to mouth. i'm glad he wasn't really dead.

[img:$uid]http://i901.photobucket.com/albums/ac215/doffieparker/excited/427461_294056530648994_132691213452194_747471_1112320636_n.jpg[/img:$uid]

There is something about the way he 'comes' to the stage too whoch is shown for a few seconds. He seems like he is mad or had amped himself up to be mad for the performance (and why not, it's a diatribe against Warn-A-Brotha). Or he seems very preoccupied for this performance to come off as planned. It's weird that they would begin the performance with him entering and grabbing his geetar instead of already being on stage in front of the mic ready to go.

Thanks for the tip. Dolphin is definitely better live than on the album. I guess this was around 1994? There are some good lyrics in this song but I do not understood why he chose the Dolphin as a symbol. The message seems to be ' I can't do what I want, I'm dictated to but no matter how much you destroy me I will not bend.'

I understand this must have been probably one of the worst periods of his life. Loving what you do but spiritually almost having sold your soul (unknowingly) and feeling betrayed, hopeless, enraged, disappointed and full of negative emotions. Yet symbolically the dolphin is one of peace, friendship, beauty, naturalness etc etc..... So I find 'if I came back as a dolphin' puzzling. Is he saying 'I'm peaceful, kind, beautiful and you can kill me but I'll come back?'

It seems he was unable to truely show the anger he felt. He supressed it by putting himself in a powerless position in the song. A harmless beautiful creature. Yes he felt powerless and probably was.

I think he did himself short, but at that time it was probably hard to come up with something where he could fulfil the contract and put on a face. So he laid down and died. i.e. Prince -----> Symbol. They killed his soul. (temporarily)

When MJ was angry it came out in 'Leave me alone' (media) 'they don't care about us' and Morphine. Maybe some others too.

Has Prince ever made a really angry song? He's done sarcasm really well, distaste and a bit of hard rap 'I'll tell you' stuff.....But has he ever written and released an angry track? Really releasing the negative emotions? If not...what does he do with all. Synthesize it all to goodness?

Bohemian67 said:

Thanks for the tip. Dolphin is definitely better live than on the album. I guess this was around 1994? There are some good lyrics in this song but I do not understood why he chose the Dolphin as a symbol. The message seems to be ' I can't do what I want, I'm dictated to but no matter how much you destroy me I will not bend.'

I understand this must have been probably one of the worst periods of his life. Loving what you do but spiritually almost having sold your soul (unknowingly) and feeling betrayed, hopeless, enraged, disappointed and full of negative emotions. Yet symbolically the dolphin is one of peace, friendship, beauty, naturalness etc etc..... So I find 'if I came back as a dolphin' puzzling. Is he saying 'I'm peaceful, kind, beautiful and you can kill me but I'll come back?'

It seems he was unable to truely show the anger he felt. He supressed it by putting himself in a powerless position in the song. A harmless beautiful creature. Yes he felt powerless and probably was.

I think he did himself short, but at that time it was probably hard to come up with something where he could fulfil the contract and put on a face. So he laid down and died. i.e. Prince -----> Symbol. They killed his soul. (temporarily)

When MJ was angry it came out in 'Leave me alone' (media) 'they don't care about us' and Morphine. Maybe some others too.

Has Prince ever made a really angry song? He's done sarcasm really well, distaste and a bit of hard rap 'I'll tell you' stuff.....But has he ever written and released an angry track? Really releasing the negative emotions? If not...what does he do with all. Synthesize it all to goodness?

"I Hate U?"

Bohemian67 said:

Has Prince ever made a really angry song?

Face Down

rdhull said:

chopingard said:

klick2me said:

rdhull said:

There is something about the way he 'comes' to the stage too whoch is shown for a few seconds. He seems like he is mad or had amped himself up to be mad for the performance (and why not, it's a diatribe against Warn-A-Brotha). Or he seems very preoccupied for this performance to come off as planned. It's weird that they would begin the performance with him entering and grabbing his geetar instead of already being on stage in front of the mic ready to go.

I noticed the same mad look. I think Prince was a bit pissed with David Letterman for poking fun at his name change during his introduction before his performance. Notice P never appeared on his show again? I remember Prince doing The Vibe Show with Sinbad and telling Sinbad that he or Arsenio never disrespected him when it came to his name change. I immediately thought of David Letterman when he made that comment. We all know David can be a jerk but he did look impressed with P's performance once Prince left the stage or dragged off, I should say. klick

I remember reading somewhere that Prince was annoyed at Letterman making jokes about the symbol. But, Prince DID appear on Letterman again after that. He played Dinner With Delores about two years later. So I'm not sure what was really going on there. Prince does seem to prefer Leno though. Its unfortunate because I think Prince has more in common with Letterman - they're both grumpy disturbed loners.

klick2me said:

chopingard said:

Face Down

[Edited 6/6/12 15:29pm]

PFUNK klick

Billy Jack Bitch

Bohemian67 said:

Has Prince ever made a really angry song?

Lady Cab Driver

SDNafka said:

I remember The Sun reporting that he had actually collapsed for real at the end of the performance.

Bloody tabloids!!!

I loved that performance when I first saw it back then and love it even more now.

chopingard said:

Bohemian67 said:

Has Prince ever made a really angry song?

Face Down

Lady cab driver -hardly sounds angry

P-Funk - nope no anger there - a funky comical response to a sticky situation

Facedown - more satirical

Billy Jack Bitch - more pop tune with sarcasm nothing else

I hate u - a sad love song with an ambiguous title

Any other suggestions?

Bohemian67 said:

chopingard said:

Face Down

Lady cab driver -hardly sounds angry

Oh it doesn't?..there's only a sex stroke breakdown tying in the ills of the world with each pump and a battle royale between the synth and geetar.

.

[Edited 6/7/12 13:34pm]

rdhull said:

Bohemian67 said:

Lady cab driver -hardly sounds angry

Oh it doesn't?..there's only a rex stroke breakdown tying in the ills of the world with each pump and a battle royale between the synth and geetar.

The tune is friendly sounding (the version I'm listening to) and the lyrics are about disappointment, confusion with the world and lonliness but sorry no anger there. Irritation yes.

[Edited 6/7/12 13:13pm]