Too stunned to be sad - at 13 years my senior, I always thought Prince would outlive me. At very least, he'd be knocking out NPG items well into his eighties.

From Dirty Mind to Lovesexy, P made it a joy and a thrill to be a record collector.

Even in death, he was a genius - Let's Go Crazy will never sound the same again.

I really am hoping that his religious convictions did not lead to a life of pain management.

Not sure where I'm at with heaven but I'm finding a bit of joy in the idea of him kicking it with Denise right now..

First time in a while on this site, but I feel so compelled to share my feelings for the man.

Needless to say, I am totally gutted right now. PErsonally 2016 has been one of many changes for me, but the one constant was Prince. HAving a bad day? Listen to Prince? Wanna cut loose? Listen to Prince. Knowing he was there always made the world have a sense of normalcy. I was fortunate to see him live 3 times (including my birthday weekend in January 1997 at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta)and when I think about it now, I wish I made the trip to the Oracle Arena last month.

Speculation and innuendo will be a natural part of some conversations over the next several days, but nothing will deter me from honoring the man, the spirit, or the music. It's still hard processing this, even as I type.

Prince Rogers Nelson, I will always love you for all the things you are and it was truly an honor to share this world with you. You are and always will be the most gifted musician I have ever been privileged to listen to and much like all fams here and around the world, loved the journey you took us on.

-Andre

I have no words to describe the loss and what his music meant to me. I'm remembering at this moment the beauty, longing, and joy in his voice as I heard Prince sing this song live for the one and only time at the Forum:

Future Soul Song

I had a dream last night
That I was flying for the first time
And in the dream I could pilot my flight
With the thoughts in my mind

Since there wasn't any up or down
Everybody was all around
When we sang, we all sang together
Oh, what a beautiful sound

Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
This is the future soul song
Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
This is the future soul song

I had a dream last night
That I was singing and the sound of my voice
Seemed to come from every mountain top
Like it had no choice

And when my voice rose, so did the sun
When the trees sang the harmony as one
Every living soul sang the most beautiful
Melody ever sung

Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
This is the future soul song
Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
This is the future soul song

Before the war the only words and language said
Let there be light
Those that can see it are the ones who believe it
And put up no fight

And in the absence of fear and control
Is the sound of the surrendering soul
Louder than the dogmatic persecution
I sing it like you got that right

Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
This is the future soul song
Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
This is the future soul song

Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
Ooh, ooh, sha la la la la
This is the future soul song

I just listened to Arboretum, the first song I've listened to since I heard the news. I chose it because it was an instrumental (I didn't want to sing) and I didn't have a strong emotional connection to it.

I'd forgotten that he walks away from the piano at the end.

I just listened to Arboretum, the first song I've listened to since I heard the news. I chose it because it was an instrumental (I didn't want to sing) and I didn't have a strong emotional connection to it.

I'd forgotten that he walks away from the piano at the end.

I watched CNN all night last night and whilst I do not get emotional about stars passing away this has really rocked me.

When I found out I didnt want to believe it and I still dont want to and I had all my childhood memories rush before my eyes.

Soooooo gutted about this !

"There will never be another"

Woke up to the news this morning. I don't know anyone here in Japan to share this with. The world suddenly became a much lonlier place. He was just a man, but a man who has been with me all my teenage and adult life. How can he be gone? How?

I love and miss you Prince. You shaped my world. This is so surreal and decades too soon. Cannot bring myself to play his music yet.

Such a fucking horrible bolt from the blue, just a huge shock I guess we all knew this day would come but I thought it would be at least another 20 years or something, it felt like we still had so far to go with him, many more years of surprises doubtlessly both wonderful and enervating, but just like that it's over, that future is gone and it's fucked up and don't really know what else to say Thank you all so much for being here over the years, this place can be annoying as hell on occasion but I've loved being a part of this community, my thoughts are with you all.

Skipper, I just can't write right now.

You can tell I'm upset when I start talking to you like some KCOOLMUZIQ, God bless this fool too, God bless us all, we purple Girls and Boys. I'm so tired.

Did not get any sleep at all, it's like I'm waiting to be exhausted enough and just fall.

I Wish U Love, I Wish U Heaven, man.

I'm lying still, tense, just my fingers are typing, the rest gets number by the hour.

All I can do right now is copy paste my answer to an orger that I asked if some of us felt emotionally invested in U as a human being (Ow Lawd). Can't work. Won't work 2day. I think I forgot my phone in the bar last night. I couldn't get drunk. Now I don't receive my calls, and I can't call anyone. I don't give a damn.

Unknown friends across the Org, we've got to Hold on 2 our souls, we got a long way 2 go.

Prince came to me like E.T. did for Elliott.

I was in the midst of my parents divorce, and I totally get the Rolling Stone journalist, on the Omnibus BBC special,
when he mentions Purple Rain the song as being a cathartic experience, for an adult getting through a failed marriage.
From a child's perspective, believe me, it was a life saver. You knew your suffering had been shared and could be eventually overcomed.
"Purple Rain pt. II", as I like to call it, is this incredible mix of sadness and love for what has been, and will never be again.
No wonder he referred, tongue in cheek, to Auld Lang Syne.
"Purple Rain" depicts the courage life demands on a human being when it comes to turn the page without hatred or jealousy,
but trying to wish the other well. That's a universal statement, a very naked one,
and it sure isn't the product of a man obsessed with his allure,
which is obviously just the shell Skipper uses to protect himself from a "world's that's so cold".

He's the one that made me wander through the albums section.
Before that, I thought records were only 45 rpm's with two songs.
Well, not exactly, but he certainly was the first who I cared about more than everyone else.
Suddenly listening to the radio was not enough. I was craving for more flangered hi-hat.

I watched Purple Rain with a friend, in a big parisian theatre basically empty. We were like 10 people in this 400 seats venue.
When the gospel intro of Let's Go Crazy blasted out from the speakers, I was definitely hooked.
He was the ultimate rogue, the running hot water on the daughter of morality.
When you're an insecure teenager, it's like discovering this big brother who gets away with everything,
knows how to get the lady properly,

a genuine example of an adult that is not going to play by the rules, while making it big.
A man with a furious will to embrace life. A man who makes Nikki and her rolled dildo-shaped magazine an anthem
for 13 year old girls across the Puritan America that was.

I used to put "The Beautiful Ones" with the volume to 11 every single day, and I lived in a quiet building.
At 12 years old, I already had the urge of putting this man's music in everyone's ear.
Against their own will if necessary.

I was still bating in the lush of the PR sound, when I came across the "We Are The World" LP.
Suddenly I discovered something as sparse as When Doves Cry, but with Wendy & Lisa in front of the mix for the first time (Computer Blue aside).
In a sense, it was a preview of what ATWIAD would be. A feminine sensitivity that only a man with titanium bollocks would have to courage to reveal.
And "If I Was Your Girlfirend" was still years away...
I did not get much of the "Tears" lyrics at the time, my english was far from fluent.
But I knew that this guy was not Phil Collins or Dire Straits, I knew he would always surprise me.
On this song, I heard a man breaking and hoping, all in one lead vocal take.
Hard to believe he had to defend it with "Hello".

And he did surprise me again, many times, for more than a decade.

"Under The Cherry Moon" is of course something very special if you lived in France at the time.
The inner sleave of "Parade" was speaking about Jazz, Piano clubs... How human can you get
when you spend a bunch of money for a gigantic black and white videoclip, all made in your Father's honour?
If UTCM isn't "Look Daddy, look at your son living your and his own dreams, aren't you proud of me?", nothing else is.

I saw "Sign 'O' The Times" live, from the very first row. Seeing him in full force,
doing a split right in front of you, so close you can count the sweat drops on his forehead,
and he's already gone to the other side of the stage, chasing Cat.
Even if the movie captures the imagery, it cannot describe what an experience it has been.
As an european, I missed the first '86 Paris show.
It was already 3 years of listening to B-sides, seeing videos and concerts, and Prince was some kind of virtual creature to me,
still this older friend, that brought his universe full of idiosyncracies, and, most of all, fun.
Sad songs, sensual songs, political songs, move-yo-ass songs, peace and love song, Prince was a musical Wikipedia,
and I would not listen to stuff like Jeff Buckley, Stevie Wonder or Mötorhead, if it wasn't for him.
An array so vast covered by a single musician, is intriguing enough, and it HAS to make you wonder about the guy's childhood.
When I realized that the guy was not only made of flesh and blood, but that he could play with a spirit above virtuosity,
in front of you, in real time, in the fucking instant, without safety net whatsoever, I became obsessed.

I always have been obsessed about the human aspect of Prince.
Clearly here's a guy who uses his records as cathartic vectors.
"Bambi","Sister","Something In The Water" are just examples of how biographical he can get.

In fact, orgers responding by the negative, are, pardon me, not thinking straight: you cannot get into Prince's music without the persona.
It does not make any sense. If some people are really listening to "The Cross" or "Anna Stesia" from a musicologic approach only, I pity them.
They miss half or more of the equation.

Not only that : if they claim to listen to "When Doves Cry" without the emotional echo Prince conveys about divorced parents,
or less dramatic, a couple in crisis, they're lying. The pain is right there in the distorted, blues computerized voice of the intro.
The open vocal and guitar of When Doves Cry is something between a painful birth and an indian chant.
When you come back to, say, "Billie Jean", you still love Michael, but you get doubts about it being a 100% honest song.
Prince, he shreds his own guts on the floor right from the intro, and stares at his own blood flooding while the Linn starts hammering.
Quincy is one heck of a craftsman, but we're suddenly amongst adults : When Doves Cry speaks of divorce, about some yelped, whispered, screamed heart breaking.


After When Doves Cry, Michael was forever left with the child prodigy role. Prince had the leather, the motorbike, the axe and girls underwear in his pockets.
A trauma so big he fell compelled to act "Bad" on his following album.
A duet would have made Michael's trauma too damn obvious.

To deny AOA from being a spiritual record is a mistake.
It has reminded some orgers of Lovesexy. Rightfully so. You have Bob, Camille and Prince, for starters. The Holy Trilogy.
You have the hibernation concept (wake me when it's a better world), the concept of time fleeing in "The Breakdown", "This Is What It Feels Like", "Way Back Home", "Time",
whether time means having fun or having regrets, and the constant intertwining of both.

But what makes AOA his most spiritual statement in years, is "Way Back Home".
I cannot affirm this, but I firmly believe we're hearing Mayte's sampled echography, slowed down.
Even if it isn't a direct recording of it (but after all we're talking about a guy recording women having orgasms),
it's obviously intended to be Gregory's heartbeat.

Do I feel emotionally invested in Prince as a human being at this point?

Bet yo ass I am.

[Edited 4/22/16 5:31am]

Goodbye Beautiful One...

Credit: Peter Lodder Photography

Sheila E. is live on CNN right now discussing the Prince she knew.

[Edited 4/22/16 5:34am]

...

i just have to say its incredile to see so many familiar names here. after all these years.

probably havent posted in around 7 years myself

love to all

So much about this reminds me of MJ, in that celebrities often time are the worst patients. I always thought Prince would outlive us all. TMZ is now saying his 'flu emergency landing' was actually due to a drug overdose.

What'll I do
When you are far away
And I am blue
What'll I do?

I cannot listen to his music just yet and I didn't watch tv yesterday. I cannot believe he's gone. My daughter made me a beautiful purple beaded bracelet this morning. My heart is completely broken.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/princes-sister-tells-fans-he-7808272

Dont know how to fix link but this made me cry again

Like many maybe like all of us that song jumped to my mind when I heard the news… sometimes it snow in April.

[ Reply #9 posted 04/22/16 5:27am ] gets me crying cause it's just so « that »

Way Back Home had immediatly touched me in AOA - how to listen to it now ?

How to listen to him now ?

I feel completely lost, I keep crying ... I have no words for this, don't know what to do, am following the news from all around the world but this is just so overwhelming ... music died, part of me died, I'm lost ...

OvercastDaze said:

Too stunned to be sad

Me too

purplemum said:

Such sadness that we are all feeling, my heart feels broken, but to me I have been so lucky seeing him in concert 5 times and shared his music with my family. I recently saw him in Sydney where he once again showed the pure GENIUS that he is. I love Prince and always will. Let the world talk and acknowledge the brilliance of Prince.

Rest in peace xx

Prince is gone, the realisation is setting in that we will no longer be looking forward to any more live shows, sharing with him the success of any more future albums, im sure there will be at some point. Just the fact that enjoying Prince without Prince being on this earth is just heartwrenching.