I have been meaning to write this for quite sometime. And it isn't that I never got to it before but rather that a thesis statement is supposed to have the "So, What?" in it and I never actually had a "So what" or actionable intelligence of what would become of all this information until Prince had passed away. Now I do (more on that later)

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Credentials: I was a Navy Cryptologist for several years, I love studying words and code, and the history of how languages live and move. I can even predict when nouns will become a verb ("to google"). I am getting my Master's in educational theory as well (My BA is in Spanish and Writing). I write and interperet poems. My GPA is 3.9. My outgoing essay for English in highschool was a 20 page Prince biography in 2003. I felt lucky to get away with that since the "come back" had not even happened yet.

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I began to notice the way our dear hero writes his lyrics and really anything when I was 12, reading Purple Rain lyrics. I noticed it wasn't that way in 1978's For You, and had advanced in the current year and overtime to more than just the 2,4,u trickling in the rest later and not all at once. In some ways you could roughly date his lyrics based on this (and this will apply to any vault recordings which might be recorded, not written).

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At the time I thought it wasn't just about artistic liberties, I thought he was way ahead of his time because he was also streamlining the process of writning. This is a real time saver when life gives you no time to spare. I really thought that was what it was all about. Now I was a new fan in 1997 so I was present when he was adding the hearts and eyes etc, this really challenged my previously held belief about Princebonics because I just thought it was about the urgency of writing. After all, an eye is a whole drawing, a glyph if you will, there is no way that is quicker than making an I. I then realized it was about artistic integrity and recalling to a time when language was visual. Not all languages use letters after all. Some use pictures and they cause us to remember things forever.

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Fast forward to generation tech and we have twitter and texting and titles like "Sk8er boi" from other random artists. You don't see people like me wasting time on twitter with typing (1/2) on a really long tweet, we can just write it alphanumerically to get the message across within the charachter limits. He is known musically as a genius and my paper will attempt to support linguistic genius as well (not to mention the lyrical content and duality of meanings)

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So, What? Guys. Theres a legacy to maintain here. There WILL be tribute bands. There will be people "Finishing"unfinished lyrics from 1987. That writing isn't the same as 2005 or 1978. We aren't going to go back and re-title For You as 4 U. The vault might be full of songs that are recorded but not written. They should be written down with integrity and according to the year. I'd like to say where he was going with this, make inferences, use scholarly references, and Prince meta-references. I'd also like to figure out if he was "done" making any of those changes and where he might have gone in the future with the written word. I want to proclaim what he is done and insist on the continuity in unfinished work.

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Thank you for reading this wall of text if you did. Should I write this research paper? I have my finals on th 4th so I can't really begin until then and my mom has many of my albums so many lyrics are lost to me (I may need help here). I'm not taking them from my mom, they are now my condolences to here as I try and re-buy all these albums back.

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Someone tell me I'm dead on, and I'll have plenty to write about. Or that will no one read this. I'm not really sure where to submit it when I am done. I don't have a blog or anything.

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This can't all be grief. I have thought about this off and on for 18 years, and now I have a reason to write it.

[Edited 4/30/16 19:49pm]

ok. Point taken.

I think it's strange that it wasn't always consistent.

I mean, on the Lovesexy album, you have Eye No (with an eye glyph) and I Wish U Heaven with a letter "I".

At the time, I reasoned that Eye No was a spiritual statement, whereas I Wish U Heaven was just a love song. So, that must be why...

Then, he released I Wish U Heaven as a single, and the dammed artwork depicted the "I" as the eye glyph. lol

GirlBrother said:

I think it's strange that it wasn't always consistent. I mean, on the Lovesexy album, you have Eye No (with an eye glyph) and I Wish U Heaven with a letter "I". At the time, I reasoned that Eye No was a spiritual statement, whereas I Wish U Heaven was just a love song. So, that must be why... Then, he released I Wish U Heaven as a single, and the dammed artwork depicted the "I" as the eye glyph. lol

I have thought the same thing so many times. I've always wondered why "Be" was never "B" as in It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night. However you'll notice over time that Prince ebonics evolved where as "your" eventually morphed into "u'r." To the OP, I think this is an interesting topic for discussion I'm just not sure how you will tie it all in with Prince. Obviously Prince started doing it back in the early 80s - but for what reason? Was it really for anything other than a gimmick or fun? With todays technology it makes sense where space is limited via twitter and text. I'd be interested to see how you put it all together in a thesis with a cohesive argument.

wouldntulove2loveme said:

I do want to infer that people are influenced by his writing style unconsciously. Especially with the Twitter. I guess "Prince did it first" is important to me.

violectrica said:

wouldntulove2loveme said:

I have thought the same thing so many times. I've always wondered why "Be" was never "B" as in It's Gonna Be A Beautiful Night. However you'll notice over time that Prince ebonics evolved where as "your" eventually morphed into "u'r." To the OP, I think this is an interesting topic for discussion I'm just not sure how you will tie it all in with Prince. Obviously Prince started doing it back in the early 80s - but for what reason? Was it really for anything other than a gimmick or fun? With todays technology it makes sense where space is limited via twitter and text. I'd be interested to see how you put it all together in a thesis with a cohesive argument.

I do want to infer that people are influenced by his writing style unconsciously. Especially with the Twitter. I guess "Prince did it first" is important to me.

Speaking as a linguist, I guess the hardest thing to prove would be whether other artists deliberately copied Prince (I'd actually be surprised if Prince was the first) or whether, through the evolution of language and the introduction of txt speak, it evolved in other ways. It'd be great to be able to pinpoint its origins to Prince and its evolution from Prince but I fear this may be much harder to prove than it seems. Do you have training in corpus linguistics? That's where I'd start. Look up Jonathon Culpeper who uses Corpus Linguistics to research music lyrics.

I'd look at his tweets too and the use of Caps lock. Have any other artists copied this style? What can Prince's willingness to be playful with language tell us?

The one thing I always ask myself is "Why does this research matter?". If you can answer than then its worth your time and energy doing it. Good luck if you go ahead.

maplenpg said:

violectrica said:

wouldntulove2loveme said: I do want to infer that people are influenced by his writing style unconsciously. Especially with the Twitter. I guess "Prince did it first" is important to me.

Speaking as a linguist, I guess the hardest thing to prove would be whether other artists deliberately copied Prince (I'd actually be surprised if Prince was the first) or whether, through the evolution of language and the introduction of txt speak, it evolved in other ways. It'd be great to be able to pinpoint its origins to Prince and its evolution from Prince but I fear this may be much harder to prove than it seems. Do you have training in corpus linguistics? That's where I'd start. Look up Jonathon Culpeper who uses Corpus Linguistics to research music lyrics.

I'd look at his tweets too and the use of Caps lock. Have any other artists copied this style? What can Prince's willingness to be playful with language tell us?

The one thing I always ask myself is "Why does this research matter?". If you can answer than then its worth your time and energy doing it. Good luck if you go ahead.

You bring up some good points. I think if I failed to support the txt/twitter thing, there is still the vault which is so very important to me. A treasure really. And the written word should be protected and have accurate continuity. In any case there is so much material to work with. I think it is important enough and matters to me. Even though I only write this way on the phone, since I am so enmeshed in academia right now, it feels really important. I write poems and his writing seems like another form of concrete poetry. When he writes alphanumerically, that is 2 ways, gemini, duality, double entendre, other meanings. It makes you look twice. I think again. It is very cerebral.

I'm sorry but the man was a genius and I want to prove it to those who refuse to listen but can read.

violectrica said:

maplenpg said:

Speaking as a linguist, I guess the hardest thing to prove would be whether other artists deliberately copied Prince (I'd actually be surprised if Prince was the first) or whether, through the evolution of language and the introduction of txt speak, it evolved in other ways. It'd be great to be able to pinpoint its origins to Prince and its evolution from Prince but I fear this may be much harder to prove than it seems. Do you have training in corpus linguistics? That's where I'd start. Look up Jonathon Culpeper who uses Corpus Linguistics to research music lyrics.

I'd look at his tweets too and the use of Caps lock. Have any other artists copied this style? What can Prince's willingness to be playful with language tell us?

The one thing I always ask myself is "Why does this research matter?". If you can answer than then its worth your time and energy doing it. Good luck if you go ahead.

You bring up some good points. I think if I failed to support the txt/twitter thing, there is still the vault which is so very important to me. A treasure really. And the written word should be protected and have accurate continuity. In any case there is so much material to work with. I think it is important enough and matters to me. Even though I only write this way on the phone, since I am so enmeshed in academia right now, it feels really important. I write poems and his writing seems like another form of concrete poetry. When he writes alphanumerically, that is 2 ways, gemini, duality, double entendre, other meanings. It makes you look twice. I think again. It is very cerebral.

I'm sorry but the man was a genius and I want to prove it to those who refuse to listen but can read.

So you believe it is important enough and it matters to you but why should it matter to anyone else? That's the question you need to be able to answer. You could look at his body of works from a literature focal point arguing that his writing is poetic and therefore Prince should be considered alongside the great poets or from a linguistic angle studying how he plays with language. Of course, you could embody them both depending on what part of academia you're in.

I agree that more people should be aware of Prince's skill with language but please don't assume that anyone will read your thesis and suddenly agree with you. Are you planning to get it published in a journal? If so, where? I just think you need more substance other than you've got a point to prove to the ignorant

I'm sorry if my tone comes across quite negative. It's honestly not meant to be. I would love to see Prince recognised linguistically but I do think it might be a tougher task than it seems on the surface. I guess what I'm saying is to try and think about it objectively, as a non-Prince fan would. If you delivered your research at conference, would you sound like you had a genuine academic argument or would you sound like a fan desperately trying to spread the word about what is so good about Prince. If you want to be the former then you really have to consider whether Prince was more linguistically gifted than other artists, if so, how and why? Otherwise, I guarantee that at conference you will be met by a comment that tells you that X artist does exactly the same so why is Prince any different?

On another note, I see you are completing your MA in educational theory. I would argue that there is good reason to study music lyrics in schools as a form of poetry. Is there any way you could do something like that?

[Edited 5/3/16 12:55pm]

It's a nice idea for a paper, BUT I think you need to take a more academic approach. Instead of assuming that 'princebonics' are original and important from the get-go, which carries the risk of your cherry-picking evidence to support the claim, you should take a step back and try to be more objective. In other words, you need to take into account the possibility that your gut feeling might actually be wrong.

Good luck with your master's! If this helps at all, I remember there was an episode of Gilmore Girls referencing Prince's writing style. Someone on the Org even started a thread about it: http://prince.org/msg/5001/8513?pr
If you look at the date you can probably find the episode number.