babynoz said:

manci said:

Superconductor said:

. Fascinating story, thanks for sharing. Is this the same time as the Kevin Smith documentary? I have always imagined that Prince had a different side(s) to the stage persona. Like we all do in different settings. . I have met people who discovered religion and religious observance and they can become quite a zealot for their new found meaning of life. The absolutism, the insistence that their interpretation is the only true one can be really grating. . The Rainbow Children is musically an unbelievably beautiful album and I try not to listen to the lyrics too closely in order to enjoy it. It is one of my favorite Prince albums. . That era, the early 2000's I only discovered in the last few years including the jazzy albums and the ONA concerts and I find it superb. Hitnrun Phase 2 has a bit of that flair, with the horns etc. but without the religious zealotry. . If he had kept the religious imagery/storytelling a little bit more universal, this album would have been recognised more broadly a masterpiece imo.

I couldn't agree more with you on this, I've always enjoyed TRC musically, and felt that it matched the jazzy atmosphere of many IndigO2 aftershows back in 2007. I actually used to listen to this as well as ONA during the drive to London and everytime I listen to it now, it brings back the magic of that incredible Summer.

I didnt think this question could be as dumb as the title when I clicked on it. I was wrong

FUNKYNESS said:

weirdozmedia said:

GirlBrother said:

weirdozmedia said: There's a lyric about black mixing with white being acceptable on a piano keyboard, but not in the real world. There's another song where the lyric infers that all present-day white people should face an uprising by people of colour, for their enslaving of Africans a couple of centuries ago. And the lyric continues, "Goddam Catholics, Protestants, Jews"... or something like that. There's more - just Google the album's lyrics. And on top of the crazy lyrics, it all sounds creepy as fuck. His voice is super slowed down in parts, like Darth Vader in a K-Hole. It's unpleasant.

What the f---?! So I guess he turned his back on that whole "black, white, Puerto Rican everybody just a freakin'" utopia, or was this supposed to be some type of Spooky Electric character spouting nonsense?

It might be best that I just continue pretending this album doesn't exist, lol.

That was 1980. Are you the same as you were in 1980? Were you even alive in 1980? Your perspective changes with time experience, and wisdom. Prince was a lot smarter when he did TRC than he was when he made Dirty Mind - I can guarantee you that. He had battled an institution that oppressed his people and he had looked into the eyes of the evil in the music industry with defiance. I am sure that life brought him the realization that this utopia doesnt exist and probably never will - though I doubt that small phrase in the song denotes some grand concept of Utopian racial harmony. Yes, as much as so many here dont want to face it, Prince was a black man. And as such, he saw what was to be black in America - even when you are a legend. He was well read and knew history - and, like everything else he did, took it head on with no fear. The song Avalanche is a prime example: early 80s Prince would probably never expose the racist quote of Abraham Lincoln in a song for he was a boy. Even if he wanted to do it, WB would have stopped it. Prince was close about as close to a free black man as anyone could get - and he expressed himself like one in his latter years. Looking back, I think I appreciate that phase of his artistry the most now. TRC is a brilliant album that was wasted on the intellectual lightweights of the pop music market.

I've never been a fan of this album. I found its psuedo-jazz/Christian ramblings to be not my cup of tea. However, I do find it to be the album that let fans know that although Prince had been a racially/socially inclusive person all of his life he was still a BLACK man with thoughts on Black history/pride/nationalism (though a think a lot of what is said in the album isn't as "bad" as critics have interpreted it to be.)

[Edited 5/10/16 4:45am]

jpav said:

emesem said:

anyone sucesfully been able to explain some the seemingly unacceptable lyrics and philosophy in TRC?

You all know the list.

Serious responses only. Dont want to hear "I dont care about the lyrics or what they really mean. I'm all about that music."

I think it's a masterpiece, his last real one.his last really great work.

The lyrics are certainly as enigmatic as anything he's written, but the band and the performances and the production are incredible.

.

.

Agreed, love love love The Rainbow Children, it flows very well, Prince was very focussed when he recorded this album. It's a masterpiece.

It's easy to forget how bad things were in 2000. Rave, an obvious star-studded attempt to revive his career, had virtually disappeared without a trace. The aborted High album sounded staler than anything he had ever released. After the beautiful full-bodied NPG albums of the early to mid 90s, Prince's music was sounding tinny and lifeless.

Against that backdrop, The Rainbow Children was almost a miracle of new-found inspiration. The conservative and at times offensive religious outlook was a high price to pay, but I think it was worth it for the way in which it reinvigorated his art and his career.

At the time I was optimistic that The Rainbow Children would see Prince embark upon a new phase of creativity, free of any desire to recapture his former status as a pop idol. There were certainly signs of that with One Nite Alone and N.E.W.S, but for some reason the flame soon died and he returned to producing what I consider to be safer, more formulaic records from Musicology onwards.

I still enjoyed the albums from that point on -- in fact, I think they are consistently excellent -- but for me Prince never really delivered on the promise of the TRC era. I had a sense that a more freewheeling, experimental spirit might be returning on the back of some of the new stuff (particularly Free Urself and Black Muse/Revelation), which has made me particularly saddened by his early death.

I've tried to get into TRC a couple of times, but I just can't. Shit awful pretentious lyrics over mostly drab music - it's not for me. It's a strong contender for his worst ever album. Still, some folk like it so each to their own.

FUNKYNESS said:

GirlBrother said:

like Darth Vader in a K-Hole.

Great, now I'm gonna have to go listen to it.

manci said:

Well I was going to say something, but it's like you were in my fucking head, because I would have said exactly the same. Ha! Very divisive period. I felt betrayed... This was the Uptown guy pushing my white ass to the side? Didn't really return to the fold until Musicology. Bought NEWS and whatever else in between, but solely out of habit. Couldn't listen to it, though. Musicology brought me back, but I've always been a bit skeptical ever since. Like others though, I think the music is BRILLIANT. Too bad about the devisive lyrics.

Yeah, I bought NOTHING at all at the time. I do recall seeing NEWS in the record store and when I heard it was nothing but instramentals I remember wondering if it was because Prince realized few liked what he had to say on TRC so put this out sans lyrics. lol

With Musicology I came back to him as a fan of the music but never took him seriously about anything else after that. Like the Prince meme that went around a couple of years ago; everyone has that ONE aunt who think she better than everyone else. lol

Because it is not 100% JW doctrine, it's mixed with a LOT of Egyptology and Prince idealogy

I don't know what most of it means

Reproduction of the New Breed

Menda City, we R the Banished Ones we have come 2 dance, the Digital Garden,

the Rainbow Children, the Wise One, the Muse,

electronica organic, finger cymbals, electric guitar, harmony, deep bass,

the Truth?, curious story line, play on words, swirl of color, kaleidoscope reactions,

Controversy, Egyptology, Gnostic references, Jehovahs Witnesses,

indecipherable twists and turns, religion, lust,

Did U bring yourself 2 joy?

As prophesied, the Wise One and his woman were tempted by the Resistor. He,
knowing full well the Wise One's love 4 God, assimilated the woman first and
only. Quite naturally, chaos ensued and she and 5 others were banished from
the rainbow.4ever.
.
The Wise One who understood the law that was handed down from God long ago,
held fast in his belief that the Lord would bring him another one who loved him so.

.

The Banished Ones approaching the palace shouted obscenities. They tried 2
confuse the Rainbow Children and dethron their king. Using the lies promoted
by the whosepapers, hellavisions, and scagazines- The Banished Ones
constructed a Digital Garden around the palace that extended throughout the
world. Furthermore they demanded compensation 4 their time spent in the
palace b4 the exile. This was noise! "So be it," said the Wise One, and
gladly obliged with an INVISIBLE DEED. The Banished Ones accepted and
returned to their place of birth in MendaCity. As 4 the Rainbow Children,
they began deconstructing the Digital Garden. Door to door they went in
search of those willing to do The Work

.

From all over, the people came 2 do The Work. And with every phase of the
deconstruction the Everlasting Now became evermore reality. Everywhere the
people were witnessing a change, but the alchemy occurred most in the Muse.

.

.
As she fell in2 the Sensual Everafter, out of bodyout of mind,
she stroked her hair a hundred times.
And as she fell deeper in2 the hypnotic unwind, he counted his way in2 the suggestive mind.
Planting a seed that bears fruit on the tree,
he said, repeat after me.repeat after me.repeat after me.1+1+1 is 3

.

Possessed: the Rise and Fall of Prince

Chapter 19: Xenophobia

p 243

As Prince began recording his next full album, the Rainbow Children, Jehovah's Witness doctrine emerged as a prominent element in his music. So too did tinges of anti-Semitism, along with dollops of patriarchal sexism. The song "Muse 2 The Pharaoh" demonstrates both tendencies, positing a gender hierarchy where men make the decisions and produce great art while women serve them. The song also makes an invidious comparison between the Holocaust and the enslavement of black Americans, arguing that extermination is preferable to a loss of freedom.

.

How did this former rebel, who during the 1980s had been pop's leading advocate of sexual freedom and cultural diversity, re-emerge in the 2000s as such a moralistic and narrow-minded figure? The answer in part is that Prince had never wholeheartedly embraced the role of revolutionary; this was simply one of many guises he adopted. The Prince of Dirty Mind, Controversy, and 1999 represented an important (and for a time dominate) part of his personality, but streaks of piousness and moral superiority were apparent even then. The trend in his work toward religious conservatism, which became more prevalent after his marriage to Mayte Garcia in 1996, was dramatically accelerated by Larry Graham's arrival on the scene in 1998. By the time The Rainbow Children was released in December 2001, Prince had committed, privately and publicly, to the Jehovah's Witness faith, and continued to extol Graham as his most trusted spiritual advisor. In an interview that appeared in Gotham magazine in 2001, he revealed that -at Graham's prompting -he was eliminating all profanity from his music.

LOL like this one:

http://ifunny.co/fun/Qh5VsMLi3

God bless him but this did crack me up when I first saw it.

Through it all, he was always about dichotomy.

jtfolden said:

manci said:

Well I was going to say something, but it's like you were in my fucking head, because I would have said exactly the same. Ha! Very divisive period. I felt betrayed... This was the Uptown guy pushing my white ass to the side? Didn't really return to the fold until Musicology. Bought NEWS and whatever else in between, but solely out of habit. Couldn't listen to it, though. Musicology brought me back, but I've always been a bit skeptical ever since. Like others though, I think the music is BRILLIANT. Too bad about the devisive lyrics.

Yeah, I bought NOTHING at all at the time. I do recall seeing NEWS in the record store and when I heard it was nothing but instramentals I remember wondering if it was because Prince realized few liked what he had to say on TRC so put this out sans lyrics. lol

With Musicology I came back to him as a fan of the music but never took him seriously about anything else after that. Like the Prince meme that went around a couple of years ago; everyone has that ONE aunt who think she better than everyone else. lol

GirlBrother said:

jtfolden said:

From the moment I heard it until today, TRC is in my top ten favorite Prince albums. I love the music, the subject matter, the imagery. It's brilliant. Anyone who didn't see TRC coming never really understood Prince's spirituality. Whether it's "Annie Christian" or Lovesexy, Prince's framework has always been Judeo-Christian. As such, religiously/spiritually, TRC is just a culmination of all that he had been doing in the past. Politically, it is great to see him combine his metaphysical and physical notions and address tangible issues, such as racism from a "real" and "historical" point. Anyone claiming that the work is "reverse racism" is just someone who either doesn't want to acknowledge the horrors committed against and still being committed against African Americans or they just want to hold to their fantasy of Prince being a "non" or "special" Negro who is somehow disconnected from the reality of most African Americans. As such, a song like "Race," while valuable, is juvenile at best, especially when he states "I don't wanna know why those before us hated each other." Lack of history never solves problems rooted in history. So, over the years I liked seeing Prince discuss racism from a more informed and tangible understanding that one cannot stop the subjugation of a people if one pretends that it doesn't exit. So, when he states, "Holocaust aside...would you rather be dead or sold," he's not marginalizing the slaughter of Jews; he's showing that what happened to African people is just as bad yet it rarely gets treated that way. Further, if we don't acknowledge this "real" history of what happened to African people and what continues to happen to African Americans, then how will it stop? So, I applauded Prince for saying what few in his position and popularity would say for fear of backlash or loss of followers.

*

What I find most interesting is that Prince is not preaching any more on TRC than on Lovesexy or any other record. It's just that he's being more orthodox in his presentation of his religious and more Afrocentric in his presentation of his political views. So, when people say, "There just too much preaching on TRC," what they mean is that they are fine with his "preaching" as long as he's preaching something with which they agree, which makes them more hypocritical than they often claim Prince was being. Of course, some people are not religious at all, and that's cool too. But, I just find it interesting that a person who calls oneself an atheist can be upset with TRC and not be upset with "Annie Christian" or Lovesexy or anything Prince did before TRC. If preaching religion upsets one, then people upset by religious indignation should have been upset by Prince's work long before TRC. For my money, TRC earns 10 of 10 stars 'cause ain't nothing funkier than "1+1+1= 3," "The Everlasting Now," and "The Work." And, "Last December" is seemingly other-worldly. Great album.

AnonymousFan said:

KingSausage said:

AnonymousFan said:

Ugh, some people are acting like he wrote it just for them to like it and that its just horrible that he wrote lyrics from a perspective that hurt your feelings. It's not for or about you! He wrote the lyrics on that album for him! You just happen to like buying his music!

Hmm. Did you read the testimonials about people meeting with Prince and crying about the Holocaust lyrics? Or being Muslims who felt uncomfortable with the hardline religious dogma on TRC? I'd say these issues touch legitimate concerns that people had back in the day and go much further than "Prince isn't writing for you." I've read lots of dumb posts on the Org over the years, and I'm gonna need to add yours to the list.

*

I'm not defending what AyonymousFan said. My question is what did Prince say about the Holocaust other than to compare it to the enslavement of Africans and ask why don't people view the enslavement of Africans as equal to the Holocaust? How is asking that question a bad thing? The lyric never states that the Holocaust isn't important. The lyric never minimizes the Holocaust. So, how is what he says about the Holocaust so bad when, again, all the lyric does is compare it to the enslavement of African people? I find it interesting that people have a problem with Prince saying that the enslavement of African people is the same as the Holocaust. Can you explain how asking that question is racist or a bad thing? I'm not trying to be rhetorical. I'm not trying to be confrontational. I don't understand how using the Holocaust to shed light on the horror of the African slave trade and American slavery is a bad thing, unless, somehow, people don't think that the African slave trade and American slavery were a bad event or that they weren't equal to the evil of the Holocaust. And, this seems to be the whole point of the lyric, to make people aware of the fact that the African slave trade and American slavery was just as bad as the Holocaust and that it continues to have lingering effects. So, when Prince states, "Would you rather be dead or sold?," people do know that there were thousands of Africans who choose death over enslavement? People do know that hundreds of Africans threw themselves overboard during the middle passage rather than be transported as chattel? People do know that thousands of African and African American slaves chose death once they arrived to America than to remain as slaves? Thus, the question or lyric that Prince provides is very much rhetorical, attempting to raise awareness that American slavery was so brutal that thousands of Africans and African Americans chose death over slavery. As such, one must also understand the lingering effects of slavery as America was founded on the enslavement and the later subjugation of African peoples. Therefore, taking all this into consideration, how is Prince's use of the Holocaust racist or demeaning if he uses it as a watermark of evil to show just how evil American slavery was? I'd like for someone to answer that question rather than just state the glittering generality that "his Holocaust lyric is racist."

*

Oh, one last point about the offended Muslim sister. Since Jesus is believed by most Muslims as the highest of all the prophets--not the Messiah--but the highest of all the prophets, it would seem to me that the Muslim woman didn't understand her own faith or the faith that she claimed to practice. So, possibly, Prince's invitation to the woman was to explain to her that in the Quran, which is the book that she would read if she is a Muslim, Jesus is taught as the highest of all the prophets as Muhammad is viewed as the Messiah. To add more, if the Muslim sister was truly schooled in her faith, she would know that Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all Abrahamic religions, with each citing Abraham as the father of their religion. So, it seems that this woman, and I mean no disrespect to her, did not know the faith or religion that she claimed, and, possibly, Prince wanted to discuss with her the role or place that Jesus has in Islam.

[Edited 5/10/16 19:36pm]

1725topp said:

jtfolden said:

GirlBrother said:

Maybe it's because 2002 is when I got into Prince, but I have always enjoyed this album. I hadn't listened to it in a long long time and put it on recently, and still dug quite a few songs on there (despite the lyrics, I guess...I'm an atheist).

1725topp said:

Oh, one last point about the offended Muslim sister.

[Edited 5/10/16 19:36pm]

I think it was less about her not knowing her own faith, and not realizing that JW's don't believe in Christ the way other Christians do. She took his statement to mean that if you don't acknowledge Christ as your God, you should be "banished." I think JW's believe that Christ is the son and not actual God.

The point is, many felt the lyrics were divisive, and it was hard to take from a man who before preached about inclusion and being free.

Shit, he was asking Wendy to denounce her homosexuality AND her Judaism.

I don't think it's difficult to understand why people were upset. I think they had a right to be. Just as Prince had the right to his beliefs.