"Nobody digs your music but yourself" - PR

"They'll never get it" - GB (can't remember if that is the direct quote from GB, but something like that)

Both movies talked about people not understanding his music. Keeping in mind that he expressed himself thru his artistic output, do you think he personally thought his music was beyond comprehension for the masses and that's why that message popped up in both movies?

[Edited 2/17/17 10:40am]

I think he' heard that a lot from his critics, especially in the early years. I always interpreted "Nobody digs your music but you" as being about the quality of it, not how accessible or comprehensible it was.

What's ironic about Billy in Purple Rain making that statement is that he said it after Prince performed Darling Nikki and that's one of our favorite songs from PR, isn't it?

7souls said:

"Nobody digs your music but yourself" - PR

"They'll never get it" - GB (can't remember if that is the direct quote from GB, but something like that)

Both movies talked about people not understanding his music. Keeping in mind that he expressed himself thru his artistic output, do you think he personally thought his music was beyond comprehension for the masses and that's why that message popped up in both movies?

[Edited 2/17/17 10:40am]

I always thought that line was strange for a kid who basically just had so many things go his way because of his music. I mean, he never had to go through what most of US musicians have to go through with the indifference, the shitty treatment, the non-understanding friends and family who cannot see why you do what you do. At least not as an adult, hell he got signed at 18-19. I think that maybe it was his own projection of his own uniqueness and strangeness but I couldn't really say. He did used to tell people that they don't "get it" or that "they are getting it" when they liked his new stuff. The implication was that they weren't understanding him if they just didn't like the music and it was their, not his, shortcoming. I recall an article around the time of lovesexy where he sidled up to the author and said "you get it" when the guy said that the lovesexy cover was not sexual but a sign of being reborn, the author said he felt uncomfortable with the pressure of Prince trying to convert him and be over friendly because he thought he had to stay objective as a journalist and didn't want to be influenced.

PurpleYoda3121 said:

I think he' heard that a lot from his critics, especially in the early years. I always interpreted "Nobody digs your music but you" as being about the quality of it, not how accessible or comprehensible it was.

Maybe he did, we weren't there for all the moments where people, most likely black folk from his own community might have called him names or said he was wierd of whatever. Or the audiences where he didn't go over. his first major show was a disaster, but so what, he was a kid, everyone bombs sometimes, something tells me he was always hypersensitive, most artists are. But Prince? out of all the superstars we have, I can't think of any who actually have perused fan sites to read fans opinions, I doubt if springsteen does, i doubt bono does but we hear that prince did.

and getting back to the sensitivity thing, Springsteen said how dissapointed he was with the reception of the album Wrecking Ball and how proud he was of it. Not knowing why it flopped, he surmised that maybe people thought he had no business talking about the great recession's affect on poor people. He didn't really know though.

7souls said:

"Nobody digs your music but yourself" - PR

"They'll never get it" - GB (can't remember if that is the direct quote from GB, but something like that)

Both movies talked about people not understanding his music. Keeping in mind that he expressed himself thru his artistic output, do you think he personally thought his music was beyond comprehension for the masses and that's why that message popped up in both movies?

[Edited 2/17/17 10:40am]

ROLLING STONE (1990)

PRINCE TALKS

BY NEAL KARLEN

What Prince has read in the New York Times has astounded him. "They're starting to get it," he says from his phone in the Wellington Suite, which he has turned into a homey workplace with the addition of some bolts of sheer rainbow-colored cloth, film equipment, a stereo and tacked-up museum-shop posters of Billie Holiday and Judy Garland. "I don't believe it," he says again, "but they're getting it!"

But hadn't he been cheered by the album's almost uniformly rave notices? "That's not what it's about," Prince had said. "No one's mentioning the lyrics. Maybe I should have put in a lyric sheet."

Now, in predawn London, he's called to say he was wrong. "They're starting to get it," he says one last time, unbothered by the fact that the Times article trashes his lyrics. That's okay, he says, because "they're paying attention." Sounding more amazed than pleased, Prince hangs up the phone and goes back to his dime-store notebook.

OldFriends4Sale said:

7souls said:

"Nobody digs your music but yourself" - PR

"They'll never get it" - GB (can't remember if that is the direct quote from GB, but something like that)

Both movies talked about people not understanding his music. Keeping in mind that he expressed himself thru his artistic output, do you think he personally thought his music was beyond comprehension for the masses and that's why that message popped up in both movies?

[Edited 2/17/17 10:40am]

ROLLING STONE (1990)

---

PRINCE TALKS

BY NEAL KARLEN

What Prince has read in the New York Times has astounded him. "They're starting to get it," he says from his phone in the Wellington Suite, which he has turned into a homey workplace with the addition of some bolts of sheer rainbow-colored cloth, film equipment, a stereo and tacked-up museum-shop posters of Billie Holiday and Judy Garland. "I don't believe it," he says again, "but they're getting it!"

But hadn't he been cheered by the album's almost uniformly rave notices? "That's not what it's about," Prince had said. "No one's mentioning the lyrics. Maybe I should have put in a lyric sheet."

Now, in predawn London, he's called to say he was wrong. "They're starting to get it," he says one last time, unbothered by the fact that the Times article trashes his lyrics. That's okay, he says, because "they're paying attention." Sounding more amazed than pleased, Prince hangs up the phone and goes back to his dime-store notebook.

that is one of the articles that came to mind. I always wondered where these "savage" reviews were, I never got ahold of them, they weren't in rolling stone or spin, the only horrid reviews I recall were of utcm the movie.

another thing he said that seems to be true, in the previous neal karlen interview, that he coughed in the raspberry beret vid for no other reason than to be "sick" which he seemed to like to do. Just wierd shit with no real reason whatsoever, nothing to be interpreted from it, doing it just to be nutty. It's true, it did happen in his music too. I recall listening to "Walk, Don't walk" with my best friend and him pointing out the subliminal vocal underneath everything else where he goes "nnnnn" and he said "that n****s sick" and of course he meant it as a compliment to his creativity. Prince's music is full of that kind of thing, I think it got less and less as he got older but it was always there. So on one hand, he did things to make people think he was a sexual deviant, a nutter, a wierdo and a freak and then he would genuinely be hurt when people saw him that way.