mediumdry said:

CherryMoon57 said:

'A sister killed her baby cuz she couldn't afford 2 feed it
And yet we're sending people 2 the moon'

I like how he managed to include so much in just two lines: the correlation between abortion and poverty, combined with the second verse, illustrates how millions do not have their basic needs met while millions are being spent on interests so remote from humanity itself.

There is also a great imagery: the parallel between the round belly of a mother and the moon, spiritual symbol of fertility, life and death.

.

I'm thinking you have an overinflated sense of just how much is spent on space travel, relative to what is needed for fighting poverty.

.

And the two aren't even that related. It really is quite simple, give people protection against companies (unions, strict rules against random firings, etc), take commerce out of medicine (a single payers system, free for all, with good GPs as a first barrier), tax those that take insane amounts of money relative to the work they do (don't tell me an investment banker works 5000+ times that which a factory worker, cleaner or teacher does) and invest in free education.

.

Sending people to the moon (the moon program had ended quite a while before 1987, by the way) is something that costs a lot of money, but if humanity wants to have any hope of surviving, we will need to invest more heavily in space travel, it's the only way off of this temporary rock.

You're forgetting that these are metaphoric lines, not a factual documentary.

poppys said:

I am not feeding anything.

I was commenting on the OP's title - Now he's doing horse - it's June - re heroin addiction. I have no idea if the people I saw fall quickly into heroin addiction used weed first, I'm not against weed by the way. This is a real thing that was happening in my NYC neighborhood the same time as this album.

Alphabet City in the '80s was a designated open drug market, the other was Harlem, that is a documented fact. Dealers worked out of abandoned buildings. I lived there and watched it happen in real time. The same people came back to the source looking worse day after day, they had no choice. Not hard to pick em out. Do you know anything about heroin addiction? Because I do.

[Edited 6/5/18 6:36am]

.

Fortunately I have not experienced it firsthand. But that doesn't matter, as there is nothing about heroin addiction in the song, other than mentioning it in the sense that you go from reefer to horse, which is annecdotally true for some, but not a given by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it is misinformation when it comes to how to think about drugs and prevention. It does actual harm.

.

As to living in a drug area.. I lived in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost in the late '80s. People were using in the metro, in the hallways of the flats, you needed to check while walking so as not to step in needles. But that's all completely unrelated to anything in the song. Unless the girlfriend of the man in France came across that HIV needle while using, but it's another part of the song.

CherryMoon57 said:

You're forgetting that these are metaphoric lines, not a factual documentary.

.

While that is true, it insinuates that not sending people to the moon could have an impact on the sisters live. To the point that she would not have had to kill her baby (it was suggested this was alluding to an abortion, but abortions are never killing babies, anyone saying that has an agenda), which is simply nonsense.

.

By the way, I don't know many people that would kill their child... if you cannot feed it, give it up for adoption or find some other way. If you get found out, there is a hefty penalty for murder...

mediumdry said:

Lovejunky said:

.

that would be plausible, had he not added "some say men ain't happy truly, until men truly die".

.

I see no other reading than "rockets blow up, airplanes probably too".

is that the actual lyric? I never bothered reading them, i always heard it as "a man ain't truly happy until a man truly die" which to me meant a man isn't happy until he's dead, again, just interpretive, interpretations are all in the eye of the beholder, David Bowie said it as well as anyone can say it when he said an artists work isn't done until it's been interpreted by the listener. Most of how we interpret is filtered through our own biases, prejudices, projections etc.., sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's not even close.

i don't know if it's a myth or not, I can only go for what I know. I recently took pills to lose weight, the pill also caused a wonderful euphoria which surprised the doctor, but it is a side effect with some people. It felt a little too good, it's a slippery slope so I immediately stopped. One thing leads to another, I know that much.

mediumdry said:

poppys said:

There is a lot of truth in that line. It chills me to read it even now. I lived in the lower east side of Manhattan years before it was rebranded as the East Village by the real estate industry. Good looking well dressed people of all stripes and colors would show up on the corner holding their briefcases while copping dope.

Six weeks later the same people are literally laying by the sidewalk near a vacant lot with a syringe visible in their arm. They leave it in there and re-boost after the first nod. It was terrifying to see.

.

Pointing to the few that go from one drug to the next does not prove anything. After watching a documentary about lottery winners you might think you have a chance of winning one too. (you're more likely to be hit by lightning)

.

Decades of research have shown that the "gateway drug" myth is just that, a myth. Of course, if you decriminalize softdrugs, even less people move on to harddrugs. Although in the US, they'd have to do something about how doctors are reimbursed to stop the madness that utlimately also killed Prince. The entire war on drugs in the US has been responsible for turning so many to drugs, it's insane.

.

On an unrelated note.. how come you remember people that walk in your neighbourhood after 6 weeks? That's pretty impressive and quite uncommon. And even Prince gave the process 9 months as opposed to your 6 weeks.

.

Please don't keep feeding this myth...

elon musk is bravely doing that in the private sector, it's kinda admirable but I don't see him ever doing what he's setting out to do in his lifetime, maybe he knows that but he's just looking forward. I think it would be better spent making life better here, fixing this fucked up environment would be a fine start, then we could worry about overpopulation before the elite clean us out first, which may sound conspiratorial but I could see it.

mediumdry said:

CherryMoon57 said:

'A sister killed her baby cuz she couldn't afford 2 feed it
And yet we're sending people 2 the moon'

I like how he managed to include so much in just two lines: the correlation between abortion and poverty, combined with the second verse, illustrates how millions do not have their basic needs met while millions are being spent on interests so remote from humanity itself.

There is also a great imagery: the parallel between the round belly of a mother and the moon, spiritual symbol of fertility, life and death.

.

I'm thinking you have an overinflated sense of just how much is spent on space travel, relative to what is needed for fighting poverty.

.

And the two aren't even that related. It really is quite simple, give people protection against companies (unions, strict rules against random firings, etc), take commerce out of medicine (a single payers system, free for all, with good GPs as a first barrier), tax those that take insane amounts of money relative to the work they do (don't tell me an investment banker works 5000+ times that which a factory worker, cleaner or teacher does) and invest in free education.

.

Sending people to the moon (the moon program had ended quite a while before 1987, by the way) is something that costs a lot of money, but if humanity wants to have any hope of surviving, we will need to invest more heavily in space travel, it's the only way off of this temporary rock.

mediumdry said:

CherryMoon57 said:

You're forgetting that these are metaphoric lines, not a factual documentary.

.

While that is true, it insinuates that not sending people to the moon could have an impact on the sisters live. To the point that she would not have had to kill her baby (it was suggested this was alluding to an abortion, but abortions are never killing babies, anyone saying that has an agenda), which is simply nonsense.

.

By the way, I don't know many people that would kill their child... if you cannot feed it, give it up for adoption or find some other way. If you get found out, there is a hefty penalty for murder...

What's your point?

mediumdry said:

poppys said:

I am not feeding anything.

I was commenting on the OP's title - Now he's doing horse - it's June - re heroin addiction. I have no idea if the people I saw fall quickly into heroin addiction used weed first, I'm not against weed by the way. This is a real thing that was happening in my NYC neighborhood the same time as this album.

Alphabet City in the '80s was a designated open drug market, the other was Harlem, that is a documented fact. Dealers worked out of abandoned buildings. I lived there and watched it happen in real time. The same people came back to the source looking worse day after day, they had no choice. Not hard to pick em out. Do you know anything about heroin addiction? Because I do.

.

Fortunately I have not experienced it firsthand. But that doesn't matter, as there is nothing about heroin addiction in the song, other than mentioning it in the sense that you go from reefer to horse, which is annecdotally true for some, but not a given by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it is misinformation when it comes to how to think about drugs and prevention. It does actual harm.

.

As to living in a drug area.. I lived in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost in the late '80s. People were using in the metro, in the hallways of the flats, you needed to check while walking so as not to step in needles. But that's all completely unrelated to anything in the song. Unless the girlfriend of the man in France came across that HIV needle while using, but it's another part of the song.

This is the problem. I made a general reply to the OP. You replied as if I stated that weed was a gateway drug, THEN you questioned my personal life experience as untrue. What is taken away from any artist's writing, music, poetry et al is subjective. You can decide what the song means to you, not everyone. Now he's doing horse - it's June means exactly what I said it meant - to me.

poppys said:

mediumdry said:

.

Pointing to the few that go from one drug to the next does not prove anything. After watching a documentary about lottery winners you might think you have a chance of winning one too. (you're more likely to be hit by lightning)

.

Decades of research have shown that the "gateway drug" myth is just that, a myth. Of course, if you decriminalize softdrugs, even less people move on to harddrugs. Although in the US, they'd have to do something about how doctors are reimbursed to stop the madness that utlimately also killed Prince. The entire war on drugs in the US has been responsible for turning so many to drugs, it's insane.

.

On an unrelated note.. how come you remember people that walk in your neighbourhood after 6 weeks? That's pretty impressive and quite uncommon. And even Prince gave the process 9 months as opposed to your 6 weeks.

.

Please don't keep feeding this myth...

I am not feeding anything.

I was commenting on the OP's title - Now he's doing horse - it's June - re heroin addiction. I have no idea if the people I saw fall quickly into heroin addiction used weed first, I'm not against weed by the way. This is a real thing that was happening in my NYC neighborhood the same time as this album.

Alphabet City in the '80s was a designated open drug market, the other was Harlem, that is a documented fact. Dealers worked out of abandoned buildings. I lived there and watched it happen in real time. The same people came back to the source looking worse day after day, they had no choice. Not hard to pick em out. Do you know anything about heroin addiction? Because I do.

[Edited 6/5/18 6:36am]

and prince was hanging around alphabet city late 80's ....

PeteSilas said:

elon musk is bravely doing that in the private sector, it's kinda admirable but I don't see him ever doing what he's setting out to do in his lifetime, maybe he knows that but he's just looking forward. I think it would be better spent making life better here, fixing this fucked up environment would be a fine start, then we could worry about overpopulation before the elite clean us out first, which may sound conspiratorial but I could see it.

mediumdry said:

.

I'm thinking you have an overinflated sense of just how much is spent on space travel, relative to what is needed for fighting poverty.

.

And the two aren't even that related. It really is quite simple, give people protection against companies (unions, strict rules against random firings, etc), take commerce out of medicine (a single payers system, free for all, with good GPs as a first barrier), tax those that take insane amounts of money relative to the work they do (don't tell me an investment banker works 5000+ times that which a factory worker, cleaner or teacher does) and invest in free education.

.

Sending people to the moon (the moon program had ended quite a while before 1987, by the way) is something that costs a lot of money, but if humanity wants to have any hope of surviving, we will need to invest more heavily in space travel, it's the only way off of this temporary rock.

Bill Nye once said that the dinosaurs became extinct becasue they didnt have a space program.

poppys said:

mediumdry said:

.

Fortunately I have not experienced it firsthand. But that doesn't matter, as there is nothing about heroin addiction in the song, other than mentioning it in the sense that you go from reefer to horse, which is annecdotally true for some, but not a given by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it is misinformation when it comes to how to think about drugs and prevention. It does actual harm.

.

As to living in a drug area.. I lived in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost in the late '80s. People were using in the metro, in the hallways of the flats, you needed to check while walking so as not to step in needles. But that's all completely unrelated to anything in the song. Unless the girlfriend of the man in France came across that HIV needle while using, but it's another part of the song.

This is the problem. I made a general reply to the OP. You replied as if I stated that weed was a gateway drug, THEN you questioned my personal life experience as untrue. What is taken away from any artist's writing, music, poetry et al is subjective. You can decide what the song means to you, not everyone. Now he's doing horse - it's June means exactly what I said it meant - to me.

Weed cewrtainly is a gateway drug. Gateway to happiness.

Stimpy said:

poppys said:

This is the problem. I made a general reply to the OP. You replied as if I stated that weed was a gateway drug, THEN you questioned my personal life experience as untrue. What is taken away from any artist's writing, music, poetry et al is subjective. You can decide what the song means to you, not everyone. Now he's doing horse - it's June means exactly what I said it meant - to me.

Weed cewrtainly is a gateway drug. Gateway to happiness.

Thanks for the pure D trolling. I already stated upthread I have nothing against weed. Now Get Off my back.

"Sign O The Times" is up there as my all-time favourite Prince songs - it's one of the Prince songs that got me into the artist in the first place. ^^

I was born in 1988, but I know that horse is a slang for drugs.

poppys said:

mediumdry said:

.

Fortunately I have not experienced it firsthand. But that doesn't matter, as there is nothing about heroin addiction in the song, other than mentioning it in the sense that you go from reefer to horse, which is annecdotally true for some, but not a given by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it is misinformation when it comes to how to think about drugs and prevention. It does actual harm.

.

As to living in a drug area.. I lived in Amsterdam Zuid-Oost in the late '80s. People were using in the metro, in the hallways of the flats, you needed to check while walking so as not to step in needles. But that's all completely unrelated to anything in the song. Unless the girlfriend of the man in France came across that HIV needle while using, but it's another part of the song.

This is the problem. I made a general reply to the OP. You replied as if I stated that weed was a gateway drug, THEN you questioned my personal life experience as untrue. What is taken away from any artist's writing, music, poetry et al is subjective. You can decide what the song means to you, not everyone. Now he's doing horse - it's June means exactly what I said it meant - to me.

.

I never meant to question your experience. If it came across as such, I'm sorry. I just remarked that there is a difference between anecdote (someones personal experience) and what is true in a general sense (there is no proven slippery slope from weed to heroin, although some take that path).

.

And you did mention people looking for dope and 6 weeks later lying in the gutter with a needle. I hope you can see, as it was the post following mine, that I thought it was related.

.

Lastly, "now he's doing horse, it's june", on it's own... there's not much in it, truth or otherwise, that I can see.. So forgive my oversight.

PeteSilas said:

i don't know if it's a myth or not, I can only go for what I know. I recently took pills to lose weight, the pill also caused a wonderful euphoria which surprised the doctor, but it is a side effect with some people. It felt a little too good, it's a slippery slope so I immediately stopped. One thing leads to another, I know that much.

.

Good for you. I know it's hard to quit something that gives a good feeling, be it sugar, cigarettes or otherwise. Just wondering though, did you start with paracetamol and that led you to this drug? </facetious>

CherryMoon57 said:

mediumdry said:

.

While that is true, it insinuates that not sending people to the moon could have an impact on the sisters live. To the point that she would not have had to kill her baby (it was suggested this was alluding to an abortion, but abortions are never killing babies, anyone saying that has an agenda), which is simply nonsense.

.

By the way, I don't know many people that would kill their child... if you cannot feed it, give it up for adoption or find some other way. If you get found out, there is a hefty penalty for murder...

What's your point?

.

that Prince seemed to try sounding woke and ended up sounding dumb.

CherryMoon57 said:

'A sister killed her baby cuz she couldn't afford 2 feed it
And yet we're sending people 2 the moon'

I like how he managed to include so much in just two lines: the correlation between abortion and poverty, combined with the second verse, illustrates how millions do not have their basic needs met while millions are being spent on interests so remote from humanity itself.

There is also a great imagery: the parallel between the round belly of a mother and the moon, spiritual symbol of fertility, life and death.

Exploration and aquisition of knowledge are integral parts of humanity.

mediumdry said:

PeteSilas said:

i don't know if it's a myth or not, I can only go for what I know. I recently took pills to lose weight, the pill also caused a wonderful euphoria which surprised the doctor, but it is a side effect with some people. It felt a little too good, it's a slippery slope so I immediately stopped. One thing leads to another, I know that much.

.

Good for you. I know it's hard to quit something that gives a good feeling, be it sugar, cigarettes or otherwise. Just wondering though, did you start with paracetamol and that led you to this drug? </facetious>

it wasn't hard to quit, but different people have different issues, if i didn't have an eating problem i wouldn't have needed the damn pills in the first place. but, i can say this, the thought occurred while i took the pills "wow, i feel so good, just think of how much work I could get done" and that's when the other side of me said "uh oh, that's not good".

mediumdry said:

poppys said:

This is the problem. I made a general reply to the OP. You replied as if I stated that weed was a gateway drug, THEN you questioned my personal life experience as untrue. What is taken away from any artist's writing, music, poetry et al is subjective. You can decide what the song means to you, not everyone. Now he's doing horse - it's June means exactly what I said it meant - to me.

.

I never meant to question your experience. If it came across as such, I'm sorry. I just remarked that there is a difference between anecdote (someones personal experience) and what is true in a general sense (there is no proven slippery slope from weed to heroin, although some take that path).

.

And you did mention people looking for dope and 6 weeks later lying in the gutter with a needle. I hope you can see, as it was the post following mine, that I thought it was related.

.

Lastly, "now he's doing horse, it's june", on it's own... there's not much in it, truth or otherwise, that I can see.. So forgive my oversight.

Chalk it up to a non sequitur for you, thanks for your dismissal. I lived in the times of Sign, that's all. Why you replied to my post in the first place is still a mystery then - except for the weed thing, whatever.

poppys said:

mediumdry said:

.

I never meant to question your experience. If it came across as such, I'm sorry. I just remarked that there is a difference between anecdote (someones personal experience) and what is true in a general sense (there is no proven slippery slope from weed to heroin, although some take that path).

.

And you did mention people looking for dope and 6 weeks later lying in the gutter with a needle. I hope you can see, as it was the post following mine, that I thought it was related.

.

Lastly, "now he's doing horse, it's june", on it's own... there's not much in it, truth or otherwise, that I can see.. So forgive my oversight.

Chalk it up to a non sequitur for you, thanks for your dismissal. I lived in the times of Sign, that's all. Why you replied to my post in the first place is still a mystery then - except for the weed thing, whatever.

potheads get real defensive about weed, that's why i always hesitate before I bring it up, ya know, "do I want to hear that" because usually, i'm just stating what i've seen or heard about People/Pot. It's just a detour I might not want to make when I bring it up, I could care less what people do, unless you're someone I love, why should I really care? It's your business, and they should probably just legalize all that shit anyways. People have a constitutional right to do what they want with their bodies, my sister used to tell me when I'd get on her over her drinking "it's my fucking life!" well, she was right and now she's dead right.

luvsexy4all said:

poppys said:

I am not feeding anything.

I was commenting on the OP's title - Now he's doing horse - it's June - re heroin addiction. I have no idea if the people I saw fall quickly into heroin addiction used weed first, I'm not against weed by the way. This is a real thing that was happening in my NYC neighborhood the same time as this album.

Alphabet City in the '80s was a designated open drug market, the other was Harlem, that is a documented fact. Dealers worked out of abandoned buildings. I lived there and watched it happen in real time. The same people came back to the source looking worse day after day, they had no choice. Not hard to pick em out. Do you know anything about heroin addiction? Because I do.

and prince was hanging around alphabet city late 80's ....

Yeah, that's EXACTLY what I wrote. Ya got me. Do you think I'm feeding the weed myth too? Reading comprehension people.

PeteSilas said:

poppys said:

Chalk it up to a non sequitur for you, thanks for your dismissal. I lived in the times of Sign, that's all. Why you replied to my post in the first place is still a mystery then - except for the weed thing, whatever.

potheads get real defensive about weed, that's why i always hesitate before I bring it up, ya know, "do I want to hear that" because usually, i'm just stating what i've seen or heard about People/Pot. It's just a detour I might not want to make when I bring it up, I could care less what people do, unless you're someone I love, why should I really care? It's your business, and they should probably just legalize all that shit anyways. People have a constitutional right to do what they want with their bodies, my sister used to tell me when I'd get on her over her drinking "it's my fucking life!" well, she was right and now she's dead right.

Agree.

I never even mentioned feeding the myth, lol. Apparently, they know exactly what Sign 'O' the Times means, and I of course don't.

Prince in disguise could have come on here and described everything he was thinking when he wrote a song with a detailed explanation of why he wrote every line - and people here would tell him he was full of shit.

@poppys You get mighty defensive when called on your post. You did some mighty fine backpedaling too.And now reading comprehension? Pfff...

@PeteSilas just in case you referred to me as a pothead, I am not one. That's not one of my vices, I'm with you on the food though, unfortunately. A friend of mine stopped with ritalin, because he felt the same effect you describe. (although for him they were prescribed for concentration issues, not weight) I'm not sure that I would be able to stop when I would have pills that make me feel good, make me lose weight and make me more productive. Kudos to you for being able to step away.

Back to the song, I always appreciated the instrumental version that is at the end of the Sign Of The Times movie, there's some parts in there that would have been great on a 12" version of the song. It's a shame he never did an extended version of it, would love a full 10 minutes.

PeteSilas said:

mediumdry said:

.

that would be plausible, had he not added "some say men ain't happy truly, until men truly die".

.

I see no other reading than "rockets blow up, airplanes probably too".

is that the actual lyric? I never bothered reading them, i always heard it as "a man ain't truly happy until a man truly die" which to me meant a man isn't happy until he's dead, again, just interpretive, interpretations are all in the eye of the beholder, David Bowie said it as well as anyone can say it when he said an artists work isn't done until it's been interpreted by the listener. Most of how we interpret is filtered through our own biases, prejudices, projections etc.., sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's not even close.

.

went back to the lyrics, it's in the song twice:

"some say a man ain't happy truly, until men/man truly dies"

"some say men ain't happy truly, until the man truly dies"

Make of that what you will...

mediumdry said:

@poppys You get mighty defensive when called on your post. You did some mighty fine backpedaling too.And now reading comprehension? Pfff...

@PeteSilas just in case you referred to me as a pothead, I am not one. That's not one of my vices, I'm with you on the food though, unfortunately. A friend of mine stopped with ritalin, because he felt the same effect you describe. (although for him they were prescribed for concentration issues, not weight) I'm not sure that I would be able to stop when I would have pills that make me feel good, make me lose weight and make me more productive. Kudos to you for being able to step away.

Back to the song, I always appreciated the instrumental version that is at the end of the Sign Of The Times movie, there's some parts in there that would have been great on a 12" version of the song. It's a shame he never did an extended version of it, would love a full 10 minutes.

Called what on my post? Backpedaled where?

General reply #20 - the post that started all your ridiculous bullshit about feeding the myth.

poppys said:

There is a lot of truth in that line. It chills me to read it even now. I lived in the lower east side of Manhattan years before it was rebranded as the East Village by the real estate industry. Good looking well dressed people of all stripes and colors would show up on the corner holding their briefcases while copping dope.

Six weeks later the same people are literally laying by the sidewalk near a vacant lot with a syringe visible in their arm. They leave it in there and re-boost after the first nod. It was terrifying to see.

mediumdry said:

PeteSilas said:

is that the actual lyric? I never bothered reading them, i always heard it as "a man ain't truly happy until a man truly die" which to me meant a man isn't happy until he's dead, again, just interpretive, interpretations are all in the eye of the beholder, David Bowie said it as well as anyone can say it when he said an artists work isn't done until it's been interpreted by the listener. Most of how we interpret is filtered through our own biases, prejudices, projections etc.., sometimes it's accurate, sometimes it's not even close.

.

went back to the lyrics, it's in the song twice:

"some say a man ain't happy truly, until men/man truly dies"

"some say men ain't happy truly, until the man truly dies"

Make of that what you will...

i always thought the line was a continuation of Controversy's "some people want to die so they can be free".

mediumdry said:

@poppys You get mighty defensive when called on your post. You did some mighty fine backpedaling too.And now reading comprehension? Pfff...

@PeteSilas just in case you referred to me as a pothead, I am not one. That's not one of my vices, I'm with you on the food though, unfortunately. A friend of mine stopped with ritalin, because he felt the same effect you describe. (although for him they were prescribed for concentration issues, not weight) I'm not sure that I would be able to stop when I would have pills that make me feel good, make me lose weight and make me more productive. Kudos to you for being able to step away.

Back to the song, I always appreciated the instrumental version that is at the end of the Sign Of The Times movie, there's some parts in there that would have been great on a 12" version of the song. It's a shame he never did an extended version of it, would love a full 10 minutes.

i've been round and round about pot before, usually it's me mentioning something offhand about bruce lee dying from it or a friend who's life kinda degraded after starting to smoke, some person, usually who i've never seen post just pops up and starts arguing., as far as the pills i took, food can be just as bad, it is just as bad really, especially in our country. my stepdad is a perfect example of how thoughts can be addictive, he never had a problem with any substance but he was obsessive (like me) and would just go on and on and on about things. I'm the same way, if thougts are a drug, i'm hooked and most of the time, the obsessions are things that don't make my life better, just make me more bitter and angry.

mediumdry said:

CherryMoon57 said:

'A sister killed her baby cuz she couldn't afford 2 feed it
And yet we're sending people 2 the moon'

I like how he managed to include so much in just two lines: the correlation between abortion and poverty, combined with the second verse, illustrates how millions do not have their basic needs met while millions are being spent on interests so remote from humanity itself.

There is also a great imagery: the parallel between the round belly of a mother and the moon, spiritual symbol of fertility, life and death.

.

I'm thinking you have an overinflated sense of just how much is spent on space travel, relative to what is needed for fighting poverty.

.

And the two aren't even that related. It really is quite simple, give people protection against companies (unions, strict rules against random firings, etc), take commerce out of medicine (a single payers system, free for all, with good GPs as a first barrier), tax those that take insane amounts of money relative to the work they do (don't tell me an investment banker works 5000+ times that which a factory worker, cleaner or teacher does) and invest in free education.

.

Sending people to the moon (the moon program had ended quite a while before 1987, by the way) is something that costs a lot of money, but if humanity wants to have any hope of surviving, we will need to invest more heavily in space travel, it's the only way off of this temporary rock.

In the space travel reference Prince was referring to the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion which happend just the year prior - "It's silly, no? When a rocket ship explodes, everybody still wants to fly. Some say a man ain't truly happy until a man truly dies. Oh why, Time, Time"

Lovejunky said:

PeteSilas said:

when did he try to correlate the skyrocket/airplane technology? I'll look at the lyrics to check it. oh, i see, the "everybody still wants to fly"? line? i always assumed it meant everyone still wants to go forward with the space program. Maybe he was also insinuating that with all the poverty issues in the US that it was silly to put so much money into pointless space ventures when there are real problems here.

[Edited 6/4/18 11:31am]

He was referencing the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion/disaster which happenend the prior year (January 1986) - "It's silly, no? When a rocket ship explodes, everybody still wants to fly. Some say a man ain't happy until a man truly dies..."

PeteSilas said:

mediumdry said:

.

went back to the lyrics, it's in the song twice:

"some say a man ain't happy truly, until men/man truly dies"

"some say men ain't happy truly, until the man truly dies"

Make of that what you will...

i always thought the line was a continuation of Controversy's "some people want to die so they can be free".

Those lines were tied to the lyric about the Challenger disaster the full verse is - "It's silly, no? when a rocket ship explodes, everybody still wants to fly. Some say a man ain't happy until a man truly dies"