this has to be the most touching song that prince has ever written .

Joshua A. M. Welton‏ @JOSHUAWORLD 4 Jul 2018

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That was how I took it

Haven't played it since he passed. Just can't bring myself to do it.

It's very beautiful and melancholy. Genuine emotion displayed on this one.

gold31 said:

Haven't played it since he passed. Just can't bring myself to do it.

i played it before and i still go back to it again and again, i think it might be his final masterpiece.

I liked it when it first released but it seems so empty and fake now. He was bullshitting himself.

Strive said:

I liked it when it first released but it seems so empty and fake now. He was bullshitting himself.

that's your interpretation, i thought he knew his days were definitely numbered and this was his goodbye. Elvis' way down, sam cookes' a change is gonna come were the same, a mix of optimism and despair, in elvis' case, even glee at his own demise. it's all been heard before.

PeteSilas said:

Strive said:

I liked it when it first released but it seems so empty and fake now. He was bullshitting himself.

that's your interpretation, i thought he knew his days were definitely numbered and this was his goodbye. Elvis' way down, sam cookes' a change is gonna come were the same, a mix of optimism and despair, in elvis' case, even glee at his own demise. it's all been heard before.

Well, I mean he released two albums after that and was planning to release two more so...

My point is more that we all know now that the lyrics are bs. He was notorious about longing for the company of others, he did want the trophy wife and party life, he seemingly thought that he wasn't going to die, he had no idea where he was going since his beliefs were all over the place.

Mr. Nelson/1000 Xs & 0s/June is way more honest and real than anything on AoA but few seem to realize it. (AoA is still a good album though)

Strive said:

PeteSilas said:

that's your interpretation, i thought he knew his days were definitely numbered and this was his goodbye. Elvis' way down, sam cookes' a change is gonna come were the same, a mix of optimism and despair, in elvis' case, even glee at his own demise. it's all been heard before.

Well, I mean he released two albums after that and was planning to release two more so...

My point is more that we all know now that the lyrics are bs. He was notorious about longing for the company of others, he did want the trophy wife and party life, he seemingly thought that he wasn't going to die, he had no idea where he was going since his beliefs were all over the place.

Mr. Nelson/1000 Xs & 0s/June is way more honest and real than anything on AoA but few seem to realize it. (AoA is still a good album though)

i read it as ambivalence, that he wanted thosethings but he also wanted "to be left alone" the song was an expresion of ambivalnece just like same cooks' a change is gonna come "there been times when I thought I couldn't last for long but now I think I can carry on" and he was dead not long after that. I call those "death songs" Elvis' was unusual in that there was no ambivalence or sadness but glee and eagerness to rush into death. the others were usually slow tempoed, melancholy and as i stated ambivalent and unclear.

I love the song.

One of my all time favorites. Just wish we could have a version of the song, as well as the music from Affirmation III, without the nonsense voice over.

PeteSilas said:

Co-sign.

This song grabbed me hard when it cmae out and never let go. I like the whole album but this track is the centerpiece

Krystalkisses said:

Krystalkisses said:

Way Back Home is about salvation, like many of Prince's songs.....and no, it is not a goodbye song, nor did he feel he was going to die, that is ridiculous.

I'm happiest when I can see
My way back home


He is happiest when living on the path to salvation.

[Edited 5/9/19 8:17am]

PeteSilas said:

leadline said:

Way Back Home is about salvation, like many of Prince's songs.....and no, it is not a goodbye song, nor did he feel he was going to die, that is ridiculous.

I'm happiest when I can see
My way back home


He is happiest when living on the path to salvation.

There's so many reasons why
I don't belong here
But now that I am I
Without fear I am
Gonna conquer with no fear


Sounds like he plans on conquering without fear (like he has done his entire life) until he gets his reward in the next life to me.

But no disrespect to anyone who thinks otherwise, if thinking Prince knew he was going to die (even though there is no evidence for that) and was singing about it in all these songs helps the healing process for you, then more power to ya, whatever helps get you through the day right?

[Edited 5/9/19 8:17am]

I'm not so sure about that.

Conquering what? He'd already conquered. The song has a weird intamacy that's absent from a lot of his tracks and renders him startingly vulnerable, meloncholy, revealing and introspective. "So many reasons why I don't belong here"...and "All I Ever WANTED"....past tense.

Belong WHERE? I agree it takes a brave stance in the face of ...something...but disagree that it was as simple as "business as usual/moving forward for Prince".

We, as hardcore love it for both the music and message.

My other half, and our children 'suffer' me playing a lot of Prince, but all agree, this track is one of his best.

They don't carry the baggage of the '80's', they just state what they think is a great song. They all love this.

My 13 year old son has heard them all without the media or fan impression. He thinks the likes of Way Back Home, Gold, Beginning Endlessly or Dolphin are as strong, or stronger, than Purple Rain or 1999.

nvrmnd17 said:

There are a lot of ironies in this song and we just will never know like many of his songs or all of them, what he was thinking when he wrote them. To say "he didnt feel he was going to die" is a bold statement unless you were speaking to him on a daily basis or he was speaking to you. We may think he didnt know, or felt death was around the corner, but I do feel he felt his own mortality as many around him had passed, he's a human being, death is something that will come. Also if we believe his sister, and a phone call they had in January of that year and him saying "I've done all I have come here to do", and also this supposed conversation between him and Morris Day around the same time that he has not told us what was talked about. He may not have thought "oh i will be dead in a few years" when he wrote the song, but those words and the feel of the song and his vocal are someone who is looking at the big picture, whether he is telling a story of the ride of the album, or it is in his own heart too.

Strive said:

PeteSilas said:

that's your interpretation, i thought he knew his days were definitely numbered and this was his goodbye. Elvis' way down, sam cookes' a change is gonna come were the same, a mix of optimism and despair, in elvis' case, even glee at his own demise. it's all been heard before.

Well, I mean he released two albums after that and was planning to release two more so...

My point is more that we all know now that the lyrics are bs. He was notorious about longing for the company of others, he did want the trophy wife and party life, he seemingly thought that he wasn't going to die, he had no idea where he was going since his beliefs were all over the place.

Mr. Nelson/1000 Xs & 0s/June is way more honest and real than anything on AoA but few seem to realize it. (AoA is still a good album though)

But with PRINCE who knows when songs are even recorded, Hit N Run one and two for all we know and especially some of the songs on two were well before AOA was even released.

This one, and June, Reflection, Anna Stesia, maybe a few others I forgot... Prince at his most vulnerable and intimate, almost not playing games at all. We're blessed he released those

Strive said:

PeteSilas said:

that's your interpretation, i thought he knew his days were definitely numbered and this was his goodbye. Elvis' way down, sam cookes' a change is gonna come were the same, a mix of optimism and despair, in elvis' case, even glee at his own demise. it's all been heard before.

Well, I mean he released two albums after that and was planning to release two more so...

My point is more that we all know now that the lyrics are bs. He was notorious about longing for the company of others, he did want the trophy wife and party life, he seemingly thought that he wasn't going to die, he had no idea where he was going since his beliefs were all over the place.

Mr. Nelson/1000 Xs & 0s/June is way more honest and real than anything on AoA but few seem to realize it. (AoA is still a good album though)

i just listened to 1000 x's, how was that related to what we're talking about? sounds like another song about a woman, what's your interpretation?

Here is what I wrote about it, before Prince's passing on a blog:


"Im going to conquer without fear"


If you feel you do not belong here, your choice is to allow fear to hold you back from completing your purpose, or to move forward with that purpose without fear. And this is something that Prince has done throughout his career. He never blended in with the wood work. In fact, he went in the opposite direction. He made sure he stood out. How do you get the world’s attention? How do you stand out in a crowd of people and make people pay attention to you so that you can spread a message you believe the world needs to hear? You go on stage in a pair of bikini briefs, emphasizing sexuality (because sex sells), and you sing about God. It doesn’t get much more fearless than that. And the dichotomy between the visual image portrayed and the message given, I mean, incredibly fearless. This drew people to Prince, because he was highlighting what people were chasing, what they were focused on (sex), and doing it so well in his dress and movements, but then he would point them where they truly needed to put their focus. There is a saying by Confuscius, “When the wise man points at the Moon, the imbecile examines the finger .” There were a lot of people examining Prince's finger, just saying…

PeteSilas said:

Strive said:

I liked it when it first released but it seems so empty and fake now. He was bullshitting himself.

that's your interpretation, i thought he knew his days were definitely numbered and this was his goodbye. Elvis' way down, sam cookes' a change is gonna come were the same, a mix of optimism and despair, in elvis' case, even glee at his own demise. it's all been heard before.

Unlikely, or if I may say convenient now that we know what we know. We know that he chose to push himself regadless of illness and when you do that you know you won't last forever, but we also kind of know that he chose to do a piano tour so he could sit and perform and that he wanted to see an addiction doctor right before he passed, so I'm not sure he knew his days were numbered, they wouldn't have been if he'd been off the drugs and had taken care of his illness the way most regular people would in his situation. It's not like he had cancer or aids or anything like that, you can live with pain forever if you don't make it worse and manage it.

Madhouse6 said:

nvrmnd17 said:

One of my all time favorites. Just wish we could have a version of the song, as well as the music from Affirmation III, without the nonsense voice over.

All that nonsense adds to the song - listen to what Lianne is saying - he was ready and knew it was coming. He even mentions cancer on the album and about getting a second opinion

That's the eternal problem of the audience seeing themselves as the best producer on Earth and thinking how much better would Prince's (and everyone else's) work would been if they'd been there to tell the artist what to edit out or change in their work.

.

Of course Prince put things for a reason and it could be debated whether it was the best artistic choice or not, but it's not what many people do, they just think that whatever displeases them is "nonsense" or "butchering", they don't really know why but they're certain they're right because that's their opinion or how they feel, and they don't even try to consider why that decision was made in the first place.

.

This being said I'm not sure whether the voice overs work at all in AOA (the whole album not just those 2 specific tracks) because contrarily to TRC, where the voice overs serve a clear narrative all throughout, or , where the two segues that remained delivered a very clear message that was complementary to the songs without confusing the overall narrative, in AOA my impression is that whichever story is being told remains very obscure, sort of half told, and it somehow failed to give me a clear sense of purpose that justified it being surimposed to the songs. Not to say it's meaningless, let alone nonsense, maybe I missed Prince's point, but I'm not convinced. This being said, I would be glad to read a review of the record that proves me wrong and enlightens me

PeteSilas said:

i just listened to 1000 x's, how was that related to what we're talking about? sounds like another song about a woman, what's your interpretation?

I listed the three together for a reason.

Mr. Nelson begins as a remix of Clouds before morphing into a whole different beast. "Where you are now is a place that does not require time" The music speeds up, voices slow down and distort, he flys over top all of it with his guitar.

He lands in the vault song 1000 x's & o's but this time it's not an upbeat song with a woman singing to him. It's more like he's singing to himself until the end. That longing for someone else.

June pulls the curtain back. He's in a haze trying to make pasta, the conversation in his head drifts from trying to talk to his recently lost love to talking to himself to self-pity to paranoia, before revealing that he's been in his head so long that all the water in the pot has boiled away. Oh yeah, it's June.

So that's my point. Those three songs were way more revealing and real than Way Back Home. He said HITNRUN Phase One "sounds like today". We all stupidly thought that meant the style of music when it was first released but, looking back with hindsight, we can understand what he really meant.

[Edited 5/11/19 9:24am]

AoA is one of the few albums where I didn't find the segue and voiceovers to be distracting and detracting from the work. They seemed to fit and rather being tiresome, served to draw the listener in to ascertain their true meaning and generally blended with the album. Unlike the Kirstie Alley, NPG Operator, Exodus and Rainbow Children stuff.

I usually hated when he would work those things into an album and found that they'd put me off repeated listenings. But here, I think they're quite telling and sort eerie to contemplate in retrospect. The voiceovers feel like he's in heaven's waiting room or the holding area to the next life and having his "previous" life explained to him, breaking it down and telling him where he is.

"Way Back Home" is a coda if I've ever heard one and that's not entirely based on the benefit of hindsight either. I remember feeling that way at the time even if I didn't fully extract that feeling out into thinking he was actually dying. It's a beautiful track and one I instantly related to. I was going through the end stages of my marriage but still trying to make it work and found some mild inspiration in the song. Quite moving. Sad yet joyous.

It's clearly trying to fight and overcome something, fully aware of the folly of life but startled at the transformation just the same, how we're all just blips in time and space and contemplating how, in the end, it will all just be a dream and you'll wake up in your true life. Or your next one.

"In my dreams I roam"

Telling that he not only doesn't mention God in the song at all but that he also says "power to the ones who can raise a child like me", knowing that he didn't but COULD have. And maybe in this life he CAN. Has he ever really so directly addressed that pain? He speaks of "hearing about those happy endings" that still elude him. He is BORN ALIVE - reborn - and most others are all born dead, still toiling in the illusions and dreams of what they think are thier true lives. He lived this one and is moving on.

That's my take anyhow.

[Edited 5/11/19 11:16am]

I never thought that deep about it but I see what you're saying. But I will say this, Mr. Nelson is one of those songs that I hear, post-death, like "he knew he was dying and he was giving his all as long as he could" the music is great. It had the air of the beatles "let it be" where he was still mighty, maybe not as great as he had been but could still pull out a great song. 1000x's, sure, it was to himself, who else can we say in his circle "work so hard" so ya, it's a song to himself. June? I just don't know, what that means, he's playing with us here and not even trying to hide the fact. Good interpretations. I still think Way Back Home is greater, and I knew from the first it was one of those "death songs" and I just kick myself that i didn't take it more seriously when I knew what it was, having studied the greats of the past and their "death songs".

Strive said:

PeteSilas said:

i just listened to 1000 x's, how was that related to what we're talking about? sounds like another song about a woman, what's your interpretation?

I listed the three together for a reason.

Mr. Nelson begins as a remix of Clouds before morphing into a whole different beast. "Where you are now is a place that does not require time" The music speeds up, voices slow down and distort, he flys over top all of it with his guitar.

He lands in the vault song 1000 x's & o's but this time it's not an upbeat song with a woman singing to him. It's more like he's singing to himself until the end. That longing for someone else.

June pulls the curtain back. He's in a haze trying to make pasta, the conversation in his head drifts from trying to talk to his recently lost love to talking to himself to self-pity to paranoia, before revealing that he's been in his head so long that all the water in the pot has boiled away. Oh yeah, it's June.

So that's my point. Those three songs were way more revealing and real than Way Back Home. He said HITNRUN Phase One "sounds like today". We all stupidly thought that meant the style of music when it was first released but, looking back with hindsight, we can understand what he really meant.

[Edited 5/11/19 9:24am]

funkenberry said he was seeing dead people in his dreams or something too and he was saying he astral projected, he was close to death, I still think that the others on here who claim to know him hinting that he had some sort of underlying health issue(s) were right and that he was coping with more than an opiate addiction.

herb4 said:

AoA is one of the few albums where I didn't find the segue and voiceovers to be distracting and detracting from the work. They seemed to fit and rather being tiresome, served to draw the listener in to ascertain their true meaning and generally blended with the album. Unlike the Kirstie Alley, NPG Operator, Exodus and Rainbow Children stuff.

I usually hated when he would work those things into an album and found that they'd put me off repeated listenings. But here, I think they're quite telling and sort eerie to contemplate in retrospect. The voiceovers feel like he's in heaven's waiting room or the holding area to the next life and having his "previous" life explained to him, breaking it down and telling him where he is.

"Way Back Home" is a coda if I've ever heard one and that's not entirely based on the benefit of hindsight either. I remember feeling that way at the time even if I didn't fully extract that feeling out into thinking he was actually dying. It's a beautiful track and one I instantly related to. I was going through the end stages of my marriage but still trying to make it work and found some mild inspiration in the song. Quite moving. Sad yet joyous.

It's clearly trying to fight and overcome something, fully aware of the folly of life but startled at the transformation just the same, how we're all just blips in time and space and contemplating how, in the end, it will all just be a dream and you'll wake up in your true life. Or your next one.

"In my dreams I roam"

Telling that he not only doesn't mention God in the song at all but that he also says "power to the ones who can raise a child like me", knowing that he didn't but COULD have. And maybe in this life he CAN. Has he ever really so directly addressed that pain? He speaks of "hearing about those happy endings" that still elude him. He is BORN ALIVE - reborn - and most others are all born dead, still toiling in the illusions and dreams of what they think are thier true lives. He lived this one and is moving on.

That's my take anyhow.

[Edited 5/11/19 11:16am]

herb4 said:

AoA is one of the few albums where I didn't find the segue and voiceovers to be distracting and detracting from the work. They seemed to fit and rather being tiresome, served to draw the listener in to ascertain their true meaning and generally blended with the album. Unlike the Kirstie Alley, NPG Operator, Exodus and Rainbow Children stuff.

Interesting how our preceptions are the exact opposite on that matter. I'd be curious to discuss it with you over a beer