Margot said:

IDK, man. Just like all somewhat emotionally immature younger people(most of us at one point or another), Prince sometimes said offensive shit. I'm straight but i don't really dig the F word..or the N word.. or the B(itch) word etc. However, i do like saying fu#k and sh!t a lot. Oh, and tramp and the R(etar.) word.

So, my point is all of us can be hypocritical and full of shit at times. And depending on the persons age, the subject and the degree of hypocrisy, deserve a little leeway.

Margot said:

Margot said:

Margot said:

Bowie was bisexual, (read a little more), Prince, likely as well.

I'm going to bed, not in the mood for any arguments about this.

[Edited 2/4/21 21:22pm]

You should take your own advise and I'll add stop reading bullshit.
Bowie may have experimented with men (we don't know) but by his own words he admitted he wasn't gay or bisexual.

mb71 said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

it was probably really just a superficial thing - e.g wearing frilly costumes, womens clothes, high heels ('women dig em'), something everyone was doing at the time,

Not where I come from they weren't.

i meant in pop culture.

and im not supporting censorship.

i like extra loveable, despite the line about rape. shame it wasnt released on the 1999 SDE. missed opportunity there. prince should be documented, warts and all. interesting that a rape reference in a song is deemed not suitable for release, but calling someone a fag on record is.

i like blanche. its a good song. doesnt mean i have to like every single part of it 100%. and i am allowed to say, and i support princes right to say what he likes, much as i support peoples rights to disagree as they like too.

[Edited 2/5/21 4:30am]

Yes it marrs an otherwise killer song. Very unfortunate, and some of the comments here speak volumes.

Just pretend the lyric is 'drag', as in 'drag queen'. Or is 'drag' without the 'queen' disparaging?

[Edited 2/5/21 4:10am]

Prince was tapping into the "brutish", probably homophobic, element of Kowalski. It is obviously in character. Where else in Prince's 1000+ song catalog does he use the slur? Here is an interesting analysis of the gender/sex/queer dynamics at play in "Streetcar."

http://www.cercles.com/n10/guilbert.pdf

TheBigBang said:

lustmealways said:

One thing to consider is that Prince never released this song. Regardless of what the lyrics are, can you judge a song (or his mindset singing it) if it was never released?

Maybe Prince, for whatever reason, realized it wasn't quite "right" and shelved it. Or, maybe that line wa a placeholder and he would've cut it or changed it for final release. We'll never know.

Se7en said:

One thing to consider is that Prince never released this song. Regardless of what the lyrics are, can you judge a song (or his mindset singing it) if it was never released?

Maybe Prince, for whatever reason, realized it wasn't quite "right" and shelved it. Or, maybe that line wa a placeholder and he would've cut it or changed it for final release. We'll never know.

Exactly.

Y'all smh I swear

It's 2021. The world was a different place ten years ago, twenty years ago, FORTY years ago. Lawd. You can go back and pick apart the lyrics of literally thousands of songs from artists who got more woke as time went on and societal views changed.

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse

My sister was 32 lovely and loose

You're down with incest? You are aware that didn't happen, right? Prince told stories, he created characters. Aristic license people. It's a thing. Prince wrote about an abundance of topics and used a plethora of words that he would never go back to after his conversion. For that matter he changed the way he wrote lyrics numerous times in his career, even if he was largely writing about the same topics. We're talking about the man that is the main cause for the Parental Advisoy stickers being splapped on albums, who then decided he was never going to curse again. Ya know?

Also, consider the number of times Prince was called fag, or gay, or accused or being such. Whether he was or not, as was rightly pointed out in this thread, is not the point and it's never anything I cared about. But Prince absolutely took his real life experiences and twisted them into something unrecognizeable as being about himself.

In short, don't read too much into every damn lyric from his catalog. Some of them are just a *cough* sign of the times.

Personally I think it's ok to be disappointed with Prince throwing slurs out like that rather than jumping through hoops to try and defend him.

The lyrics are clearly being made up on the spot though so I wouldn't really worry about it but still, original poster makes good points about Prince's less-than progressive views over the years.

[Edited 2/5/21 7:13am]

Cerebus said:

Y'all smh I swear

It's 2021. The world was a different place ten years ago, twenty years ago, FORTY years ago. Lawd. You can go back and pick apart the lyrics of literally thousands of songs from artists who got more woke as time went on and societal views changed.

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse

My sister was 32 lovely and loose

You're down with incest? You are aware that didn't happen, right? Prince told stories, he created characters. Aristic license people. It's a thing. Prince wrote about an abundance of topics and used a plethora of words that he would never go back to after his conversion. For that matter he changed the way he wrote lyrics numerous times in his career, even if he was largely writing about the same topics. We're talking about the man that is the main cause for the Parental Advisoy stickers being splapped on albums, who then decided he was never going to curse again. Ya know?

Also, consider the number of times Prince was called fag, or gay, or accused or being such. Whether he was or not, as was rightly pointed out in this thread, is not the point and it's never anything I cared about. But Prince absolutely took his real life experiences and twisted them into something unrecognizeable as being about himself.

In short, don't read too much into every damn lyric from his catalog. Some of them are just a *cough* sign of the times.

In a couple of years it will be 'forbidden' to depict rape in a movie because rape is bad.
People these days don't understand what a story is anymore. It's time these people started to read books again. But I guess it's only allowed now to tell a story without anything bad or these feeble minded people will cancel you.

Cerebus said:

Y'all smh I swear

It's 2021. The world was a different place ten years ago, twenty years ago, FORTY years ago. Lawd. You can go back and pick apart the lyrics of literally thousands of songs from artists who got more woke as time went on and societal views changed.

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse

My sister was 32 lovely and loose

You're down with incest? You are aware that didn't happen, right? Prince told stories, he created characters. Aristic license people. It's a thing. Prince wrote about an abundance of topics and used a plethora of words that he would never go back to after his conversion. For that matter he changed the way he wrote lyrics numerous times in his career, even if he was largely writing about the same topics. We're talking about the man that is the main cause for the Parental Advisoy stickers being splapped on albums, who then decided he was never going to curse again. Ya know?

Also, consider the number of times Prince was called fag, or gay, or accused or being such. Whether he was or not, as was rightly pointed out in this thread, is not the point and it's never anything I cared about. But Prince absolutely took his real life experiences and twisted them into something unrecognizeable as being about himself.

In short, don't read too much into every damn lyric from his catalog. Some of them are just a *cough* sign of the times.

Good golly, I missed you.

LILpoundCAKE said:

Well he had every right to use the word fag since he was gay himself.


I kid I kid


No but seriously, I'm glad I don't care for this song because as a lifelong fan of his, through TRC and NPGMC and loving his bonkers religious stuff just as much as anything else he did, hearing him use the word fag was the first time I thought to myself 'no Prince, that's kind of disgusting' -especially knowing he recorded it just after Sign O The Times. Nice

I was thinking the exact same thing. I think we've all used the slurs when we were in the closet, especially back then. I know I did. I never singled out and harassed an actual openly gay person, although I never was exposed to any until I came out myself and started going to gay clubs. But if some homophobic redneck came at me with homophobic slurs, I came right back at them with other homophobic slurs. Those slurs pissed them off just as much as they pissed me off when the shoe was on the other foot and when you are getting revenge on someone, you don't hold no politically correct debate, you go for blood.

lustmealways said:

as a flamingly gay male i can say with 110 percent accuracy that prince was decidedly not bisexual

I agree. I don't think he was bisexual. Most bisexuals I have been around are way more masculine than actual straight men. I think he was fully gay.

Cerebus said:

Y'all smh I swear

It's 2021. The world was a different place ten years ago, twenty years ago, FORTY years ago. Lawd. You can go back and pick apart the lyrics of literally thousands of songs from artists who got more woke as time went on and societal views changed.

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse

My sister was 32 lovely and loose

You're down with incest? You are aware that didn't happen, right? Prince told stories, he created characters. Aristic license people. It's a thing. Prince wrote about an abundance of topics and used a plethora of words that he would never go back to after his conversion. For that matter he changed the way he wrote lyrics numerous times in his career, even if he was largely writing about the same topics. We're talking about the man that is the main cause for the Parental Advisoy stickers being splapped on albums, who then decided he was never going to curse again. Ya know?

Also, consider the number of times Prince was called fag, or gay, or accused or being such. Whether he was or not, as was rightly pointed out in this thread, is not the point and it's never anything I cared about. But Prince absolutely took his real life experiences and twisted them into something unrecognizeable as being about himself.

In short, don't read too much into every damn lyric from his catalog. Some of them are just a *cough* sign of the times.

Very good point.

And he didn't fucking release it. grrrr you lot.

skywalker said:

Guess what? Artists are free to do what they like.

Pretty much.

mbdtyler said:

TheBigBang said:

I'll never understand this current need to go back in time and pick apart songs that were written over three decades ago using today's social morays. Also, understand that in "a song about a girl named Blanche and a dude named Stanley," that Prince isn't actually talking as Prince.

I think it's pretty valid to criticize works from that past that involve discriminatory language or content. Homophobia wasn't okay in the 80's just because people threw it around so casually and openly. Slavery wasn't okay in the 1700's just because tons of white folks had them (definitely a more extreme example, but it still stands)

2 different things

Margot said:

Margot said:

Bowie was bisexual, (read a little more), Prince, likely as well.

I'm going to bed, not in the mood for any arguments about this.

[Edited 2/4/21 21:22pm]

Prince was not bisexual lol you guys are making anything up

Cerebus said:

Y'all smh I swear

It's 2021. The world was a different place ten years ago, twenty years ago, FORTY years ago. Lawd. You can go back and pick apart the lyrics of literally thousands of songs from artists who got more woke as time went on and societal views changed.

I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse

My sister was 32 lovely and loose

You're down with incest? You are aware that didn't happen, right? Prince told stories, he created characters. Aristic license people. It's a thing. Prince wrote about an abundance of topics and used a plethora of words that he would never go back to after his conversion. For that matter he changed the way he wrote lyrics numerous times in his career, even if he was largely writing about the same topics. We're talking about the man that is the main cause for the Parental Advisoy stickers being splapped on albums, who then decided he was never going to curse again. Ya know?

Also, consider the number of times Prince was called fag, or gay, or accused or being such. Whether he was or not, as was rightly pointed out in this thread, is not the point and it's never anything I cared about. But Prince absolutely took his real life experiences and twisted them into something unrecognizeable as being about himself.

In short, don't read too much into every damn lyric from his catalog. Some of them are just a *cough* sign of the times.

youre acting like 1987 was the 1920s. this was in the decade of AIDS. you think someone like prince wouldnt have been aware that fag might not have been a cool term to throw around. then again, this is a guy who didnt want to sing MJ's bad as a duet because it had the line 'your butt is mine'.

i dont think saying fag is really baiting censors how head or darling nikki were. those were challenging the status quo. saying fag is more or less going along with the status quo. that doesnt really make prince some brave artist pushing the boundaries. it just places him in the same group as any number of bigots.

its funny how when its a line that might be seen as questionable, ppl resort to the defence that 'its just a character/story' but when its something like IIWYG or breakdown or june or sacrifice of victor, people start to go to town on how true to life it is. funny, that.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Cerebus said:

youre acting like 1987 was the 1920s. this was in the decade of AIDS. you think someone like prince wouldnt have been aware that fag might not have been a cool term to throw around. then again, this is a guy who didnt want to sing MJ's bad as a duet because it had the line 'your butt is mine'.

i dont think saying fag is really baiting censors how head or darling nikki were. those were challenging the status quo. saying fag is more or less going along with the status quo. that doesnt really make prince some brave artist pushing the boundaries. it just places him in the same group as any number of bigots.

its funny how when its a line that might be seen as questionable, ppl resort to the defence that 'its just a character/story' but when its something like IIWYG or breakdown or june or sacrifice of victor, people start to go to town on how true to life it is. funny, that.

I'd give him a break in this case though, he's clearly just reaching for a rhyme on the spot and going with something childish, it's not like he deemed this good enough for release. 'Fag' was thrown around a lot pretty thoughtlessly for a long time, it's not ok but in this situation it's forgiveable imho

im not saying 'prince should be canceled' or even that this song isnt good.

and sure, he didnt release it.

but he recorded it, he didnt erase it like wally, its in the public domain so its up for discussion.

im not even saying prince was homophobic (at least not virulently - he did hire W&L and was cool with me'shell after all) or anti gay, im just saying this isnt that cool.

but its interesting how outraged some fans get when you bring something like this up

[Edited 2/5/21 9:51am]

[Edited 2/5/21 10:22am]

jaawwnn said:

LoveGalore said:

jaawwnn said:

I'd give him a break in this case though, he's clearly just reaching for a rhyme on the spot and going with something childish, it's not like he deemed this good enough for release. 'Fag' was thrown around a lot pretty thoughtlessly for a long time, it's not ok but in this situation it's forgiveable imho

Just curious if it would be okay for a song to reach to slurs to rhyme with "trigger" or "bigger" or "trick" or "drink"? Or do people only forgive when it's about LGBT?

Depends who is singing it and when they're singing it doesn't it? I can forgive Prince this but I wouldn't e.g. play it while DJ-ing, and if someone wanted to tell me about how Prince changed how people saw sexuality in pop music, or "queered the 1980s mainstream" or something, I might bring up this song as an example of the kinds of words he casually reached for.

jaawwnn said: