was Ronnie talk 2 russia ... ( FEAR ) Based >...??? was he scared ?

if someone made a song like "bush talk to iraq" that would be funny


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spell me edit
[This message was edited Wed Apr 30 3:14:37 PDT 2003 by Christopher]

I think it is a mixture of fear (of the Cold War and terrorism), incredulity (expressing his disbelief that governments can't even talk to each other - and this is also why the song is presented in a child-like way, even the melody is "playground", if you know what I mean?) and cynincism. There's an element of humour in there too, with the play on words gorilla/guerilla.

Not the best anti-establishment and push for peace record you'll ever hear, but seems to fit well on the album.

i don't think the song is fear based. i never thought prince was too serious on that one. seemed more like he was trying to embrace a hippie-peacenik philosophy that fit in with his whole libertine/rude boy image. like when he says in do me, baby "i'm not gonna stop till the war is over."
the thing about prince during this phase of his career is you never could tell how serious he was or what his true stand was. how about the lord's prayer on controversy. some thought he was being blasphemous, but was he?

Shake from GB has that same farfisa organ sound and melody almost

rdhull said:

okay, people could we try to stay focused here?

The cold war was peaking. There was a sense of imminent catastrophe. USA and Soviet Union sitting on vast stocks of nuclear weapons with irresponsible, unpredictible, bellicose and belligherent leaders. There were continuous calls for Summit Meetings (and a couple of failed ones) but the leaders seemed unwilling or unable to talk.
For context, remember that Sting's song "The russians" came out in '85, as did the Genesis video with the Sticky Figures puppets. Oh yeah, and there was the Frnakie song and video: "Two Tribes". Altho' P's song is perhaps less sophisticated, it also preceded the other 2 by 3-4 years, and was less pretentious and self-important. The only one in the same league was Gil Scott Heron (check out "re-Ron" and he has at least one other song about Reagan).

The REM song "Ignoreland" from "Automatic for the People" is a retrospective on the disastrous Reagan-Bush era

P touched on the subject of war and violence a lot around this time period. "Party Up" "1999" "Free" "RTTR" to name a few, all made reference to war. Add to that the ending line from LPWM "If you like to fight, you're a double drag fool.." and anti-violence, pro love/sex was really Prince's bread and butter. Don't think it had as much to do with fear as it did with him cultivating an image.

I used to think the song was directed at Ronnie Milsap, so it was always a bit confusing to me - "what could a blind country singer tell Russia?" - Oh well.