Do U love ur country? Do U love God? Do U Love ur country as much as u love god? Microchip in ur what???

Was anyone at the time thinking, what the hell is this guy on about.

[Edited 5/4/24 18:30pm]

I mean I love it cause I think it's funny and caused him to write some great material, but some of this stuff was flirting with being pretty out there.

That's not new-age spirituality, that's conspiracy theory territory.

No.

Fortunatly, the quality of his music often exceeded his insanity/ ignorance. Colonized Mind, for example, is an amazing song - but many of the lyrics are predicated on such bullshit.

"Upload the evolution principle
You see a rock on the shore and say
It's always been there"

What?

lustmealways said:

I mean I love it cause I think it's funny and caused him to write some great material, but some of this stuff was flirting with being pretty out there.

what was the great material?

idk if things like the word count - i like that one. or theres TRC, which i generally like.

there was a lot of stuff, religious, political, new age, 'deep' conspiracy-minded ideas that prince acquired in the 90s that i wasnt that into. but then im a 80s-prince-is-unimpeachable kind of fan. if the songs were great, i dont care (i still dont think days of wild is particularly good, even though the music is funky) but im not sure he was as good at making good songs from his new age or political ideas as he was with other stuff. i like a lot of his religious songs FWIW and im not christian or JW.

musically i liked some of his new agey stuff, like the plan (From karma sutra) on emancipation.

[Edited 5/5/24 3:32am]

bluegangsta said:

No.

Fortunatly, the quality of his music often exceeded his insanity/ ignorance. Colonized Mind, for example, is an amazing song - but many of the lyrics are predicated on such bullshit.

"Upload the evolution principle
You see a rock on the shore and say
It's always been there"

What?

i think thats about colonialists claiming nothing was there before they arrived etc.

idk what uploading the evolution principle means really. or how it applies to colonised nations cos its about how removing something from its natural environment is detrimental. maybe hes saying africans should not have been taken as slaves but the evolution principle also kinda suggests that ppl should not migrate, they should stay where they are, so hmm.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Don't know about the rest of "The War", but the "microchip in yo' neck" is actually correct.

Almost noone can do anything without their phone/pad/pc/etc. in this day & age.

Certain lyrics in "New World" also have some truth to them right now.

nayroo2002 said:

Don't know about the rest of "The War", but the "microchip in yo' neck" is actually correct.

Almost noone can do anything without their phone/pad/pc/etc. in this day & age.

Certain lyrics in "New World" also have some truth to them right now.

treating it literally, he said chip in yo NECK though, not chip in the phone in your hand. we havent all been implanted with microships like in cool sci fi movies/books. man and machine have not melded into one. not yet anyway.

lurker316 said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

i think thats about colonialists claiming nothing was there before they arrived etc.

idk what uploading the evolution principle means really. or how it applies to colonised nations cos its about how removing something from its natural environment is detrimental. maybe hes saying africans should not have been taken as slaves but the evolution principle also kinda suggests that ppl should not migrate, they should stay where they are, so hmm.

I don’t believe Prince is talking about colonizing nations. He’s talking about colonizing minds, as the title suggests. That’s a poetic way of saying people are brainwashed. Prince’s religious beliefs lead him to not believe in evolution. He thought people who do believe in evolution are brainwashed. Their minds are “colonized”. In this lyric, he’s criticizing evolution for suggesting rocks have always existed. Of course evolution doesn’t actually say that. In fact, evolution is about biology, not mineralogy. So Prince is a bit confused. If I had to guess, he’s trying to distinguish between creationism, which suggests God snapped his fingers and stuff appeared, versus science, which says all matter was created at the Big Bang. I realize that still doesn’t entirely make sense, but Prince often didn’t make sense on these topics.

he is equating colonised with brainwashed, true, but i think he is also talking about colonisation, and the colonised minds that result from this, albeit only in part. eg: Upload, the master race idea/Genetically disposed to rule the world. the song is generally a litany of 'where humanity has gone wrong' stuff and ultimately, that only god can lead to salvation. the rock part id say is firstly citing the evolution principle, i.e. how if you remove somethig from where it comes, things will go wrong/badly, and then if you do remove it (or the rock in this instance), humans often absolve themselves of all responsibility about the results. id say this is to do with the environment. the use of upload and download do not help this song overall. reading lines about fleeting fame and fortune/Nothing to leave in your will are a bit unfortunate to read in retrospect too.

[Edited 5/5/24 6:45am]

RODSERLING said:

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

nayroo2002 said:

Don't know about the rest of "The War", but the "microchip in yo' neck" is actually correct.

Almost noone can do anything without their phone/pad/pc/etc. in this day & age.

Certain lyrics in "New World" also have some truth to them right now.

treating it literally, he said chip in yo NECK though, not chip in the phone in your hand. we havent all been implanted with microships like in cool sci fi movies/books. man and machine have not melded into one. not yet anyway.

most folks have been "implanted"

you got yout adblocker on, babysitter?

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

Prince was half right that we are slaves to tech and its come at a price.

...and there's the point, although it took way too many exchanges for you to agree

I bought in most of the spiritual/religious aspects back then, as I wasn't yet the atheist/rationalist I am today.

I never bought into the conservative bigotry of the JW years nor the conspiracy theory things, though. I respected his beliefs, but some I strongly disagreed with.

Regardless of whether I agreed, I always deeply enjoyed the way Prince conveyed his ideas from a poetic perspective (in lyrics, not in interviews). Don't gotta agree with a poem's ideas to think it's beautifully written

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

nayroo2002 said:

Don't know about the rest of "The War", but the "microchip in yo' neck" is actually correct.

Almost noone can do anything without their phone/pad/pc/etc. in this day & age.

Certain lyrics in "New World" also have some truth to them right now.

treating it literally, he said chip in yo NECK though, not chip in the phone in your hand. we havent all been implanted with microships like in cool sci fi movies/books. man and machine have not melded into one. not yet anyway.

Um...."not yet" is here.

The War is great, and he was obviously influenced by some conspiracy theories, some religion, and dead on about some stuff via his observations. I just ignore the stuff that's nuts, everyone has their thing, and enjoy the music.

lustmealways said:

Do U love ur country? Do U love God? Do U Love ur country as much as u love god? Microchip in ur what???

Was anyone at the time thinking, what the hell is this guy on about.

[Edited 5/4/24 18:30pm]

"Somebody lied about the way somebody died."

The obsession with the stauros.

I kind-of didn't dig that phase all that much.

[Edited 5/6/24 16:51pm]

He was always interesting...

I'm an atheist, but I still surprise myself singing "Love is God. God is Love.", etc. Or "Jesus!" in "The Holy River". And countless other examples.



So, no, I never bought into any of that. I love his music. I love his wackiness/weirdness. I love his intensity. His worldview? Not so much.

i actually enjoy his religious (ie christian and JW) songs, like the cross, holy river, etc (prob more as songs than for the religious messages)

though as i age, a bit less so.

but the preachiness turns me off. whether its god or politics.

i realise that for some fans, it might make prince more interesting, or they just get something from seeing him be so righteous, but for me, the artist i loved (at least at the point i became a fan) wasnt preachy. so its a repellant for me.

there was a point in the 90s i think, when he was angry with the label, with the industry, etc, when he obv started to try and learn more about the world, history, etc which is great ofc, but i wasnt into hearing about it from him tbh.

its like he either felt he had knowledge he HAD to share, felt he was or had to be 'deep' and thought provoking like what people turned to rappers for at the time, but i just didnt care to hear it in songs, for the most part. plus, he got more and more heavy handed with it. not for me.

saying all that, id be interested in a compilation of all the speeches and lecture-type stage chat he was doing in the late 90s and early 00s. i absolutely hated hearing it at the time on bootlegs, but now id be interested to hear it.

[Edited 5/7/24 3:31am]

https://www.reuters.com/b...024-02-20/

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

i actually enjoy his religious (ie christian and JW) songs, like the cross, holy river, etc (prob more as songs than for the religious messages)

though as i age, a bit less so.

but the preachiness turns me off. whether its god or politics.

i realise that for some fans, it might make prince more interesting, or they just get something from seeing him be so righteous, but for me, the artist i loved (at least at the point i became a fan) wasnt preachy. so its a repellant for me.

there was a point in the 90s i think, when he was angry with the label, with the industry, etc, when he obv started to try and learn more about the world, history, etc which is great ofc, but i wasnt into hearing about it from him tbh.

its like he either felt he had knowledge he HAD to share, felt he was or had to be 'deep' and thought provoking like what people turned to rappers for at the time, but i just didnt care to hear it in songs, for the most part. plus, he got more and more heavy handed with it. not for me.

saying all that, id be interested in a compilation of all the speeches and lecture-type stage chat he was doing in the late 90s and early 00s. i absolutely hated hearing it at the time on bootlegs, but now id be interested to hear it.

[Edited 5/7/24 3:31am]

He was a Gemini, they tend to be like that.

funkbabyandthebabysitters said:

we havent all been implanted with microships like in cool sci fi movies/books. man and machine have not melded into one. not yet anyway.

[Edited 5/7/24 8:19am]

look forward to real prince fans posting on the org using their new implanted chips.

Did I "buy into" it? No, but some of it connected with me (more his general "God is Love" and "Love 4 1 Another" stuff). The conspiracy theory stuff was interesting to me, in that I've always had an interest in that stuff (note, I do NOT believe about 90% of the theories out there, but I find many of them to be either incredibly creative, or outright hilarious).

In some cases, like The Rainbow Children, I didn't listen to them thinking of what Prince was preaching. Instead, I listened to it as a sort of science fiction concept album. I was well aware of the JW beliefs he was espousing, but chose to just take in the story being laid out in the songs.