"Nobody would have the balls to do this. You just wait -- they'll be freaking."
-- alleged Prince quote as he erased the bass track to 'When Dove's Cry' while in the recording studio.
Flip the cassette, I told my brother and he did. We were back at the beginning of side one. The strains of a church organ came pouring out of our boom box and it wasn't gospel music we were listening to. My brother and I were helping my Dad and his work buddies set up the 1984 Buffalo Car Show at the Buffalo Convention Center.
”Dearly beloved we are gathered here today 2 get through this thing called life ...”
It was one of the first times the Car Show was at the Convention Center, upgrading from it's run at the Eastern Hills Mall. The place was vast and I had never been in an a building of this size- it was like an empty concert stadium. At that very moment, my brother and I were not doing much helping, but waiting for the giant boxes of ramps, stands, banners and catalogs to get delivered up on the floor-- and listening to rock music. Funky rock music.
"...Electric word life It means forever and that's a mighty long time But I'm here 2 tell u There's something else The afterworld...."
And we were listening to not just any funky rock music, but the soundtrack to a movie my little brother and I saw the previous week. The Kmart-bought cassette tape had little in the way of liner notes, but the cover featured our hero on his motorcycle- a long haired, purple clad soon-to-be-rock star straddling a purple motorcycle parked in a foggy alleyway. A mysterious, dark haired, buxom woman stood behind him on the fire escape. My brother turned it louder.
"A world of never ending happiness
U can always see the sun, day or night
So when u call up that shrink in Beverly Hills
U know the one - Dr Everything'll Be Alright
Instead of asking him how much of your time is left
Ask him how much of your mind, baby
'Cuz in this life
Things are much harder than in the afterworld
In this life
You're on your own
And if de-elevator tries 2 bring u down
Go crazy!"
The music was large and it filled our corner of the mostly empty Convention Center. Since no one was watching my brother or I, we went 'oh no, let's go crazy' and started to jump around like mad, throwing up our arms, air shredding..... My dad came over and asked if we were planning on helping today.
This Summer, 2009, marks the 25th anniversary of the release of the movie & soundtrack to Purple Rain. I have a certain affinity for this record and the movie that changed my life as an 18 year old fresh out of high school in the Summer of 1984. I was really always into music and I had a Dad that had a good record collection of 70s rock to help me out. But Prince and Purple Rain was the first thing that was new, weird and different for me. It was mine. My parents didn't like it, I did. Turns out a good portion of the world liked it too.
I thought Purple Rain was the greatest rock movie I had even seen and I loved the LP. Up until that point I may have seen Help, Yellow Submarine, some Monkee's episodes. But nothing like this. This was a rock movie. It had live rock scenes with scorching gueetar work, people dressing strange and slightly punkish, sex, motorcycles and a misunderstood artist with a frilly shirt and a pencil-thin mustache.
Here are the Top Ten Things I Learned From Purple Rain (Looking Back at The 25th Anniversary):10)
Rock can be funky and funk could rock.09)
And said 'funk songs' could exist (quite funk-ily) without the bass guitar. Sacrilege? No, genius.08)
Sometimes when your good, you are really good.In the summer of 1984, for a moment in time, Prince had the #1 single, #1 album and #1 film in the U.S. Dang.
07)
Great movies often have bad sequels.Although Graffiti Bridge was not officially a sequel (you are not fooling me), it has a lot of the same characters, the same city, same theme- and it was really bad. Really bad.
06)
Purple is the best color.Ask any king or prince.
(or any guy with an unpronounceable symbol 4 a name).05)
Think quick under pressure and you may be able to pull it off.Protégé starlet Vanity very famously left the project just prior to filming, leaving Prince to cast the unknown Apollonia Kotero as his own love interest. She became an overnight star-- for 1 movie.
04)
Backward lyrics are misleading and mysterious.At the end of Darling Nikki: "Hello, how are you? I'm fine, 'cause I know that the Lord is coming soon. Coming, coming soon." If only Tipper knew....
03)
It is cool & useful 2 use numbers 4 words.Hello, all U twitter-ers and text-ters. Ha, gotcha. Thanks Prince, you visionary.
02)
Song lyrics can change the world.“Darling Nikki” was the track that made steam come out of Tipper Gore's ears and sent her on a personal vendetta to clean up pop music-- ultimately resulting in the Parental Advisory stickers that pepper albums to this very day.
01)
When the world seems against you- just be you and persevere and you will come out on top.Example: one minute Billy says to The Kid, "Nobody digs your music, but yourself...."
The next minute: the crowd is swaying, girls are crying, and lighters are in the air!
Bonus Beats-Download
SPIN magazines free collection of the LP being covered by other bands.
Six of the nine songs are good,
Purplish Rain (secret word: "guy")
Highlights: “Take Me With U”
Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings and “I Would Die 4 U”
Mariachi El BronxOther Links-• Pop Matters Magazine- 10 stories celebrating PR
• Minneapolis Historic Society- Prince archives• NPR story on PR
