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Prince: “When Doves Cry"


We don’t spend adequate time considering the profound weirdness and intelligence of “When Doves Cry.”


Dig, if you will, the picture
Of you and I engaged in a kiss
The sweat of your body covers me
Can you, my darling,
Can you picture this?
Dream, if you can, a courtyard
An ocean of violets in bloom
Animals strike curious poses
They feel the heat
The heat between me and you
How can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that's so cold (so cold)
Maybe I'm just too demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold
Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied (she's never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like 
When doves cry
Touch, if you will, my stomach
Feel how it trembles inside
You've got the butterflies... all tied up...
Don't make me chase you
Even doves have pride
How could you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world so cold? (world so cold)
Maybe I'm just too demanding
Maybe I'm just like my father, too bold
Maybe you're just like my mother
She's never satisfied (she's never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other?
This is what it sounds like 
When doves cry
How can you just leave me standing?
Alone in a world that's so cold? (a world that's so cold)
Maybe I'm just too demanding (maybe, maybe I'm like my father)
Maybe I'm just like my father too bold (you know he's too bold)
Maybe you're just like my mother (maybe you're just like my mother)
She's never satisfied (she's never, never satisfied)
Why do we scream at each other? (why do we scream, why)
This is what it sounds like 
When doves cry
When doves cry (doves cry, doves cry)
When doves cry (doves cry, doves cry)
Don't cry (don't cry)




Just a few things. “You’ve got the butterflies all tied up”--? Is this a mixing of metaphors? Is the proper punctuation: “You’ve got the butterflies....[your stomach is] all tied up [in knots]”--? Surely it’s not the butterflies themselves who are tied up. Is it? How many other pop songs drag the parents into the picture? “Maybe I’m just like my father, too bold. Maybe you’re just like my mother; she’s never satisfied.” In the world of romance, we are doomed both to to date and to become our parents! Freud knew this. But how many other pop writers take time to consider this bit of lunacy? (It seems to me that Prince is often both reporting on and satirizing certain feelings. I imagine him chuckling about the young lover who wrings his hands about the legacy of his own father. Someone once accused Prince of lacking a sense of humor, but I think he was very funny. Think of the young lady with “the pocket full of horses, Trojans, some of them used!” How can you not giggle at that line?)

Prince mixes “high” and “low” diction. He starts with a command: “Dig, if you will, the picture...” (There’s parallel structure: Each verse starts with a command. Did you notice that? “Dream, if you can, a courtyard.” “Touch, if you will, my stomach.”) There’s the grungy just-folks quality of “dig the picture.” But then there’s the Victorian tea-sipping dimension of “if you will...” And the Victorian crumpets-and-doilies aura of “Can you, my darling? Can you picture this?” Who else writes this way? “Engaged in a kiss.” Wacky! There’s a long-running comparison between humans and non-human animals. We’re all just feral cats! “The sweat of your body covers me.” “Animals strike curious poses; they feel the heat between me and you.” Even the floral world gets involved; Prince’s sexual passion is like “an ocean of violets [read: sex organs] in bloom.” And then the great metaphor for weak, well-intentioned people making a mess of things: “This, our fighting, is what it sounds like when doves cry.”

This song makes me think of another masterpiece in pop culture history, Robyn’s “Dancing on My Own.” Both are triumphant, in part, because they resist catharsis. They both give us losers feeling pain, and so we listen and feel less alone! Stupefied sadness: The human condition. “How can you just leave me standing alone in a world that’s so cold?” “I’m in the corner, watching you kiss her; I’m right over here, why can’t you see me?” There are no satisfying answers to these questions. Such is life.

In my early twenties, I would run, and run, and run with Prince. He was in my ears, always. I was a bit of an airhead. I could not hold down a job; my head was in the clouds. More specifically, it was with Prince, making his “coat of pink cashmere,” protesting, “I could put my arms around every boy I see--but they only remind me of you.” All I can do is just offer you my love. Prince helped to explain the world to me. Or at least parts of it. What more could you require from a writer?



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