My Favorite Pop Song

One thing I admire about Prince is his weirdly pretentious verses:

Dream, if you can, a courtyard--

An ocean of violets in bloom.

Also:

Touch, if you will, my stomach.

Feel how it trembles inside.

No one else writes like this. Did people try to shoot down these choices? Did a producer say, "We'd like to rethink this one...Touch, if you will, my stomach...." I can't help but wonder.

But it's the chorus that makes this a classic. It's direct and universal--and it ends with that bizarre flourish, the allusion to "the crying doves." (Prince's song was number one in America for quite a while; it defeated Bruce Springsteen's "Dancing in the Dark.")

How can you just leave me standing--

Alone in a world that's 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.

Why do we scream at each other?

This is what it sounds like when doves cry.

These wonderful lines are sometimes philosophical, sometimes petulant. They're also full of drama.

I think I read that Prince wrote the song in one day. He was consistently prolific; he died at the age of 57 (the same age as Dickens), and the 39 albums he left were just a fraction of his body of work.

This is my all-timer.

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