Liars and Saints

  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 cr...

 God is in the details, and that's clear from a Prince song: When you were mine, i gave you all of my money. Time after time, You done me wrong. It was just like a train. You let all my friends come over and meet. And you were so strange: You didn't have the decency to change the sheets. The guy in this song doesn't seem to mind that his former lover had a series of affairs ("just like a train"). The problem is that she didn't change the used sheets before (her actual, literal) bedtime. When you were mine, You were kinda sorta my best friend. So I was blind: I let you fool around.  I never cared. I never was the kind to make a fuss-- When he was there-- Sleeping in between the two of us. The use of hyperbole is intensified: The faithless lover never changed the sheets, and sometimes, she just forgot to kick her extra boy-toy back to the guest quarters. When you were mine, You were all I ever wanted to do. Now I spend my time-- Following him whenever he's w...

Prince has a posthumous memoir out, and one of its apparent delights is a passage that slams the work of Katy Perry and Ed Sheeran. Using possibly sexual imagery, Prince complains about having Perry/Sheeran songs “shoved down my throat.” To honor Prince--today and always--I have some thoughts on “Nothing Compares 2 U.” *Sinead O’Connor did the super-famous version, but in my view, Prince (the writer) did it best. There’s a playfulness in Prince’s writing that seems to be missing from Sinead’s cover. For example: Prince  goes to the doctor to complain about a broken heart!  How can you deliver this line without at least a sense of mild silliness? Sinead seems to overlook the silliness. *I very much admire the honesty in a Prince song. In “When Doves Cry,” Prince speculates: “Maybe I’m just like my mother....She’s never satisfied....Maybe I’m just like my father....too bold...” Similarly, toward the end of “Nothing Compares,” a sheepish Prince admits, “I know that li...