Deep Cuts of Purple: More Prince, and the Stack of the Week

Bird-Bolts and Cannon-Bullets, No. 30

Courtin’ Time: Princely Deep Cuts

Here’s a little epilogue to the Prince/sagas series. While most of you probably know the hits, casual Prince fans are likely not familiar with all 39 (!) of his studio albums, not to mention the live albums, the b-sides, and all of the previously unreleased material from “The Vault” that the Prince estate is in the process of curating.

With that in mind, here is a playlist of twelve tracks, most of which you probably don’t know, which will show you his range and allow you to dip your toe into this enormous discography. The amazing thing is that there could be ten such lists, or twenty, and there would still be plenty of great stuff left over. Here are links to the playlist on Apple Music and Spotify:

Courtin’ Time: Princely Deep Cuts on Apple Music

Courtin’ Time: Princely Deep Cuts on Spotify

Here is a bit about each of the tunes:

1. “Courtin’ Time”: In 1996, Prince was finally free of his contract with Warner Brothers, and he released the brilliant three-disc set, Emancipation. I don’t know why this album doesn’t get more love. I think that it’s one of his best. Perhaps it’s because it’s so long and there are no hit singles. Anyway, this is a fun, jazzy track.

2. “The Other Side of the Pillow”: In 2002, Prince took a band full of jazz players on the road, and the album One Nite Alone . . . Live! was the recorded result. Very few pop artists would have the chops to keep up with jazz musicians, let alone lead a band. But Prince did just that. I love it that he ends the tune by saying: “Real music for real music lovers.”

   

3. “The Ballad of Dorothy Parker”: This isn’t exactly a deep cut, since 1987’s Sign o’ the Times was a huge album, but it wasn’t a single, and it’s one of my absolute favorite Prince songs, and it’s hilarious. Imagine Prince agreeing to take a bath but insisting on keeping his pants on because “I’m kinda going with someone.” It’s the PG version of “Darling Nikki.”

4. “Controversy”: Also not really a deep cut. In fact, it was a minor hit, but I was not hip enough in 1981 (as a preteen) to listen to black radio, before Prince’s crossover success that came after the release of 1999, and so I didn’t hear it until years later. It’s an irresistible groove, and the hook will be in your head for days. Also, I find it remarkable that in 1981 (!) Prince was singing lyrics like “I’m not black or white, / I’m not straight or gay.” Like Duke Ellington, he was “beyond category.”

5. “Slave”: Another great jam from Emancipation. I know that I should have featured another album, but this is such a statement, and the drum fills sound absolutely massive. Listen in good headphones or IEMs!

6. “Baltimore”: This is from Prince’s last studio album released during his lifetime, in 2015, HITnRUN Phase Two. Here we hear him contemplating the never-ending series of young black men killed by police: “If there ain’t no justice, there ain’t no peace.” Indeed, this album is so good that it brings tears to my eyes. He had so much music still in him.

7. “Manic Monday”: Like The Beatles and David Bowie, Prince casually wrote hit songs for other artists, like this perfect pop song that he wrote for the Bangles, for whom it was a #2 hit (kept from the #1 spot by Prince’s own “Kiss”). His own version was released by the Prince estate on an album called Originals in 2019, and it’s gorgeous. Here’s a video for the song, also from the Prince estate, with archival rehearsal footage from the Purple Rain tour:

8. “Satisfied”: Prince turns on his seductive voice and channels Al Green on this gem from 3121, another under-appreciated album, this one from 2006.

9. “Musicology”: Now he channels James Brown—awesome funk from the 2004 album of the same name.

10. “Schoolyard”: This is a really deep cut. It appeared on the “super-deluxe” edition of 1991’s Diamonds and Pearls, produced in 2023 by the Prince estate, which included about six hours of previously unreleased material. The song describes his teenage relationship with a certain “Carrie.” Journalist Andrea Swensson tracked down the actual Carrie and played it for her. Carrie assures us that the song is pure fiction.

11. “A Case of U”: Prince plays tribute to the great Joni Mitchell.

12. “Purple Rain”: A snippet from Prince playing his classic song on the piano, a year before its release.

And there is so much more where that came from.

Meanwhile, if you are interested in reading the sagas, the three most famous ones are Egil’s Saga, Njal’s Saga, and The Saga of the People of Laxardal. Laxardal, or Laxdaela Saga, is probably my favorite, but they are all magnificent, and they are all available in excellent English translations from Penguin Classics. About twenty years ago, Penguin published an excellent anthology of sagas and related tales, but it seems to be out of print. If you can find a good used copy, I would recommend it.

The Stack of the Week

When I started publishing a “Stack of the Week” feature back in August of 2023, I had very few subscribers, so over the next few weeks I’m going to return to some of those early Stack recommendations to give them a somewhat wider audience.

I start with

Tara Penry

, who has renamed her Substack since I originally featured it. It is now called Quiet Reading with Tara Penry, and it “is a place of refreshing ideas and artful pauses.” Her range of topics is generally literary but wide, and her writing is always delicious; I loved this recent piece on an eighteenth-century substack precursor:

Growing a Newsletter Business -- in the Age of the Hanover Kings

Also, her stack is celebrating its one-year anniversary with this delightful party game, and it’s not too late to join (today is the deadline):

You're Invited to a Five-Word Reading Party

Read and subscribe. You’ll be glad you did.

Grad Student post of the week

Our featured graduate student post this week is by

Jeremy Buckner

, a first year MA student in literature, who writes The Whale-Road. This week, he writes about a subject near and dear to my heart: why we should care about medieval literature:

Justice for Brak

That’s all for today. I’ll be back on Wednesday with a preview of the Lord of the Rings reading challenge, which officially begins on March 13th.

Thanks for reading, from my fancy internet telephone to yours.

Photo by Tetiana SHYSHKINA on Unsplash