I have a greater appreciation for Prince after reading your trilogy. I formed my impression from "Little Red Corvette" and the "party" of "1999," which gave the impression that Prince's songs were not written for teen girls. I never heard about the backward-play message on Purple Rain. That's very funny. The passages from Egil's saga were also a treat, especially the first one in this installment, where he wakes to a heap of words. Who can resist word hoards and word heaps?
Haha. Pre-caffeine: Word heap belongs to the impressionist school, favoring Picasso's Guernica. / Post-caffeine: Same word heap shows its clean modernist angles and spacious interior, favoring a Frank Lloyd Wright living room. Like that?
You pursue a profound running theme here, John, that I'll share in a restack, but I'll share here a backwards play memory that predates the early 80s by 15 years. We'd gather around the turntable in a fog of pot smoke trying to hear at just the right reverse speed on I don't recall now which Beatles song, the slow drone of "Pauuuul iiiiiisss deeaaaad."
Haha! The Beatles did everything first! (Actually, they were a profound influence on Prince; you can hear them all over the *Around the World in a Day* album, for example.)
OMG. There's a full Wikipedia entry on it, and there was so much more to recall than my teen memory! I'm so tickled by the preposterousness, which I do recall, that it was done to "spare the public grief" and that MI5 was involved. A lesson about memory: I do think there is something to the words I quoted to you, but I'm refreshed that the prominent line we all searched for on "Strawbery Fields" was "I buried Paul."
An even greater lesson there about the potential concoctions of deep hermeneutical readings, which particularly strikes me now, as I've been rereading Frank Kermode's *The Genesis of Secrecy*.
Thanks for taking me back to that summer in 1984 when I drove nearly every day to the lake in a swimsuit and a baby-blue pickup truck listening to Purple Rain - when "Darling Nikki" came on my little sister begged me to turn it off, afraid that we were sinning. We wanted to lose ourselves in the power of the music, but had a few obstacles to get over first!
John, Thanks for this post. My sister-in-law is a singer, and Purple Rain is her favorite cover to perform.
Here's her performing it live recently.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGF7pyu2LUw
Thanks for sharing that, David—she’s really good!
She’s terrific!
John, Helped me understand. Restacked.
I have a greater appreciation for Prince after reading your trilogy. I formed my impression from "Little Red Corvette" and the "party" of "1999," which gave the impression that Prince's songs were not written for teen girls. I never heard about the backward-play message on Purple Rain. That's very funny. The passages from Egil's saga were also a treat, especially the first one in this installment, where he wakes to a heap of words. Who can resist word hoards and word heaps?
Indeed! But I need some caffeine in the morning before digging through any word heaps.
Haha. Pre-caffeine: Word heap belongs to the impressionist school, favoring Picasso's Guernica. / Post-caffeine: Same word heap shows its clean modernist angles and spacious interior, favoring a Frank Lloyd Wright living room. Like that?
Ha! Perfect. I’m somewhere in the middle at the moment this morning—craftsman/art-deco.
Very stylish. Should be a hit. :-)
I adore this series! You have quite the range, John.
Thanks, Kate! I enjoyed writing it.
You pursue a profound running theme here, John, that I'll share in a restack, but I'll share here a backwards play memory that predates the early 80s by 15 years. We'd gather around the turntable in a fog of pot smoke trying to hear at just the right reverse speed on I don't recall now which Beatles song, the slow drone of "Pauuuul iiiiiisss deeaaaad."
Haha! The Beatles did everything first! (Actually, they were a profound influence on Prince; you can hear them all over the *Around the World in a Day* album, for example.)
OMG. There's a full Wikipedia entry on it, and there was so much more to recall than my teen memory! I'm so tickled by the preposterousness, which I do recall, that it was done to "spare the public grief" and that MI5 was involved. A lesson about memory: I do think there is something to the words I quoted to you, but I'm refreshed that the prominent line we all searched for on "Strawbery Fields" was "I buried Paul."
An even greater lesson there about the potential concoctions of deep hermeneutical readings, which particularly strikes me now, as I've been rereading Frank Kermode's *The Genesis of Secrecy*.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_is_dead
Thanks for taking me back to that summer in 1984 when I drove nearly every day to the lake in a swimsuit and a baby-blue pickup truck listening to Purple Rain - when "Darling Nikki" came on my little sister begged me to turn it off, afraid that we were sinning. We wanted to lose ourselves in the power of the music, but had a few obstacles to get over first!
I think that Prince helped a lot of us to get over things.
Prince, the skald bard.