Tag: 1996

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#PrinceTwitterThread: “Endorphinmachine”

As I’ve alluded a few times recently, the last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic in my neck of the woods; but I still had to make the time to participate in this month’s #PrinceTwitterThread series on 1995’s The Gold Experience. I know I remain, somewhat unfashionably, an ’80s Prince guy, but The Gold Experience is one of my faves from the ’90s and “Endorphinmachine” is an absolute banger. Check out the thread below, and be sure to also make your voice heard on the poll I posted pitting the raw original mix against the clunktastic album version. Also, stay tuned to @PrinceThread on Twitter; the series just got started, and is going all the way through the Record Store Day release of The Gold Experience on Saturday the 18th!

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Ephemera, 1984 Lacunae

Lacuna: The Dawn

Sunset Sound Studio 3, where Prince recorded "The Dawn" on January 7-8, 1984; photo stolen from Wax Poetics (no longer online).

While shooting Purple Rain in the last two months of 1983, Prince had uncharacteristically little time to spend in the studio. But as production wound down in late December, he dove back in, returning to Sunset Sound to work on new material for his manifold projects. On December 27, he recorded the basic track for “The Glamorous Life”–originally intended for Apollonia 6, but later given to (and made famous by) Sheila E. The following day, he added vocals and cut another track that would end up on Sheila’s album, “Next Time Wipe the Lipstick Off Your Collar”; as well as a song yet to be released anywhere, “Blue Love.” The day after that, he completed his first version of “She’s Always in My Hair.” Finally, on December 31, he rang in the New Year with an enigmatic new number, listed on the studio work order as “The Dawn.”

As readers of Duane Tudahl’s Prince and the Purple Rain Era Studio Sessions are no doubt aware, though, the last song Prince recorded in 1983 was not “The Dawn.” It was, in fact, “We Can Fuck,” a title deemed too explicit for an official Sunset Sound document; it would also be known by the euphemisms “Moral Majority” (not to be confused with the actual recording by that title) and, anecdotally, “Sex” (also not to be confused with the 1989 song later released as the B-side for “Scandalous”). But Prince clearly thought the dummy title was too good to waste on an act of self-censorship; because just a week later, on January 7-8, 1984, he recorded a new song bearing the same name.

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Controversy, 1981

Controversy, Part 3: Do I Believe in God? Do I Believe in Me?

Prince's electric church in the music video for "Controversy," 1981; © Warner Bros.

Note: This is the third and last post on “Controversy”: a song that presents so much to unpack, I’ve opted to split my analysis into parts. Please read the first and second parts before proceeding.

Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me?

Of the famous questions Prince asks in the lyrics to “Controversy,” he only answers one–or two, depending on how you count them. The questions are, “Do I believe in God?” and, “Do I believe in me?” The answer–to both, presumably–is “yes.”

More even than the nuances of race and sexuality, this distinction between “God” and “me”–the sacred and the secular, the spirit and the flesh, etc.–was the prevailing theme of Prince’s career. This in itself hardly makes him unique: the “comingling of the profane and the spiritual is an age-old Black music trope,” writes cultural critic Touré. “Quite often in Black music history the erotic and the divine, or the concerns of Saturday night and Sunday morning, are close together in a song or a playing style or an album or a career”–including those of Prince progenitors like Little Richard, James Brown, Sam Cooke, Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, and others (Touré 125). But while the majority of these artists vacillated between “God’s music” and “the Devil’s,” Prince’s innovation was in combining the two: making gospel-informed music that erased the fine line between matters of the body and the soul.

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Prince Track by Track: “She Spoke 2 Me”

Theresa Randle in Girl 6, Spike Lee, 1996; © Fox Searchlight Pictures.

Let me actually start with an update: I’m now about halfway through my second post on “Controversy,” which means it will be on track to go live next week. Very excited to share it; the first “Controversy” post was one of my favorite things I’ve written for d / m / s / r, and this one feels to me like a worthy followup. In the meantime, here’s another episode of the Prince: Track by Track podcast, where host Darren Husted and I talk about one of my favorite deep cuts of the ’90s:

Prince Track by Track: “She Spoke 2 Me”

Again, I’ll be back with more next week! See you all soon.

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Prince Track by Track: “Man in a Uniform”

A man (Stimpy) in the uniform of the Royal Canadian Kilted Yaksmen; © Paramount Television.

For those of you (i.e., probably most of you) who don’t follow me on Twitter, here’s a quick blog update: my next song is a monster, so I’m splitting the post into three parts in an effort to both keep things moving and keep my readers from experiencing eye strain. Part one will be up by the end of the week. In the meantime, here’s my latest guest appearance on Darren Husted’s Prince: Track by Track podcast:

Prince Track by Track:
“Man in a Uniform”

Keep your eyes peeled for that next post, I can’t wait to share it!