Categories
Ephemera, 1984

Love and Sex (1984)

The Purple Rain era marked a subtle, yet perceptible shift in Prince’s attitudes toward sex. On 1999 less than two years earlier, he’d reveled in his libertinish “Rude Boy” persona: promising to “fuck the taste out of your mouth” on “Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” then actually demonstrating his technique on “Lady Cab Driver.” But by the follow-up album, his pendulum was beginning to swing away from the raw mechanics of lust, toward something approaching more conventional romance. “The Beautiful Ones” found him not just pretending he’s married, but considering it as a real possibility; “When Doves Cry” and the title track earnestly grappled with the dissolution of a relationship. Even “Darling Nikki”–the closest the album came to vintage, “dirty” Prince–treated its sexual encounter as a quasi-Satanic temptation, before ending with a palate-cleansing gospel coda.

It’s easy to assume that this shift was motivated by commercial calculus: Purple Rain was designed to be Prince’s entrée into the mainstream, and heteronormative monogamy plays better to “mainstream” tastes than unfettered promiscuity. There is doubtless some truth to that interpretation; but there’s also ample evidence to suggest that he felt a genuine conflict between his spiritual convictions and his carnal appetites. A song like “Possessed” (written during the 1999 sessions, and revisited in multiple iterations for Purple Rain) depicts the repentant “Rude Boy” as an unwilling vessel for “demonic lust.” “Love and Sex,” recorded at Sunset Sound on February 27-28, takes a different approach: envisioning an afterlife where the spirit and the flesh could exist in harmony.

Categories
Apollonia 6, 1984

In a Spanish Villa

Prince’s Sunset Sound session on February 3, 1984 was highly productive, even by his lofty standards: After taking “A Million Miles (I Love You)” from jam session to finished track, he still had time to complete a second number for Apollonia 6. To date, his efforts to write for the group’s namesake had been dogged by her limited range as a singer. “In a Spanish Villa” was his most ingenious solution to the problem yet: Rather than spending another long night building Apollonia’s confidence in the vocal booth, he’d craft a song around one of the bilingual actress’ existing strengths–sounding sexy in Spanish.

Categories
Apollonia 6, 1984

Some Kind of Lover

With his own album and the Time’s both more or less finished–emphasis, in the former case, on “more or less”–Prince finally turned his full attention to Apollonia 6 in early February 1984. The two songs he’d completed for the project to date, “Sex Shooter” and (soon to be reclaimed) “Take Me with U,” had focused on the group’s frontwoman and namesake, with some difficulty. Luckily, there were two other members to write for–one of whom could actually sing!

Categories
Purple Rain, 1984

Take Me with U

Production on Purple Rain officially wrapped in late December 1983; but as the film’s chief composer as well as its star, Prince remained on call through the post-production phase. Just about a month after the end of shooting, his services were once again required: Director Albert Magnoli wanted a song for the sequence where the Kid and Apollonia ride through rural Henderson, Minnesota on his motorcycle. So, at Sunset Sound on January 22, 1984, Prince started work on “Take Me with U.”

Categories
Roundup Posts

D / M / S / R Year Six in Review

Already? Are you kidding me? Even more than usual, this anniversary really snuck up on me, and, fair warning, you’ve caught me in a philosophical mood. So let’s get the cold, factual analysis out of the way first.

I’m actually pleasantly surprised to look back at my progress since our last anniversary post: a total of 15 proper song posts to last year’s 12, plus one bonus post on “Hot Summer.” Technically, that’s only about half my pure output from 2020-2021; but it was more focused on the actual “mission” of this project, which was my main goal. I’m happy to say that I finished two “chapters” this year:

Ephemera, 1983
Ice Cream Castle, 1984

I also technically doubled my podcast output from the previous year–which is, to be fair, slightly less impressive when you consider that last year I only managed one:

40 Years of The Time: A Conversation with Darling Nisi and Harold Pride

All the Critics Love U: A Conversation with Jack Riedy, Author of Electric Word Life

Okay, now here comes the philosophical part, so feel free to check out. Every year, I say that I’m no longer sweating my progress (or lack thereof), and every year I (mostly) mean it; but I’d also be lying if I said that I don’t occasionally feel like a funky Sisyphus rolling a (purple) rock up the hill. No sane person commits to writing an extensive mini-essay about every Prince song ever released (and some not released); if 2016 me had had the foresight to think through the scope beyond, “well, Chris O’Leary did Bowie in about seven years, so I should be able to do Prince in 10, right?”, we would not be having this conversation today. For better or worse, I made the decision to launch this blog with my signature cocktail of impulsiveness, all-or-nothing thinking, and complete disregard for quaint notions like “practicality” and “audience.”

Put in those terms, D / M / S / R has succeeded beyond my wildest dreams. The audience I’ve built here is the largest and most dedicated of any project I’ve ever done. I’ve made friends from around the world I never would have met otherwise. I’m pretty sure Jill Jones liked one of my tweets. I’m living the dream! But as I look forward to a third year stranded in the Purple Rain era (“Baby I’m a Star” was published in July 2020!), it can be hard to remember that.

I don’t bring all this up to throw myself a pity party, or even to fish for validation, but just for the sake of transparency. I also want to share my intended path forward. The obvious answer is “pick up the pace,” and I really am trying to do just that. But I’m also highly resistant to the mindset that quality critical writing is just “content” that can be manufactured and pushed out on a rigid schedule. To set some internal goals for myself, I’ve looked ahead and determined that if I put out roughly one song post every two weeks, I’ll be finished with Purple Rain by the end of March. The specific song order is still subject to change, but as a bonus, my projected schedule also has me posting “Another Lonely Christmas” in mid-December, and you know I can’t resist a good holiday tie-in. Can I make this happen? Frankly, I have no idea! But I’m going to try.

Here’s the thing, though: I’m still spending almost three years on the Purple Rain era alone–and that’s being generous and counting Around the World in a Day as its own “era.” At this rate, Sign “O” the Times could easily be a five-year project. In my first year-in-review post five years ago(!), I jokingly projected an end date of 2036. I think it’s time to formally say that that is an optimistic estimate. And obviously, in a project of this scope, there’s always the danger that I might never finish at all; sometimes I feel a little like Sufjan Stevens, “promising” 50 concept albums about each of the U.S. states and then throwing in the towel after two.

I know a lot of people would tell me, yes, you dumbass, of course you’ve bitten off more than you can chew. Just pack it in and write a fucking book. Or at least adjust your scope! Literally no one asked you to do this! And I’m not gonna lie, those thoughts have crossed my mind, many times, in the last few years. But whenever I think about changing course, it feels like a defeat. Part of what attracts me to this project is its sheer, absurd scope. Lots of folks, talented ones, have done amazing, ambitious, discography-spanning Prince projects; but no one else is arrogant or self-destructive enough to do this. If I wanted to do something reasonable and achievable, I would have shopped some sample chapters to an agent. Or learned to code.

In conclusion, here is my promise: I’m going to keep doing this until I no longer have the passion for it, whether that’s tomorrow (don’t worry, it won’t be tomorrow), in 2036, or on my deathbed. I will keep experimenting and trying to find a pace that is sustainable, but won’t lead to me spending a full decade on Emancipation. I will, at minimum, get us out of fucking Purple Rain as fast as I possibly can. And I hope that you’ll keep reading. In the weeks and months to come, I will be putting out some fun stuff, including a new, hopefully low-effort idea that should (fingers crossed) breathe some life into my Patreon offerings. Moments of self-doubt aside, I’m feeling inspired and grateful to be part of such a warm, gracious, and generous community. Thanks for reading, and see you soon!