Colour U Peach and Black

I had Ed pegged for a rocker: he was effusive for Van Halen and Metallica, and when we did talk about music, he would cite bands that were either mega-this, death-that, or about to slay-one-another. So when we did hang out, when the 'older, bad-influencing' Ed invited me to his house, I was surprised at the music he was burning to share. It was 1983, and he had just discovered Prince.

It was the audacious raunch. It was more direct and shocking than the euphemisms and metaphors cited by an army of hairspray bands: Ed wasn't going to let me leave until I heard Prince pronounce, Marsha, I'm not saying this to be nasty...but I sincerely want to fuck the taste out of your mouth (I never could figure out why he was insistent on "Let's Pretend We're Married" over the aurally more graphic "Lady Cab Driver"). This was my first exposure to Prince - I wasn't particularly wowed by the music. My interest at the time was limited to the Beatles, Elton John, John Denver & Kenny Rogers...artists who weren't preoccupied with rhythm or groove or funk. I didn't get any of it, but I thought watching the impaled eyeball spinning on the turntable was pretty cool.

This is not to say that an impression wasn’t made. Ed liked Prince, and the Ed I know shouldn't like music like this. What gives here?

The following spring, as my 8th grade class graduated, When Doves Cry was inescapably, repetitively, making its rounds on the airwaves. I was a little wiser at the end of the school year. I began to better understand what musical genres were, and I began to understand the appeal: Prince was someone who was transcending them. This was made ever so more concrete when Let's Go Crazy hit the radio rotation: this was no ordinary artist. After a lot of pining and pleading, Purple Rain showed up in my Easter Basket: thank you Jesus Bunny.

So my love affair with Prince began. It was, like my real life love affairs, a tentative one. I loved Purple Rain, but at age 14 my bank account wasn’t so expansive that I could indulge the idea of owning 2 albums by the same artist: I would have to hear three singles before feeling it was essential to purchase Around the World in a Day. I was the only person I knew who owned this album, and had the challenge of trying to get friends on board with me: a frustrating, fruitless endeavor. When Kiss hit the airwaves, I didn't know what to think. Prince was putting to the forefront the falsetto I knew he employed, but felt that he succeeded in spite of. I bought Parade with much reservation, consoling myself that the cover was at least more tastefully imaginative and artistic than the previous album's mural. Over the course of these 3 albums, Prince led me from being a pop singles-loving adolescent to an (elitist?) eclectic fan of AOR. Amongst my friends, I was becoming increasingly solitary as a fan of his music, something that made the bond more sincere.

Also over the course of these three albums, my appetite for music in general was growing. Having an artist - especially during the 80's - who put out a new album every 11 months -proved to reinforce my new addiction. Prince was unique in his prolificacy; he was also playing a dangerous game of overstaying his welcome. How were any of these songs going to become classics if people don't have the time to absorb them, create personal experiences with them? For me, it was fun: each new single, each new album, would surprise me with what he's capable of. He created an illusion of unlimited creativity. He wasn't following the normal pattern of putting out a (either repetitive or alienating) follow-up to an amazing album, then disappearing. This created an unsettling feeling: how long can someone possibly keep this up? Even if someone can keep this up forever, doesn't the audience eventually change?

Aside from the public, radio-friendly leanings, Prince also fulfilled a need for something deeper, more esoteric. I would greedily collect the remixes and maxi-singles and legendary b-sides that would accompany them. Hello, 17 days, Another Lonely Christmas, Erotic City, Love or Money, Always in My Hair, Girl, How Come U Don't Call Me Anymore, God...It seemed I had to revamp my mixed-tapes with each single's release. Fan and critical consensus, in retrospect, conclude that a few of these should have been singles. This secret knowledge only served to draw me further into Prince's universe.

I was apprehensive when I first heard the single Sign O the Times on the radio. It was stripped down and bare. He fired off The Revolution in 1986 (on my birthday!), and the album I was anticipating - even though I hadn't completely absorbed the underrated Parade - had all the signs of being a disaster. I tended to multiply this stripped-down song times twenty, thinking that this would be what the anticipated double-album would sound like: bandless, with nothing but Prince and studio magic and automation. A mysterious advertisement for the album in Pulse! Magazine - a black page with only a peach colored heart, peace-sign and cross - only reaffirmed my discomfort. Warner wasn't leading with the music like on the previous 2 albums; they were relying on mysterious, obfuscating advertising. This had the potential of being a double-album of demo quality, high on symbolism & self-indulgence; low on production.

I brought home the maxi-single - not the edited 45 rpm - for Sign O the Times; La La La, Hee Hee Hee - the flipside - dispelled a lot of the reservation. Though the Linn Drum leads as usual, the 10:32 "Highly Explosive" extended play has one of Prince's funkiest bass guitar solos committed to vinyl (in writing this, I had to hook up 10 sq. ft. of stereo speakers, and of course - a stereo system. It was worth the trouble). It is a song as playful and whimsical as the A-side is pensive and mournful. Even before the release of the album he'd established that he has so many grooves on the shelf he needs to cast a few of them to B-sidedom and other artists. Prince also played a little gender-bending trick: on the maxi-single cover he appears to be dressed in a peach skirt and tube top, tasseled gloves and garter with an inset heart. He appears thoroughly waxed, Brazilian-like, as he holds a large black heart over his head. The reverse side shows him in full face exposure, lip-sticked with matching peach cloud guitar in hand. Only it isn’t him in drag, it is Cat – his backup dancer- dressed and hair-styled to look like him. It’s a convincing sell.

I bought the Sign O the Times LP in late July 1987, a week & a half after its release. I missed out on some beautiful weather so I could sit cross-legged on the floor in front of my stereo, headphones on and reading through the inner sleeves on my lap. It had my full attention, and when I got to the end, I had to start it all over again. I was in awe. It was so different from the previous few albums – it felt bereft of an overseeing concept or a self-evident stylistic approach. It felt like a barrage of hits waiting to be culled out and discovered. It would be easier to list the songs that didn’t grab me on that first listen: Slow Love (it sounded like a typically burlesque Prince ballad), Hot Thing (a funkier retread of Girls & Boys from the previous album), U Got the Look (the Sheila Easton duet had something forced about it, and there’s a good explanation for this), and The Cross (two chords, and the only overtly religious song on the album).

By the time Sign was released, critics had already formed a dossier on Prince as a songwriter. Sure, he could play over 30 instruments. Sure, he could write irresistible hit songs. But - and critics are always there to remind you where your ‘shortcomings’ are - Prince has this conflicting & recurring pre-occupation with god and sex. Sometimes the contradiction appears in the same song; sometimes it appears in the same line in a song. But it never seems to get resolved; it isn’t a conflict that Prince gets beyond. One of the first notable things about Sign: they are kept comfortably separate. The Cross is a purely religious /social observation; the same can be said for the song Sign of the Times. They may be kept separate, but not equal: there is a treatment given to these songs absent from the rest of the album, and they are in a very small minority…two of an offered sixteen.

This doesn’t mean that the rest of the album is dedicated to sex. There’s preposterous strutting, heartfelt preaching, ridiculous psychedelic imagery, nightclub posturing, internal monologues, and rallying cries to celebrate life. There‘s definitely sex; there’s plenty of it. But Prince adds a new dimension to it. It seems more cognizant of its own obsession: Prince has approached it with a new maturity that at times is romantic, at times pathologically or compulsively unsettling.

Side one can serve as the cliff notes take on the album, topically, if not musically. It opens with the title track and first single – a relaxed groove with a pulse like a clock winding down a body’s expiration; a song that reads a list of woes that threaten the world, posing the question why humanity continues to move forward in spite of them:”When the rocket ship explodes / and everybody still wants to fly / Some say a man ain’t happy truly / ‘til the man truly dies.” It directly addresses the Space Shuttle Challenger tragedy, inquiring whether some of the pursuits of humanity fail to look for the value in pursuing them…particularly in light of all the social challenges we have on earth. He ends the lyrics quizzically: “Let’s fall in love / get married and have a baby / we’ll call him Nate…if it’s a boy.” He doesn’t settle for the political song that leaves the listener blaming someone else; he ends with accusing the listener with the same headlong rush towards the end of their life. It has a subdued groove, an uplifting yet – at the same time, lamenting – transition into the chorus. It ends with sporadic bursts of percussion and synth.

It segues into Play in The Sunshine, a deceptive remedy. It is a strange transition; living up to the playfulness alluded to in the title: “Someway, Somehow, I’m going to have fun.” But the lyrics allude to such odd imagery, that one questions whether the voice in this tune is looking for solace in an opposite extreme (“I want to be free,” “we’re going to love our enemies ‘til the gorilla falls of the wall”, and “the big white rabbit begins to talk.”). Prince has a history of knocking on hippies, and it’s tempting to resign the lyrics to having fun with them again. Even if that’s the case, Play in the Sunshine is as musically diverse and dynamic as the album opener is stuck in a rut. It starts out in a frenetic rush and unrealistic declaration, breaks down for two separate guitar solos, before the background vocals that have grown increasingly complex through the song, devolve into a gospel choir hung over and deplete of energy.

Then the funk & Camille’s sped-up voice break in: Housequake’s “Shut Up Already, Damn!” cuts in before Play’s celebration completely winds to a close. Uncharacteristically for Prince, Housequake employs horns combined with familiar ‘eerie’ background synth lines. Though inspired by James Brown, Prince brings an irreverent humor to it. It is one of the highlights of the entire album; lyrical content takes a backseat to comedic timing; the first three songs resolve in the funk being the final solution the previous two songs’ internal contradictions.

The Ballad of Dorothy Parker is the earliest song recorded with the intent of being on either the Crystal Ball, Dream Factory (when Prince had a 3 album set in mind), or Sign of the Times (we’ll just call it “his next project”). Musically, it changes direction sporadically – an illusion created by vocal layers that shift and change directions frequently. It reads like an early attempt at a song focused on relationships, but it doesn’t take itself as seriously as later songs on the album: this is the fun of being seduced. Despite the line “I needed someone with a quicker wit than mine / and Dorothy’s was fast”, Prince was unfamiliar with Parker the writer. To him, it was a name pulled out of the effluvium of pop culture reference. There are many instrumental shifts and voices put on display, but it is a subdued contrast to Play in the Sunshine. The callout to Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me”, and the way he employs it, is impressive. Dorothy Parker ends with a wah-wah guitar groove that has little to do with the proper song, but implies doors being open to something more, depths to explore.

When I first listened to side two, I thought it was the weakest on the double-LP. If any of the four sides have to be the weak link, I would stand by this notion – though I also believe making side two the weakest separates it from The Beatles or Songs in the Key of Life. But I’ve come to appreciate it over time. It reveals where the god/sex contradiction went: shifted to sex/love. It is book ended by It, an unreserved expression of sexual desire, and Forever In My Life, a reflective song in which the narrator confesses to himself that there is a time to settle down. They share a similar tempo. It progresses with a hypnotic synth melody that indicates a crescendo that will never be reached. Prince cites banal lyrics over the build, all Id in his delivery: “I wanna do you you baby all the time, alright / I’m gonna think about it all the time / fuckin’ on your mind, baby / feels so good it must be a crime”. Forever In My Life, by contrast, is lyrically pretty. Prince relegates the Linn to the background, layering his background vocals to anticipate his bluesy lead delivery. It is an honest song, sounding almost extemporaneous; there is a strange trade-off between It and Forever in musica versus lyrical complexity. Even on early listening, I questioned how Prince could be more compulsive about sex, or more sincerely honest about relationships.

One strong point to be made for side two of Sign: it doesn’t lose momentum. The only thing making this side ‘weak’, is comparing it to the other three. Couched between It & Forever, are Starfish & Coffee / Slow Love / Hot Thing. Starfish is the most popular of the three, a song that would fit comfortably on The Beatles: precocious, precious, and full of sugary imagery. Slow Love feels like a ballad Prince has done before, though it sounds perfectly executed. Hot Thing pounds and drives with fiery horn lines and a danceable backbeat. All three are great songs, differing wildly from one another. It is almost as though his adept ability to handle such diverse approaches to songwriting was too hard to resist, creating the most erratic collection on the LP. It also doesn’t help that every song on sides 3 & 4 have – whether in pop culture or in cult fandom – a resounding significance.

U Got the Look finds Prince using the Camille-voice in duet with Sheila Easton (the Camille project was another ancillary, and eventually absorbed project, into Sign & The Black Album). It is a song that can’t determine whether it is dance or rock, and the electric rock churnings in the background sound as though they may have given Trent Reznor an idea or two. Did I say this didn’t impress me at first? I stand corrected. U Got the Look was the last song written for Sign of the Times, when Prince wanted to intentionally attempt something commercial to tack on his album. In terms of requirements and deliverables, he hit the mark. It might not forward any of the psychological contradictions on the album, but it displays how Prince can nail it in spite of himself: a sped-up voice, dissonant synth-lines, and a near cabaret treating of pop-rock. He does it with catchy, memorable, simple lyrics and an unforgettable – if not absurd – bridge that finds him singing each word in the line “Well here we are” in four sequentially different keys.

If I was Your Girlfriend is a masterpiece in Linn-drum and synth sequencing. It also stands as one of the creepier love songs ever written. Prince brings the same obsessive approach from It, refocusing from sex to the relationship itself. He strives for a possessive intimacy that leaves no room but for the person who adores. I was always surprised that it received any radio attention, since it’s descent into a sexual madness – all that was cut from the radio edit – makes the song what it is. “Would you run to me if somebody hurt you / even if that someday was me? Sometimes I trip on how happy we can be” is a haunting lyrical pairing; everything that follows - right unto the symbolic, post-coital ending of the song – sounds like the sick mental schematic from which such a statement arises. “We’ll try to imagine what silence looks like…” repeated over and over, begs a votive candle be lit to ward all the preceding demons away.

A poppier approach to the same subject matter follows. Strange Relationship looks at things from the outside: “Baby I just can’t stand to see you happy / More than that, I hate to see you sad.” “The more you love me sugar, the more it makes me mad.” It propels itself with a driving, heavy drum beat and catchy synth melody…though the topic matter is overshadowed with a threat of violence. Prince, as narrator, has switched from unabashed honesty to an observation of the relationship – it’s like you see an ego emerging. He is seeing the thing – and his reaction to it – for what it is. Just like most of the songs on Sign, it quickly follows it’s predecessor, announcing itself on the scene with an urgency.

The Freudian triptych resolves in I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man. Topically, it is distant from Strange or Girlfriend, but the narrator has developed a certain morality about relationships (if this were a three-song side, excluding U Got the Look, it would seem even more intentional…but since that isn’t the case, this is my own reading). “Honey, you might be satisfied with a one-night stand / but I could never take the place of your man.”…subjects the narrator to not getting his way, in spite of his honest assessment. And the music is pure pop, perfect for radio, relatable for its simple message: it could be the most unequivocal hit on the album, with an extended version that satisfies the faithful. ICNTTPOYM is a song that had been around awhile (since 1982). It takes an unusual direction for Prince, breaking down a tight pop song for a subdued groove and playing some funky delayed rhythm before re-emerging with the melody. This is the same Prince who was genius enough to leave the bass out of When Doves Cry; you might think he is marring a good thing. But when the melody returns, it is effective.

Side three ends with indirect resolution, begging the question: where can one go from here? Well, god, for starters. And Dancing. And arguably, the most romantic love song Prince has recorded – among many – yet.

Side four is where you either poot out and resign yourself to filler (The Beatles) or pack in the hits (Key of Life). Prince is somewhere in the middle. It’s Gonna Be a Beautiful Night, the longest song on the album, is closer to As or Another Star than it is to Number 9, that‘s for certain. The middle piece of the LP finale is a pastiche of his marketed Minneapolis sound, live energy, newly discovered horn lines and contemporary - though accessible - rapping. I’ve yet to see a review of the album that doesn’t qualify the song as ‘heavily overdubbed,’ and considering that Sign wasn’t meant to be a live album, this is rightfully so. It is the last relic of Prince performing with the Revolution, and the effect reminds that the parting – artistically, anyways – ended on a high note. Like the title indicates, it is positive, and for nine minutes the listener has a lot thrown at them: Oz-land chants, multiple voicings, jazzy rubato, funky rhythm guitars, playful tomfoolery. Even if it is overdubbed from the Zenith, Paris, performance, it is a postcard that makes one with they were there.

However, it is The Cross that quietly launches side four with an eastern sounding, quiet guitar-lick. It is a song sung twice – once with Prince’s vocals leading over musical embellishment, a second time in a different key, with more strain, drowned out in distortion. It is the most direct addressing to Prince’s spirituality; a wiping of the slate clean following the preceding three album sides. Depending on where you are coming from, you might either appreciate the stop-gap, or wonder if…if he were to pursue the straining honesty of side three, where it might have taken him artistically.

The last song is Adore.

Though Sign O the Times has been viewed as a classic in many circles, it didn’t chart amazingly well: it achieved a high of 45 on Billboard charts. In light of what the album offered, the series of singles fall short of being representative: Sign O the Times was followed by If I was Your Girlfriend. Though the follow up had a killer b-side in Shockadelica, it threatened the momentum of the album. It was followed by a pair of double a-side maxi singles – U Got the Look / Housequake and Hot Thing / I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man. Considering the material discarded from the 3-album set, the direction of double-A sides is surprising. Imagine throwing Dream Factory, Sexual Suicide, A Place in Heaven, or Possessed into the mix. U Got the Look & ICNTTPOYM were videos taken from the Sign O the Times Concert film, garnering some video rotation on MTV….though decreasingly so. Sign, the single, reached #3 on Billboard’s Hot 100; Girlfriend made next to no impact, and U Got the Look went to #2. At the time, this meant very little to me. As my focus shifted towards the underground, I was pleased that I could hear Prince’s music on KJET or KCMU. As I made my own genre shift, I was validated that I wasn’t the only person who appreciated his talent or music.

Sign also served to end a high artistic run for Prince. He would follow up the album with Lovesexy in 1988, but self-indulgently limit CD listeners to a single track representing the entire album (no track-skipping). Ironically, it was the first album that I bought on the day of its release – I remember bringing home its (obsolete) long-box along with Morrissey’s Viva Hate. Lovesexy was announced with another great single – Alphabet St. – a funky, playful number, that was lost in the controversy over the pulled-at-the-last-minute Black Album and the indignant response to Lovesexy’s religious overtone. It is a departure from Sign, where the synth and full-band sound at times overwhelm anyone who would’ve accused Sign of being too thin or sparse.

And again, the release of his next album left little room for appreciating the previous one: LoveSexy may have hurt Sign, just a little bit.

Late July of 2008. I’m still listening to Sign O The Times, and even though it sounds like the 80’s, it conveys a lyrical wisdom that reaches beyond being confined to an era. The music can be pinned, but a few of the overtones and topics are universal. Perhaps I can handle it better than others because I’m a Paisley-head. I’m caught up in the mystique of what the album could have been if Prince had his way and released Crystal Ball or Dream Factory. I’ve invested the time and money in getting each and every album like lightening might strike again; like Prince might pull off something like Sign again. I’ve made allowances and explained away shortcomings. I brought home the finally released Black Album with it’s official release, optimistic that it would provide the missing link between Sign and Lovesexy.

Late July of 2008, and really: me and Sign have only reached 21 years together. Time to have a drink to this album. It’s hard to absorb the idea that more time has passed since its release, than between it and the release of The Beatles. It might be old age, but it seems musical revolution isn’t progressing at the speed it once did.

The horn lines slink in as the audience of Its Gonna Be A Beautiful Night recede into the background. Adore announces itself like many Prince ballads from before: “Until the end of time / Ill be there 4 u / U own my heart and mind /I truly adore u / If God one day struck me blind / Your beauty I’d still see / Love is 2 weak 2 define / Just what u mean 2 me”

Adore has distinguished itself as THE definitive Prince ballad: stylistically, it has some formulaic elements, but there’s a humor and idiosyncrasy to it – making it all the more genuine. “U could burn up my clothes / Smash up my ride, well maybe not the ride / But I got 2 have your face / All up in the place.” The idiosyncrasy lies in the structure of the song. It doesn’t build up to a fantastic ending. It reaches a crescendo at mid-mark, becoming reflective about this adoration: “you own my heart, you own my mind…” In a strange turn, he revisits the sentiment of Girlfriend, but musically, it doesn’t sound possessive or obsessive. When he says that he wants to be “More than your mother / more than your brother / I wanna be / Like no other”, the music allows it to be romantic sentiment instead of guilty or sickening confession.

“Tell u what u mean 2 me / Every time u wander / Ill be your eyes so u can see / I wanna show u things.” There are 2 references to eyesight in the song; one indicating that the adored transcends the vision of the one adoring; the second to an insinuated guidance to things to be seen – a giving over to seeing things in spite of distraction or ability. However, it is ambiguous as to whether there’s possessiveness about it. Given the context of the song, it feels romantic and heartfelt – it may not have been intentional. But it is difficult to be sure. Considering how Prince wields relationship matters on Sign, it seems he would make a statement, however veiled it might be, about the positive nature of a relationship: how in a healthy partnership, sometimes you lead; sometimes you follow. It is a perfect ending to a double-LP, but like the preceding 3 sides, it ends nicely and raises some questions at the same time.

I’ve listened to this album for 21 years, and even after a perfect ending, I’m wondering what surprise will break in to interrupt it. I want to hear what side 5 has to offer, what depths or heavens it takes me to. Prince reached his zenith with Sign O the Times – the preceding albums, many of them also considered classics in their own right - feel like a building toward this moment. All subsequent albums get compared to it. Personally, I never get tired of it. Each and ever song has grown on me over time. Sometimes it is hearing an outtake, a live rendition of it, or just the reconsideration you give an element from repeated listens. And I’ll probably only like it more and more, until the end of time.