Today marks the 10th anniversary of Prince’s death. I love that guy’s music, and I’m going to be playing his music nonstop today.
This one tells me he really was a Minnesotan.
My favorite, though, is Raspberry Beret. That one takes me back to being 19 and taking my girl on drives through farm country — not in Minnesota, but the music is universal. I was a fan before I moved to this state!
Lately, I’ve been setting summertime goals for myself. I know I’m probably going to be laid up with knee surgery for a while (I hope I can get these wobbly aching knees fixed!), and I’m going to get through it with some dreams. One is to get up to the Boundary Waters before the Republicans destroy them, and go spidering in the woods. Another is to visit Paisley Park. I’ve driven by it many times, this summer I’m going to get off the damn freeway and take the tour.
I got to see Prince live at the Cow Palace in San Francisco…for free. A friend had a ticket he couldn’t use and gave it to me. That would be the Purple Rain tour (1985). That was a long time ago, but I remember being very entertained by the whole show. Shelia E. did a set before him, and then played on some of the songs with him. The audience up where I was sitting was full families with young children who were enthralled with the whole spectacle, but the catch phrase that they kept repeating was, “That man scares me.” I gather it was a thing.
Purple Rain was my favorite album as a kid. I also loved the movie. My parents were reluctant to let me watch it at first — I was around 9 when I discovered it — because of the brief sex scene but relented.
He released a song about the unrest in Baltimore following the death Freddie Gray in police custody. When Bruce Springsteen released a song about Trump’s invasion of Minneapolis a few months ago, I was left wondering want Prince would’ve written about it. There’s no question that he would have definitely had something say, and sing, about it.
When Prince died there were a number of tributes to him; one I remember was on the local ‘Metro Morning’ show here in Toronto where a musician talked about one of his earlier shows where he was setting up and Prince just happened to walk into the club and chat with him for a bit (he was in town and his show wasn’t until later that night). Prince apparently had quite a rep for just showing up unannounced to see what the local talent was like, and Toronto has a bit of a laid-back and collaborative music scene that seems to encourage that sort of thing.
That math isn’t mathing. Song came out in 1985. You were born in 1957, right?
Prince’s Purple Rain tour at the St. Paul Civic Center was my first big concert. It was the winter of 1984, I was 16 years old. Prince was the first time I realized Minnesotans could be really sexy.
No math involved. Music in the 80s stirring up memories of the 70s — not a problem. Reverse those dates, problem.