By now everyone and their best friend’s cousin’s Larry knows that the Purple One is playing Raleigh tonight. Tickets for his Welcome 2 America tour stop at the RBC Center sold out in nanoseconds (and TVD is NOT going, harrumph). Anyway, to commemorate the occasion that is Prince gracing the Old North State, Juan Huevos is back with a mix tape of favorite tracks and adds a few (OK, many) words:
“tonight Prince plays the RBC Center in Raleigh, NC. i will be going, having spent way too much money on tickets after dogging the internet on 2 computers at precisely the second they went on sale. i have been a hardcore Prince fan for 20 years now, and have the majority of his discography covered through tapes, CDs, and records. his music has got me through many many rough times and has always made me excited. like, really really excited. because it is that fucking good.
i became a Prince fan totally by accident. in 5th grade i was really into the first Batman movie. i had a shirt (which i still have) and a hat (it came from one of those weird grown-n-sexy boutique stores at the mall. it had a leather logo and it sucked.) and then one day i remember playing Nintendo and my dad came home and gave me the Batman soundtrack on cassette.
i don’t really understand how it happened exactly, but i got hooked. i remember girls dancing to “Batdance” at summer camp. i remember loving “Scandalous” but not really knowing why. “Lemon Crush” was so weird. and, the tape came with the lyrics (something i would always like about Prince). now i could really learn every single word.
after that it was Diamonds & Pearls on CD. i remember reading in the paper about how it was coming out and all the sexy controversy surrounding it. assless pants. twin cover babes. songs with titles like “Gett Off” and “Cream” (way before rappers made you associate “cream” with money). the microphone that looked like a golden gun. pretty sure i was hitting puberty as this record dropped. my wet dreams needed some theme music.
after that it was pretty much on. pinnacle moments in my Prince fanhood include:
first time shelling out big money on a Prince album – i did the triple whammy of The Hits 1 & 2 and The B-Sides on CD and it was, like, 50 bucks for all 3 together in one big case. that was a lot of money for me at the time. but we pumped “Erotic City” as soon as we got in the car and when he said “every time i comb my hair, thoughts of you get in my eyes” i knew it was worth it.
seeing Prince outside in the summer – i think it was the Jam Of The Year tour. it was so hot i drank mad beers and never pissed. the girl i went with wanted to just be friends but she let me dance on her for 1 or 2 songs.
using a Prince song to get laid – seriously, i pretty much did this. but i really liked her, it wasn’t on some slick shit, it just summed up how i felt at the time.
seeing The Time – i used a fake ID to get drinks. me and my friend Jason wore my dad’s suits and we made out with women in nursing school. i talked to Jerome Benton about Under The Cherry Moon. we partied with groupies and smoked weed with the new school bass player. i told some older chick i went to college and when she asked me what my major was, i said “major dick”. she was unimpressed. on the way home we spun-out on the highway in the rain and almost had a run-in with state troopers.
my song “f so pretty” – i sampled “Erotic City” on a 303 and flipped all the parts live in real time for recording the beat. it took so many tries to get it just right. the keys i played on top of it just fell into place. my friend Jessye McDowell and i did this video for it which i think captures the vibe pretty well:
i could go on and on. i don’t think of myself as just a fan, i see myself as an aficionado, someone who cares about the mythos and the spin-off groups and the songwriting and the gossip and everything else.
i compiled a list of some of my favorites, songs you may know and others you may not. if you know them all, then you know what it do. this is not a “dance mix” or a “greatest hits” or “rare treasures” … it’s just 13 really awesome Prince songs.
“Insatiable” (Diamonds & Pearls) – for starters, a great vocabulary word. one of the illest slow Prince songs. he wants you alone in his “dirty little cage” … and he can’t have a hug unless he gets a kiss, too. he censors frank talk of private parts with orchestra stabs. he actually says “doesn’t my body look good in the shadows?” and then makes a kissy noise. during the outro, we find out that Prince only ends up lasting 4 minutes because his muse is nastier than he thought. all the little ways he flips his singing style and the narration make this a banger.
“Hot Thing” (Sign O’ The Times) – i think a lot of people know this song from the movie Girl 6. i did an MF DOOM remix sampling this before. one time at a Living Dead show, i did a freestyle over it where i rapped about hot wings instead of hot things. i would be pissed if anyone referred to Prince as a “jam band” but there is some pretty serious jamming on this one.
“When U Were Mine” (Dirty Mind) – everyone likes this song. it’s totally on some greaser shit to me, like someone stole my girl down at the diner. great passive aggressive lyrics and imagery. the little harmonies are sick. and like, duh, don’t you just know how he feels?
“Erotic City” (B-Side to “Let’s Go Crazy”) – i would say this is a candidate for the best Prince song ever. at least in its corresponding phase of Prince’s development. the sounds he uses for the beat, the bassline, the lyrics, the pitch shifting he does on his vocals are stupid stupid sick. it’s like he got Alvin backing him up. and if you think they say “funk” instead of “fuck” you are an idiot.
“Temptation” (Around The World In A Day) – this song is so good, i never noticed that it was over 8 minutes long until i put it on this mix, i always listened to it on vinyl and never saw the run time. it sure doesn’t seem that long at all, i never get bored even though it moves pretty slow. but its supposed to be sludgy, it’s totally a swampy blues kind of number. Prince sings about sex all the time, but he often stresses monogamy/love and a healthy fear of God, and this song does do some preaching, with God making a cameo at the end and striking down “this little prince” for not wanting it for the right reasons.
“Darling Nikki” (Purple Rain) – this song has had its moments of being played out with a Foo Fighters cover and things of that nature, but come on, this shit is ridiculous! its so powerful in Purple Rain and the lyrics speak for themselves. i would like to see a David Lynch video for this.
“The Question Of U” (Graffiti Bridge) – this song kicks you in the gut. i’m, like, in between sets of incline press at the gym, just zoning out to this song with my eyes tearing up as i think about past loves and why they didn’t work and questions i would ask them and just drowning in a pool unresolved feelings. then i rock a set like a madman and go get some water. word.
“We Can Funk” (Graffiti Bridge) – wow, 2 back to back offerings from Graffiti Bridge, a movie that was so butty butt butt that i should be able to describe it like that without getting made fun of. the soundtrack was not a particularly lauded Prince album, and yet it had some super serious fan favorites on it, like “The Question Of U” and “Joy In Repetition”. this version features George Clinton, but he doesn’t do a whole lot besides probably being the influence for this song in general (the original is much older). the last 2 minutes of this make the hair on the back of my neck stand up.
“Nothing Compares 2 U” (I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got) – this blog’s white girl cameo is not Sheena Easton or even Carmen Electra, but Sinead O’Connor. Prince wrote this, and has his own version, but i am not ashamed to admit i like this version better. um, this song pretty much made her career, which she would end herself on television years later. the video is great, she is hotter than a bald Natalie Portman. she sheds tears and it looks genuine enough. some guy complained on youtube about the mole on her chin. come on, dude, stop watching so much porn and look at some real people.
“Scandalous” (Batman Soundtrack) – i have a three-part, 15 minute long version of this on vinyl and just rock it, yo. strange sexy production, it’s like you are listening to the song through a haze of black lace. lots of great lyrics. he’s got so much on the menu he just can’t, he just can’t, he just can’t wait, baby. he can’t wait, baby. vocally, the way he rolls into “i can wrap my legs all around you, girl” is so rad. like he’s going to say something that starts with an L, but never does. i have always wanted to say to someone: “ah, girl, the things you make me do. ‘genius’ is the only way to describe you.”
“Come” (Come) – i’m scared to talk about this one too much. but it’s basically an 11 minute long song about eating pussy. i just checked a lyric site to have something confirmed/denied for me, as far as some suspect lyrics during one part. he may not say what i think he does, but regardless, he talks about money shots in taboo places and does a slurpy rendition of what exactly he is gonna do to that thing. but the song is good, not a gimmick track by any means. pretty bold for the title track of an album.
“The Morning Papers” (Symbol) – maybe not one you would expect from me, but this is just a great song, period. definitely a slept-on true fan favorite. intense guitar solos and a super peppy outro. so much good feelings packed into one track. lyrics like “should we ask the moonlight on your face? or the raindrops in your hair?” make this special.
“I Hate U” (The Gold Experience) – a perfect sad love song. i can identify with it all. hating the person that you love, mostly from hating yourself for how much you still like them. Prince asks important questions like “did you do to your other man the same things that you did to me?” and when he cries through the “be with you” part after that … perfection! he hates you because he loves you. but he can’t love you, because he hates you. it makes perfect sense and if you don’t get it then you have never had your heart really broken and you are probably younger than me. i emailed this song to a girl once, so drunk i could barely lift my head off the table.
see you at the show, y’all.”–juan huevos
