Prince told Dan Piepenbring, the author of this memoir, the first he remembers so distinctly is looking into his mother’s eyes. He also remembers the first thing he seen in the house; his dad’s piano. Fun fact: His Dad also went by the name Prince Rogers Nelson in a band named the Prince Rogers Nelson Trio, of whom the aforementioned musician is named after. He remembers hearing his playing; ‘very busy but fluid’ and that ‘it was a joyous sound’. Prince also mentioned that his’ father’s mood used to change instantly whenever my mother was dressed up’.
Prince clearly remembers that the ‘only thing better than watching Mother & Father getting dressed up for a night on the town was watching them leave’ – I absolutely one per cent agree with this quote, who doesn’t enjoy watching their own parents leave so just so a person home alone can go away and ‘do their own thing’.
Prince also mentions to Dan that a characteristic a woman can possess, which is a ‘fully functional imagination’ – of which a friend, Laura Winnick seemed to have in abundance, as far as he could remember. He also mentions that his mother was also an artist, whose ‘penmanship was impeccable’. When she was finished writing; ‘you could see the lines of every paragraph because of how straight her pen was’. Mattie Shaw, Prince’s mother showed him how to write his name when he was in Kindergarten, first with his nickname ‘Skipper’ and then with his given name: ‘Prince’.
Prince remembers growing up in Minneapolis attending the ‘7th Day Adventist Church’ where he met the Andersons. Fred & Bernadette, Andre’s parents were also friends with Prince’s parents. Prince also believed that Bernadette and his mother ‘had each other’s backs when it came to their husbands’.
Prince clearly remembers having an epileptic seizure when he was three years old. He goes to say that he loved to play outside and felt completely free; ‘one day the clouds started violently spinning and he just remembers being carried by his father into their house into the living room’. A trip to the hospital then revealed the diagnosis as epilepsy and was ‘prone to having seizures at any time’.
The last, ever seizure he experienced was when he was ‘walking to his grandmother’s house; his sister was ahead of him with his mother Mattie. He just remembers sitting down on the pavement and the two of them walking further and further away from where Prince was sitting. The next thing, Mattie’s voice called out in a threatening tone that she was telling him to get up and come over here otherwise ‘Don’t make me come back there and carry you’; which is what Mattie had to do in the end due to how severe Prince’s blackout was. Mattie recalled to Prince, of which he remembered that shortly after this seizure took place, ‘an angel came and told me that I’m not going be sick anymore’
Prince also remembers that his parents fighting, arguing and getting physical with each other was soul-destroying. After many altercations and ‘several breakdowns in communication’, which ended up with Mattie using Prince as a buffer to stop John fighting with her anymore. Prince never knew of the impact his parents divorce would have on him; as he just wanted ‘a quiet space where I could hear myself think and create’.
Copyright © 2019 by NPG Music Publishing LLC, The Prince Estate, Penguin Random House UK, Dan Piepenbring. All Rights Reserved.
Alongside this blog, I’ll choose a Prince song I particularly like; this week it’s ‘How Come U Don’t Call Me Anymore?’ – the b-side to ‘1999’
As the B-Side I chose did not have an official music video, I have decided to go with the A-Side ‘1999’ – which is a song about nuclear destruction.
Covering the Life & Career of Prince 