Prince mentions that the dreams and aspirations of three individuals – one of them being Morris Day. At the time, Morris was a good looking, cool 22 year old part time musician, pimp and dreamer all rolled into one. As well as this, it it also mentioned that as well as music, Morris loves money and women as well. These three vices usually conflicted with each other and the end result was something he finds hard to deal with – stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Prince also mentions that the second individual came from a well to do family, was very attractive and she damn well knew it. Her name was Vanity. She named herself this because of a lifelong hang up – her real name is Louise and she wanted to be accepted as one of the gang. In reality, she didn’t want to be accepted as one of the gang because she was ‘too rich, too petty and too much a prude’. Vanity, furthermore, needed friends and worked too hard at it and was also viewed as a ‘phony rich bitch’ by most of the kids in every new neighbourhood she moved to.

Now to turn the attention back to the makin star and third individual – Prince. It is also mentioned that when he was 6 or 7 years old, he watched his mother Mattie shot his father John L. Nelson dead then turned the gun on herself. Mattie made John’s life miserable by her constant drinking, swearing and craving for sex as all she wanted was a good time.

So much time is spent, within the book, explaining Prince’s parents as it is explained that 3 doctors diagnosed Prince as a ‘mentally disturbed’ young man with a ‘split personality’.

Prince wanted fame and fortune; badly. But most of all, he wanted to help people through the music he created – whether that would be a cure for loneliness, a beat to make them dance or a message so the audience can understand themselves.

Purple rain The Movie primarily deal with a period in which all 3 of the main characters must face the realities of life. Morris Day (from The Time) lives downtown, which is predominantly black and poverty stricken. Vanity lives in the suburbs, which is the rich part of town and Prince lives uptown, which is middle class and very liberal. This is just a small part of what the original film was outlined before Vanity then left the movie pre-production, to be later replaced by Apollonia.

Prince also noted that whenever he was on stage, he would experience that he was ‘out of body’ which was due to all the rehearsing, practising and the playing is for – simply, himself and the audience.

Copyright © 2019 by NPG Music Publishing LLC, The Prince Estate, Penguin Random House UK, Dan Piepenbring. All Rights Reserved.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prince-Parade-Times-Studio-Session/dp/1538124823/ref=sr_1_51?keywords=prince&qid=1581593257&sr=8-51

Alongside this blog, I’ll choose a Prince song I particularly like; this week it’s ‘Partyman’ from the 1989 ‘Batman’ movie soundtrack.

As well as the music track I have chosen, which is ‘Partyman’ from the 1989 ‘Batman’ movie soundtrack – I have also chosen the corresponding music video to go with the track I chose as I find that it fits perfectly!

Prince started his working as a musician as far back as 1976, both with Graham Central Station (with Andre Cymone) and 94 East (fronted by his cousins’ then husband Pepe Willis).

Realised that school was boring, so started entertaining at local gigs during the night as he was frustrated being a student and wanted more than the nine to five lifestyle.

He had left school and did not have any dependants (such as children, wives, girlfriends), he started writing three or four songs a day – (This would be even more prevalent during the decade of the 1980’s).

The songs he wrote were mostly of a sexual nature, of adventures that he wanted to go on, rather than adventures that were going on.

Prince sang in falsetto as he could not get any power out of it – by this, he could not get get life into his voice. And he found that having a higher voice, it was easier to hit the higher notes.

He previewed the track ‘Just As Long As We’re Together’ from his ‘For You’ Album, released in 1978, both as a test session for CBS Records executives to showcase that he could play all the instruments in this song himself. Later on, he did the same thing for Warner Brothers Records – both sessions were recorded in Los Angeles and recorded from scratch as well.

When he got back to Minneapolis, he met up with a local Talent manager by the name of owen Husney, who believed in him and told him he should produce a record himself – which is what Prince wanted: complete creative control over his music.

Furthermore, he co-wrote the song ‘Soft And Wet’ with Chris Moon, rewriting and changing the lyrics throughout recording sessions for the ‘For You’ Album.

With the song ‘Soft And Wet’ in particular, he wanted to make a different-sounding record, trying to get his band at the time to add horns to the track, which was quite difficult to do if a musician/band were using the same instruments throughout the recording process so Prince just added horns to the track by multi-tracking a synthesizer and some guitar lines into the song.

He wrote this particular song because Prince wanted to get the band to do something different – it was always ‘a me against them’ situation. This is why he wrote this song and put it out as his first single.

When Prince heard the song on the radio, he felt that this was not him singing, it was clearly someone else.

Copyright © 2019 by NPG Music Publishing LLC, The Prince Estate, Penguin Random House UK, Dan Piepenbring. All Rights Reserved.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/NAME-PRINCE-Randee-St-Nicholas/dp/0062939238/ref=sr_1_2?keywords=prince&qid=1579774455&rnid=1642204031&s=books&sr=1-2

Alongside this blog, I’ll choose a Prince I particularly like; this week it’s ‘Gold’ from both ‘The Versace Experience (Prelude 2 Gold)’ and ‘The Gold Experience’ Albums, both released in 1995.

As well as the music track I have chosen, which is ‘Gold’ from ‘The Versace Experience (Prelude 2 Gold) & ‘The Gold Experience’ – I have also chosen the corresponding music video to go with the track I chose as I find that it fits perfectly!

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.