submissions
| Prince – 3121 Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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Oh, please. "Typical Prince party song?" This is Prince the born-again being preachy, describing some decadent party into which, as the Eagles said, "You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave." So, in the first place it's a warning about hell, in the second place, it's been done before except way better, and in the third place, I'm left wondering if he'll ever pull his head out of the Jehovah's Weirdness and come back into his true genius. It's too bad the year 1999 really did turn out to be the end of his world, at least as a performer. |
submissions
| Prince – 1999 Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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@sheer - In terms of thinking the end of the world is metaphorical, I think that would make more sense taken out of the conext of his other work of that approximate era. He was stridently and repeatedly anti-war. For instance, Party Up says, "You're gonna hafta fight your own damn war / 'Cause we don't wanna fight no more." Also, this song, 1999, says, "Everybody's got a bomb, we could all die any day." Even the end of it has a little girl's voice asking, "Mommy, why does everybody have a bomb?" I don't think this is metaphor so much as reference to the practical event that will bring on Judgement Day.
I do like what you say about enjoying life, and finding excuses to celebrate being positive contributions to the world. Party on, Dude! |
submissions
| Prince – 1999 Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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"Make love, not war," is the major theme to this song. Interwoven is the idea that Judgement Day is coming, live this day like it's your last and like you will live forever. Prince was always Christian, even if he didn't become conventionally so until more recently. He's not afraid to die because he's going to heaven. Many of the lyrics are biblical. He's got a lion in his pocket, he coulda sworn it was Judgement Day, can't run from the Revelation. It's interesting to read that some earlier commenter thought this was the song of "an immature, irresponsible fellow." Would he have been more responsible to have embraced war, or to have rejected his religion? I also think 1999 was intended as a rhetorical rather than literal allusion to the end of the world. |
submissions
| Prince – Sister Lyrics
| 14 years ago
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This song is about incestuous sexual abuse of a sexually inexperienced sixteen year old boy by his thirty-two year old sister, whom the lyrics imply has custody of him. She is described as making love exclusively to her brother despite being "loose" and refusing to wear undergarments because of their inhibiting the flow of her sexual juices. The boy in the song feels guilt about the relationship, "I was only 16 but I guess that's no excuse," even though he also says he just wants to be her friend. This guilt is common in survivors of sexual abuse. She teaches him about some sort of penetrative sex in addition to oral sex. The song then refers to her prostitution of him, "She only wanted to turn me out," and his reluctance, "Don't put me on the street again." It says she whipped him until he cried out, which is again intermingling sexual abuse with physical abuse.
Once again, Prince is proving himself socially aware and politically active. I think it's interesting that all the way back in 1979 this song was out there letting people know that it's not just women and girls who get abused by men and boys, but that abuse can occur with the genders reversed. People still forget that, today. I also think it's interesting that the others who comment, not just here but elsewhere, see the shock value so much more clearly than any potential social commentary that might make us aware of what can happen so that we can help those who need help. There are lots of places for abused women and girls to go for help, but our society tends to disbelieve or ridicule male victims of abuse. It would be good if songs like this led to greater awareness and change. Instead, it's more common for them to be used as an excuse for censorship, which I find extremely sad. |
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