The flip side of that religious aspect, of course, was the sensual side. 'Sensual' is probably too tame a word to describe this side of Prince-- 'nasty' is more like it. Nasty the way Vanity 6 sang about being nasty. But he was really just being frank rather than dirty. He wasn't trying to be obscene for obscenity's sake. "I'm just being honest", as Andre 3000 sang in his song "Hey Ya", off his side of an Outkast joint that was as close as anyone else has come to making their own version of a Prince album, The Love Below.
To Prince, sex and God were two sides of the same coin. They were the only real topics that meant anything to him in his songwriting. Sometimes he could get political in a naive-yet-earnest fashion, and for a long time he was stuck on the theme of unrequited love/jilted romance, which happened to be some of his best work as well. Still, sex and God were the two subjects he went back to time and time again, and yet there was a third passion that he expressed in his music with wordless enthusiasm: the love of music itself.
Music was the third part of his holy trinity. It mattered just as much as God, and maybe sometimes more than sex. But he never wrote a song about liking music-- he didn't have to; the joy was evident in his drive to constantly create and perform. Even at age 57, he showed no signs of slowing down. I thought he was going to be with us for a very long time. I thought I was going to get a chance to see him live one more time.
Prince's music was a constant throughout my life, and the amount of messages, texts and calls I've been receiving from everyone I know goes a long way to demonstrating how much I identified with the man and his talent. For many of my friends, I am the first person they thought of when they heard the news. And there is a small but loyal group of friends and family out there for whom I know this news is just as devastating. His music wasn't just the soundtrack to my life; it was also my escape when times got tough.
When my parents divorced, it seemed like my whole world ended. But there was Prince and his songs, helping me get through, helping me to forget that things hurt just for a little while. When I felt inadequate or beaten down, hearing his music would bring out a swagger in me that couldn't be put away easily. I was able to accomplish so many things because I heard his music in my head. I skewered up the courage to ask girls out, or get up on a stage and play, or open up a Bible even when I wasn't feeling it, all because his music had such an impact on me.
Prince made me feel special, and meeting fellow Prince fans meant making good friends with exquisite taste. Going to a Prince show meant that you could see all the girls he talked about in his lyrics come to life: Darling Nikki, Little Red Corvette, Sister, Lady Cab Driver, the girl with the Raspberry Beret, Apollonia, Vanity, Sheila E., Carmen Electra... all sorts of girls dressed in lingerie and holding tickets to see the man who somehow got them to pray every night before bed.
I met some real dedicated Prince fans in my life, way more dedicated than me. Some of them scared me with how devoted they were to him. I'm sure they scared him too. He was haunted by the shooting of John Lennon and that was one contributing factor to his notorious reclusiveness. He once talked about how the word 'fan' was short for 'fanatic', and he was right. He loved his fans obviously, but he didn't necessarily make music for them. He didn't do it for money. He didn't even do it for fame. If Prince had never made it big, he still would have made music, because it was in him. It was a part of him. It was him. It was all he really had, after everything else came and went.
In many ways, I feel luckier than Prince. I am still alive, for one thing; also, I'm a father, something he was not successful at achieving. And even though he had the love of millions of fans, I think he was ultimately alone. I think of a quote from Marquis de Sade (of all people) that goes something like this:
"What living man would not instantly revise his tastes, his affections, his penchants and bring them into harmony with the general scheme, what man, rather than continue a freak, would not prefer to be like everyone else, were it in his power to do so."
I think Prince would've given it all up if it meant being able to play in the sunshine anonymously again. I think he would've traded fame and fortune in for a nice family life, with a wife and a child or two or six. Maybe that's why he worked so hard, maybe that's why he never relented in his pursuit of of his muse: maybe he felt like those normal, mundane things were dreams forever out of his reach, and that his only recourse was to play his guitar like no other could, and play that piano like only he could, and sing at the top of his lungs with fury and passion and soul.
I never got a chance to thank him in person, so I'll do it now: thank you Prince. My life may not be as glamorous as yours was, but it is infinitely brighter for your having been in it.
