Op-Ed: Remembering Prince

Posted: by Findlay

I can’t believe I’m writing this and I’m going to try to do him justice even though words could never fill the cup of gratitude he deserves, but on Thursday April 21st 2016, Prince died.

His Royal Badness, The Purple One, Alexander Nevermind is gone.

Prince was the greatest musician that ever graced this planet and to some people he was more than music. He was church, god, hymns and everything in between. A completely transcendent being given to us as an experiment from the ether. Not a test, but a gift.

What Prince meant to me is worth more than I could ever repay him in a thousand lifetimes. He saved my life. He made me realise that I am who I am and I’m as unique and perfect and you and you and you and you and you. A god who made his own image and music completely to his tastes. Unfettered by conventions in the music world, un-phased by sexual partitions. A 5 ft 1 alien of fluid lust and worship. Someone who encouraged sexual fluidity and sensuality. Prince lived and died by human sexuality and was constantly reshaping his Utopia where everyone was constantly in a state of euphoria, no matter what your preference, he would show u the door to go through.

Prince was the source of all music. He was a conduit that flowed outward and inward, self-perpetuating a constant, almost dutiful stream of constant output. If he wasn’t making heartbreaking piano ballads, he was belting out dance floor bangers about sexuality and politics (sometimes in the same song). The breadth of songwriting extending to other artists, writing (or plain fucking giving) songs for Sinead O’Connor, The Bangles and Tevin Campbell or making complete albums for bands like The Time, whose debut album has Prince playing every single second of music on it AND even having backing vocals that ARE BETTER than lead singer Morris Day’s.

It was always impossible to think of Prince as a mortal being, and I’m finding comfort in the knowledge that he’s finally part of the cosmic seas he lived on in his Come album. I know he’s sitting in an impossible blue midnight on the shore, covered in diamonds and whispering dirty as fuck stuff to all gods Seraphs while he playfully pours champagne over their wings. I know he’s trying to fuck an angel, I know it.

Prince has a place in everyone’s life. He’s completely crystalized in people’s memories of their lives. Wether it be dancing around the living room with their mum in 1992 to “Lets Go Crazy,” or sneaking looks at the Purple Rain booklet to see if there were any pictures of Darling Nikki, or hearing an ex-girlfriend imitate his vibrato in the car to Ikea, or hearing 1999 AT the Millennium New Year’s Party or trying to turn “Lets Pretend We’re Married” off before your too-young cousins hear him saying “I wanna fuck the taste out your mouth”, or screaming out the end of “Diamonds and Pearls” in private. He’s there, the hand on the shoulder of your existence. Maybe not always in the foreground, but always in another room, just audible enough.

I can’t thank him enough for the hours of endless joy he’s given me, the people close to me and the world around me. Countless hours of singing, listening, dancing, imitating, laughing, bewilderment and total pure, undiluted love. Eye Luv U Prince.

I leave u here, with my favourite Prince lyrics, and a true testament to how truly one-of-a-kind, beautiful and humorous he was:

“How beautiful do the words have 2 be
Before they conquer every heart?
How will u know if im even in the right key
If u make me stop before I start
If I came back as a dolphin,
Would u listen to me then?”

Prince – “Dolphin”