1984. Spring. I watched MTV as I was supposed to at 12, but
wasn’t moved by anything I heard. I had yet to discover any music that spoke to
me, that really made me feel. There was lots of music that was fun, or interesting,
but nothing that transported me. I didn’t even know that there was music that
could do so.
Then ‘When Doves Cry’. I remember being electrified by
the opening riff, riveted to my seat as the video unfolded, the jarring, almost
chanting over drums that gave way to a very hooky piano. I was uncomfortable
with this dude in the bathtub standing up, but that stopped when the lyrics
started. I couldn’t relate at all to the broken relationship described, y’know,
being 12, but the images in the words told a story and that made it gripping.
And the music itself, able to illustrate by turns anger
and aggression, longing and love, disparate emotions working together in one
little pop song. So perfectly composed and performed, though I wouldn’t
understand for years. With no basis for relating to the subject of the song, I
nevertheless felt everything that was encoded into it.
It was the day I was imprinted with a standard for how
much music needed to affect me to really matter.
There have been few artists that have ever met The Prince
Standard for being emotionally and intellectually satisfying to me, and I
treasure all of them.
Ordinarily I don’t feel much when a celebrity dies; they
are strangers to me, regardless how familiar I am with their work. Prince provided
me bright spots in a childhood and adolescence too frequently shadowed. He gave
me an escape, and a way of thinking about music that could help me escape more.
And he never stopped creating good stuff, always weirdly young, seeming like he
would never, ever end.
Until he did.
CSW
April 21, 2016
