I totally wanted to ditch work today and stay home to watch all the Prince coverage and tributes on TV. I was responsible, though, and instead DVR’ed CBS This Morning so I could at least watch the interview with Sheila E. later.
I am also fairly sure you don’t need another blog post on why Prince was GENIUS. (He was.) But I will tell you that I come from a Prince-loving family and after hearing the news, I was texting my brother and sister throughout the evening, reminiscing about the concerts we went to and the albums we have.
Teacher Man and I drank red wine and watched old Prince videos on MTV and online, while trying to explain to Joe what Prince’s music meant to us (children of the 80s) and the world. I think the biggest impact was made when I asked Joe to guess how many instruments Prince played on his first album. That would be 27, and Joe’s eyes widened more than a bit.
Want to know what it’s like to grow up in a tiny little town in Minnesota and be a Prince fan? Read this funny, touching tribute by someone I grew up with in my hometown of Hector. (And Mom, don’t pay any mind to the swearing.) It seemed like in our little school, you were either a massive Prince fan or a massive hair band fan – not sure if that was really true or only how I remember it (memory is an interesting thing!) but I know I was firmly in the Prince camp.
“Prince belonged to everybody. But holy shit did he really belong to Minnesota.”
Yes he did. And I have a feeling we’ll be listening to some Prince songs this weekend. I hope you will too!
Lara
I went to my first Prince concert on May 6, 1990 with my brother, who kept this ticket stub. $10 for an arena show in Saint Paul, which I think was a gift from Prince to his Minnesota fans. (My second Prince concert was in 2001 with my sister – also in Saint Paul.)
My brother was a huge fan and has his first two albums on vinyl.
Oddly I wore purple flats for the first time in ages the day before Prince passed away.
So many songs I clearly need to revisit … I don’t know that I can even pick one definitive song as my favorite. This morning I listened to “Never Take the Place of Your Man” which I had totally forgotten about. And when I listen to Prince, I will often fall back on “Raspberry Beret” because I can’t help it. I love that song.
I can’t even begin to tell you how awesome Prince’s guitar solo is in this clip. Jaw-dropping awesome.