Reflection by Greg Carlson

The first words I wrote for the High Plains Reader covered Prince’s December 8, 1997 Fargodome concert. Editor John Lamb knew I was a big fan, and asked me to say something about the show. John’s gesture meant a great deal to me, and my work for HPR has been an important part of my life ever since that memorable winter.

Purple-blooded followers of the Minnesota Vikings know that their devotion is anything but easy, and after the Revolution disbanded and especially into the new century, the Prince faithful increasingly felt some of the same kind of pain. The poorly conceived and shabbily administrated NPG Music Club was more frustrating than fabulous. I laid out some premium cash for the privilege, but that vault always felt a lot emptier than I dreamed it would be.

And then you hoped each release would be a new masterpiece.

I definitely preferred the young libertine to the sanctimonious proselytizer, and could not shake off the dark clouds when Prince said to Clare Hoffman of “The New Yorker,” “God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out.”

Prince, speaking against same sex marriage and personal freedom? Prince, initiating a lawsuit against his fans? Prince, who effortlessly balanced the sacred and the profane for so long, turning his back on some of the best songs in his catalog?

Sorry, but I just gotta go back to a time when “I Wanna Be Your Lover,” “Sister,” “Controversy,” and “D.M.S.R.” were on the agenda instead.

I am no John Bream-level expert, even though I can safely claim that I have spent more hours listening to Prince’s music than to the work of any other recording artist. I never visited Paisley Park. I only saw him perform a total of four times, a far cry from the 160 gigs witnessed by Mark Bonde, interviewed by my friend Ross Raihala for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. But Prince was singular. Sui generis. Spectacular. Special.

Prince’s appeal – sexual, musical, cultural – transcended geographical and generational differences, but if you were a kid born in the late 1960s to early 1970s, and you grew up in Minnesota, then you were in the sonic sweet spot for an experience that shaped many a grade school, junior high, and high school student’s worldview. Many of the eulogies and tributes have pointed out Prince’s trailblazing gender performances, and I can confirm that seeing the man in black bikini underwear and a studded trench coat went an awful long way to making me feel that being different was better than OK.

Well before the formation of the PMRC, my second grade teacher confiscated her own daughter’s Prince cassettes. I think she overheard “Do Me, Baby” and feared total corruption. This dire information led me to keep a close eye on my personal copies, but my folks never threatened to prohibit the music that pulsated from my boombox’s speakers, even if I was more likely to dance to “Delirious” than “Let’s Pretend We’re Married,” at least when mom and dad were home.

The atomic detonation of “Purple Rain” was for many of us the before/after demarcation of Prince’s total takeover. The wildly popular movie tie-in poster adorned my teenage self’s bedroom wall, even though I was not allowed to attend anything R-rated. Unlike some of my classmates, who managed to sneak in or encounter a sympathetic or apathetic box office cashier, I watched the film on HBO at a friend’s house, paying strict attention to Apollonia – in and out of the purifying waters of not-Lake Minnetonka. The electrifying musical performances formed the most perfect soundtrack I have ever heard.

The journey from childhood to adolescence doesn’t happen overnight, but I can trace my epiphany to a solitary moment in time: dancing close and slow to all 8 minutes and 41 seconds of the title track with the smart and gorgeous Angie Nagel, her arms around my neck, my hands on the back pockets of her faded Levi’s.

“Purple Rain” raged like a forest fire, and true believers would be vaporized by a string of once-per-year releases that included “Around the World in a Day,” “Parade,” and “Sign o’ the Times,” forming Prince’s second block of unimpeachable records and cementing his status as one of the greatest of all-time.

Music video world premieres on MTV were can’t-miss events in my recently cable-equipped house, and I lost my mind when Prince coughed at the beginning of “Raspberry Beret,” slid toward the stomach of Monique Manning in “Kiss,” and hopped on Lisa Coleman’s white grand piano in “Mountains.”

I think I am going to go watch them right now.