Et Tu, Prince?

The Artist Formerly Known As Prince, Prince for short, has found God, and, according to the New Yorker, a new world view to boot:

"So here's how it is: you've got the Republicans, and basically they want to live according to this." He pointed to a Bible. "But there's the problem of interpretation, and you've got some churches, some people, basically doing things and saying it comes from here, but it doesn't. And then on the opposite end of the spectrum you've got blue, you've got the Democrats, and they're, like, 'You can do whatever you want.' Gay marriage, whatever. But neither of them is right."

When asked about his perspective on social issues — gay marriage, abortion — Prince tapped his Bible and said, "God came to earth and saw people sticking it wherever and doing it with whatever, and he just cleared it all out. He was, like, 'Enough.'

Of course, the sudden preaching of superior morals comes from a guy who's gotten rich writing lyrics like these:

I knew a girl named Nikki
I guess you could say she was a sex fiend,
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine.
She said how'd you like to waste some time?
And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind

I also remember (rather fondly, I confess) Vanity 6, the female trio (mmmm, female trio...) that Prince created and produced in the early eighties. The name Vanity, I just learned, was the cleaned-up version of Vagina — and 6, Prince decided, was the perfect number here because it represented the group's titty count. Here are some sample lyrics from the Vanity 6 hit Nasty Girl:

That's right, I can't control it
I need seven inches or more
Tonight I can no longer hold it
Get it up, get it up
I can't wait anymore

Ah, good times.

Now, I'm down with either side. Want to fiddle away your time penning some pretty juvenile porn lyrics? Not a peep out of me. Want to spend your life praising Jehova and expounding on the importance of narrow sexual morals? No prob. You just can't do both. You can't be, to stay in musico-political terms, Frank Zappa and Tipper Gore. Not unless you want to join the small, sad club of rock industry hypocrites that's headed by Ted Nugent, the man who wrote appreciatively about sex with teenagers in Wang Dang Sweet Poontang ("she's so sweet when she yanks on my meat") and then inveighed against the sexual permissiveness of hippies.

The New Yorker article doesn't explain how Prince squares his libertine self with his religious alter ego. Has he given all the money he made in his androgynous, secular days (days spent bumping and grinding onstage in ways befitting the most flaming bisexual) to his church? Has he donated it all to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign? That would at least be a sign that he's, you know, a principled bigot.

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Watch Prince skillfully turn a paid assassin into another notch on his bed post. Her name (can't make this shit up): Nona Gaye.

Comments

[batteryguy]

Nothing new here. Are you familiar with Little Richard? Same thing, different decade.