Dearly beloved, what does one say about the passing of time? About the emptying and filling of space? How does one talk about death? About a ladder to heaven? Is God a man, a woman, or both? Is death a cacophony, or is it gentle and silent? And what does silence look like?
Purple. Today, silence looks purple.
Prince is dead. We live in a world where that can happen – where Prince and Bowie can both die in the same year only months apart. Where it snows in April just as hard as it did in January. Maybe it’s climate change driving the aliens away – those people that conquered humanity to such a degree that we can’t help but look at them as other-worldly. People die all around the world all the time but not these people. These people are as close to super heroes as we’ve ever come. And they’re gone. Nothing will compare to them.
Prince said a great many things in his almost 40 year career. Many of them are too funky to print here, but here’s one that resonates, “Life is a party, and parties weren’t meant to last.” Parties are internal chaos and disorder unified in external joy fantastic.
Prince is much the same – within him we see the sexed-up dude leaning on the bar talking to a girl about his new guitar and how he’d like to show it to her, the activist enlightening some party-goers on how broken-window policing perpetuates gang-violence, the fashionista slung across a couch, too cool to comment, the boy that feels more like a girl and the girl that feels more like a boy, the spiritualist trying to help a sad drunk find his center, the business men discussing contract obligations and intellectual property ownership – all of these individuals gathered at this party, engaged in very serious conversation with each other and with the world, yet having a ball, dancing – they are all Prince, or rather Prince is all of them.
An unlikely combo of social and sexual commentary blended with virtuoso artistry, pop sensibility, strict business ideals, and a passion for fun/k. He made consciousness sexy. He made activism bounce. He made music into love, and love into music. He had hits (my god, did he have hits), but he had misses as well. He kept moving. He made a statement and pushed forward. He had a tremendous amount of compassion, but he was also kind of a prick. He was sweet, but not always nice. He made pop, but he made art.
He was Prince. Chaos and order. Yin and Yang. He and she. Prince.
Singer, guitarist, pianist, drummer, producer, writer, actor. Prince. 39 albums and seven Grammys. He crystalized chaos into flawless amethyst and made it look easy. Prince was a party that lasted as long as a party possibly could: a lifetime.
Here’s something else Prince said, in an interview with Notorious magazine, “Music is real. It affects people, it’s real. … The other night I went to a club and I watched a DJ control an entire room. Even politicians can’t do that.” This is a tremendous truth.
Prince and Bowie are gone but these politicians are still around making everybody miserable and telling us what we can’t do or what is wrong to do. Prince showed us what we can do, what is okay to do; it’s okay to speak your mind, even when your thoughts are freaky; it’s okay to dance; it’s okay to be androgynous, to be gay, to be straight, to be black, to be U. Yes he is gone, but this knowledge remains. The music remains. The movies and TV skits remain. The party is over but the memory of the party reigns on, and the prince that was more a king reigns on, and the purple rains and reigns on ad perpetuam rai memoriam.
Perhaps a metaphor about doves crying would be appropriate here. But there’s something else Prince said that may serve us better on this dark maroon day, “always cry for love, never cry for pain.” The doves might mourn how we scream at each other, but they’re also celebrating the fact that despite our screaming, there is hope; there is life. It’s an ugly world but life is beautiful. Prince had life, and life is an electric word. It means forever and that’s a mighty long time.
What else is there to say? The details surrounding his death are still scarce, but his body was found at his Paisley Park Studio, collapsed on the elevator. It seems he finally punched it to a higher floor. He was 57. May he rest in purple.
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