When you wanna find some isolation
But the tracker you got from vaccination (Keeps playing)
Keeps playing "You'll Never Walk Alone" (Over and over)
They're always listening, especially on the phone
When the lines blur every boy and girl
How we gonna make it in this brave new world?
Prince is a fascinating study that makes more and more sense now that we have a very different world revealed to us. The layers are deep...very deep. Any book you pick up on Prince is going to be a fascinating one. I fully believe he took a deal which he regretted later and used many subtle and not-so subtle ways to let you and I know. Around 1995 you were being told that Prince was failing, his career ruined, but the truth is that he was playing 2 hour long shows and then heading straight over to a nearby small club to play another 2 hours. Jam sessions where he played the music he loved growing up. He often started these sets with Santana's "Soul Sacrifice." I do believe his agreement made had a "ending date" in mind. When he died, he had been awake for 6 days. At his last show, fans following the past few days knew something was very wrong. A few days before, a plane had to land that he was on....he had developed a pill problem, which I think became accelerated as he knew he had less and less time left. At the last show he told fans "Don't waste your prayers on me.." He had taken a deal when he was younger and wanted out in the worst way. I won't tell you he was always on the right side, fighting a war. There were peaks and valleys. He had a 1997 interview with Oprah in which he seemed to admit defeat, saying he understands Mo Astin and Warners bros music in a way he did not before,and strangely said something long the lines of "I had an imaginary friend at 5, whos' spirit I took into me." which seemed to be a call of "I am coming back into the fold, and no longer fighting my Janus programming." Many remember that this was a month after his son had already died, something he did not want to talk about with Oprah, and he only said "everything was good." which I cannot blame him for, because that is not something I would want to talk about with Oprah either. Did something intentionally happen to the child that put pure horror into him and cause him to drop the record label war he had been fighting? Hard to say, but with Oprah, the interview almost seemed as a surrender......for a time at least.