NJ Kpopper is again focusing in on the "Parade" album, soundtrack to "Under the Cherry Moon", ground zero of teenage romantic angst. Again, might be just my personal bias linked to a place and time, but I think this is great stuff. I have been listening to that album again.
Again, again, because it seems like it never left me. It was always inside. Let's zoom in even further. One track, that is treated as a throwaway joke in the film, is "Girls & Boys" - not a hit single, not a romantic ballad, just "fluff". But Prince's fluff is no ordinary fluff.
The song is a monumental funky groove that he could have used to launched the career of another "Bangles" had Prince chosen to gift the song. You can listen while it lasts on YouTube. Let's zoom in again. Just the lyrics...
We start with
He only knew her for a little while,
but he had grown accustomed to her style
Not only cute, but smooth and metrical. To be followed by a pleasantly jarring provocation, mild by Prince's standards...
She had the cutest ass he'd ever seen
He did too, they were meant to be
That earthiness sets the stage for a rapid liftoff into romanticism...
They loved to kiss on the steps of Versailles
It looked like rain, mama, birds do fly
I love you baby, I love you so much,
maybe we can stay in touch
Meet me in another world, space and joy,
vous etes tres belle, mama, girls and boys
Then a bit of tragedy, doomed romantic love, and a sophisticated french filip to close...
He gave her all the love that anyone can,
but she was promised to another man
He tried so hard not to go insane
Birds do fly, looks like rain
I love you baby, I love you so much,
Maybe we can stay in touch
Meet me in another world, space and joy,
vous etes tres belle, mama, girls and boys
Sounds great so far, but the mark of greatness is to keep on reaching higher, which Prince achieves in the next two heartbreaking lines...
Life is precious baby, love is so rare
I can take the breakup if you say that you care
After that the song continues, and the "meet me in another world" line takes on deeper resonance...
He had to run away, his pride was too strong
It started raining, baby, the birds were gone
(I love you baby, I love you so much)
Maybe (Maybe we can stay in touch)
Meet me in another world (Meet me in another world, space and joy)
All of this, still "encoded" in the trappings of a pop song that many people may not bother to listen to the words to, even if they can discover its existence 30 years later.
This is by way of tribute and exculpation (and proof) of my earlier comment that Prince had too much talent that things came easily to him. NJ Kpopper was someone whose character was formed by actually listening to all of those Prince lyrics.
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