By Elliott West
“Despite everything no one can dictate who you are to other people”.
Prince
Introduction
I have to confess that before writing this piece, I didn’t know much about Prince Rogers Nelson or Prince as he was known to his adoring fans. I first came across his music when I went to a party, I think I was about 16 years old and was doing my A levels. Sitting in a crowded living room, a stereo system was blaring in the background with ‘When Doves Cry’ playing. I just remember thinking, who is this singing? Prince’s music blew my mind and from that moment I couldn’t get enough of this unique Minneapolis sound. An artist who has become regarded as one of the greatest musicians of his generation and sold over 100 million records worldwide. A singer whose vocal range was astronomical and who was a master of falsetto. A talented musician and a brilliant songwriter who wrote songs such hits as Nothing Compares 2 U by Sinéad O’Connor and Manic Monday by The Bangles with a songwriting catalogue of between 500-1000 songs. Although he officially released 39 albums, Prince had a wealth of unreleased material stored in a custom-built bank vault underneath his house including completed albums and over 50 music videos.
The Real Prince
“Had to work! Couldn’t sleep. Come see me.”
Prince
It is all very well quoting facts and figures but I try to keep my writing unique. So let’s try to delve deeper and find out a flavour of who this man was. A pop icon that was until he died in 2016, an enigma. To investigate further, I have looked at and researched his closest friends’ accounts of snippets of their times with him and it produces fascinating reading. The first thing I learned about Prince was that when you met him, you were instantly struck by how good he smelt, emanating a smell of lavender, a smell that swept you away to Paisley Park. A man who was small in stature and was affectionately referred to as a unicorn. A workaholic who was an insomniac and when friends visited, he would leave a note on the stairs to say that he couldn’t sleep and you could find him in his recording studio.
Prince loved to call his friends and often played a game with them. When the person answered, they wouldn’t know it was him because he never called from a number you would recognise and he would often put on a different accent, English or French to bamboozle the person on the other end of the telephone. This was a game that he played until the bitter end with an exacerbated listener finally cracking and shouting “Who is this?”. To which Prince would laugh and say that it was him. When he did have a normal telephone conversation, he would always start it with “This is Prince” in a deep voice.
Purple Beret
Prince rarely dressed informally and would wear couture stage clothes with boots custom-made by a shoemaker in Paris. One friend who was in a hurry to meet him at his house quickly went home and showered, throwing on the nearest available clothes, a baseball cap, jeans and a sweatshirt. Arriving at Prince’s studio, she went up the stairs and Prince was coming down the hall from his office. When he saw her he asked “Going fishing?”. Gwen Stefani also recalls the first time she met him, he was wearing an all-purple velour jumpsuit, something that Elvis would have worn, high heels and make-up, a living version of him. He didn’t take his boots off for anybody.
When Prince dressed down, it wasn’t by much. Three-inch tall flip-flops or heels with lights, lighting up wherever he walked. He didn’t have any pockets on his clothes and didn’t carry a wallet or a phone. He would always borrow your phone or the driver’s if he needed to make a call. He once walked into Caribou Coffee in Minnesota which is the equivalent of Starbucks. He used to go on with a $100 bill in his hand. He ordered his coffee, sat down drank it and left the $100 on the table. He did this because his clothes didn’t have any pockets to put his change in.
Riding High
Prince loved to cycle but he refused to wear a safety helmet. He could often be seen whizzing around his local area on a white mountain bike and even had a custom-painted BMX bike in his vault with videos of competitive BMX riding. He was quick on a bike and nimble and if he wasn’t on a bike, he was on a pair of roller skates, he loved the freedom, and the buzz and would often stop to talk to a passing fan. Yet he didn’t even dress down on a bicycle, matching his outfit to the print on the bicycle. He loved to ride to the cinema, buy it out and then go home with several of his friends for a jam in his studio. A great chat-up line when he was trying to impress a woman.
Food
Prince loved cooking for others but wasn’t a great food lover. He just liked smelling it and rarely ate. Breakfast was his forte and liked to use a lot of seasoning. Anyone who spent time with him, always said they were hungry when with him. His speciality was scrambled eggs. He put curry with a little bit of cheddar cheese in them, mixed with all-purpose seasonings. Yet he could not work an oven and didn’t even know how to turn it on. So that made his food even more mysterious. Although the cook probably turned on the cooker for him to start the process.
“He was our Bach. He was our Beethoven. And he was, in every way, my icon”.
Mark Anthony Green
A Quick Wit
Although enigmatic in public, Prince was very chatty and funny in private. He used to write everything down and even used to keep a notebook. In it, would mainly be jokes that he had heard or thought of. Friends say you couldn’t shut him up but he was difficult to have a conversation with, coming out with sparse and inarticulate answers that resonated with his shyness and vulnerability. This was an echo coming from a broken home and therefore having abandonment and trust issues. He never seemed to reconcile them in his short life.
Never Forgotten
Prince died on April 21, 2016, aged 57. He died after accidentally overdosing on fentanyl, an opioid drug used for pain relief and used for cancer patients and people recovering from surgery. A drug that is 50 to 100 times more potent than morphine. This was a tragedy that no one expected and followed the death of his close friend Michael Jackson in 2009 who had overdosed on propofol intoxication. He leaves a back catalogue that dwarves many artists of his time, producing a unique sound that you can only attribute to Prince. His genius runs through the songs of artists that he wrote for. A musical star was quiet but flamboyant at the same time and had a vocal range that reached notes that few could achieve. His was a master class that any student would run to the door of and never ceased to amaze by his various inventive stages.
