Purple Rain: Let's Go Crazy

A lyrical interpretation of a Prince masterpiece:

Life is an electric word that means forever, which is a long time, but Prince is here to tell us there’s the afterworld.

The afterworld is a place of never-ending happiness where you can always see the sun, day, and night.

Now bearing this afterworld in mind, next time you call up your shrink-slash-drug-dealer in Beverly Hills, don’t ask him how much time you have left, ask him how much of your mind is left (it’s asking questions like this that keeps shrinks in business).

You should ask this question because life here is much harder than life in the afterworld, because life here is lived on your own.

If you don’t like life, and you get depressed, don’t take drugs, think about the “higher floor”.

Even though Prince said earlier that you were alone, well you actually have friends, for example he called up his old lady for a chat and she started simulating sex (see how comforting that is? Saying “old lady” and “sex” together like that?)

So, hey, don’t get depressed go look for the purple banana until they take you to a mental institution.

Death makes us get over excited, we wonder what the point of life (and this song) is, but we don’t get depressed about it, we get carted off to mental institutions instead.

Kids, just say no to drugs (and daffodils) because He (and Prince) is coming. (Again, see how comforting that is… the idea of Prince and, I suppose, God “coming”. )

I think what we’re really supposed to take from the song is this: let's have a party.

And then there’s the end of the song. The end fits with the beginning. We have had the stately start, been lifted up by the song sermon, and now we get the big finale (as in a black gospel church finale, not a hand-around-the-tea-and-scones white-church finale). When that guitar lifts out of all the synthesized pomposity and scorches alone, slightly breaking up – oh, man! It had more impact for me back in 1984 because playing guitar that fast seemed impossible, like we had entered another realm, like Prince had really leaped beyond the song and gone to, well, the afterworld.

Later on, sitting in various bedrooms around my crummy hometown with heavy metal albums and guys with guitars replaying solos note perfectly, I realised that even though it seems like you want more of that kind of Let’s Go Crazy guitar solo you don’t… less really is more.