Mission: Impossible

Ten years ago today, Prince passed away at his Paisley Park complex in Chanhassen, MN. One of the best things I read at the time was written by Bomani Jones from a hotel room in Paris. 

I was reminded of that last week when Bo recorded a pair of podcasts remembering the Purple One. And I remembered listening to Prince on SiriusXM with my kids on a long car ride - was likely their first extended exposure, and the first time in more than a decade that I really dug into the genius' catalog.

Jones' podcasts got me thinking about Prince's music. In particular, my favorite of his songs. The ones he recorded, not the ones he wrote - that list is far too long to contemplate. So I set a challenge that's described by the title of this post. I decided to pick my five favorite Prince songs.

I'll get to the list in a minute. Couple of explanatory notes first. My faves are gonna tilt heavily to his early records (one in particular), or at least from "1999" forward. That's when I was turned on to his stuff, and when I spent the most time with it. I leaned hard into progressive tunes when I first heard The Smiths' "Louder Than Bombs" in 1987, and didn't get back around to Prince until much later. And I never really got into his post-"Love Symbol" records. So we're really only talking about "Dirty Mind" in 1980 through the aforementioned Symbol in 1992 as the consideration set. 

And it's still fucking hard to pick just five songs.

For fuck's sake, the list doesn't include When You Were Mine, Uptown, 1999, Delirious, Let's Go Crazy, Darlin' Nikki, Purple Rain, Raspberry Beret, Pop Life, Kiss, Sign O' the Times, U Got the Look, If I Was Your Girlfriend, I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man, Gett Off, Erotic City, and Sexy MF, among a lot of others.

If you're a connoisseur, you could probably figure out my top five from the omissions above. Because I'm a man of the people, I'll make it easy for you.

In no particular order, my top five Prince songs:

In the fall of 1984, I was a painfully naive young lad coming to terms with my utter inability to talk to/attract girls at the same time that I was completely enamored of them. In the basement of a friend's house, a mixed group danced to "Purple Rain", and the girls went nuts when I Would Die 4 U came on. That was the very first time I ever danced with a girl. It left a mark. Music as memory, as we've discussed at length here before. (And I was this week old before I realized it was about Jesus.)

I'd heard Little Red Corvette many times before I caught onto the way its fundamental raunchiness masked the vulnerability of a dude not quite sure he was gonna measure up. But when I got it, I certainly got it, though it didn't help with that previously noted naïveté with the ladies. Corvette edges out its thematic cousin Raspberry Beret because it's just that much sexier.

The chronologically latest song on my list hit me out of the blue in 1992 upon the release of the "Love Symbol" album. 7 didn't sound like any Prince tune I'd heard before, but its chorus got me right in the tuning fork in my chest. It's definitely the wild card on this list.

I'd argue that Prince's guitar virtuosity was an under-discussed topic until relatively recently. Folks focused on his hypersexy lyrics, funky grooves, brilliant live shows, and prolific musicianship. But "Purple Rain" is a guitar-forward record, and the opening lick of When Doves Cry is a damn call to arms. 

Returning to a theme for our final tune, Purple Rain showed that shy and clueless young man a glimpse of something entirely new. In the short term, it accelerated feelings of longing for amorphous but assuredly sexy and sweaty and not at all dorky possibility. Take Me With U felt like that kid asking a more mature, experienced and cute girl for a favor. And that seemed very real at the time.

This version has a naaaasty guitar solo. 

And as a lagniappe to keep the groove rolling, get some of his 1985 live show from Syracuse. It's fucking bonkers. In the best way.