This last weekend I made a trip up with Nate and Laura to visit Bethany, Dae Hee, Nora, and Colleen. On Saturday night we made our way to Long Lake to eat at Primo. Dae Hee and I left early so we could swing by Paisley Park to see the Prince Memorial.
Below are some pictures.
So part of the reason I went to Paisley Park is because it was history. It was like going to Graceland after Elvis died. However, it wasn’t the majority of the reason that I went.
I don’t normally get too caught up in celebrity deaths. It is usually a time when people flock to social media to overstate their “relationship” with the deceased celebrity.
However Prince’s death to have an effect on me. I can’t claim to be a huge fan of Prince’s music, although I did enjoy it. I also admired his musicality and he was without a doubt one of the foremost musical geniuses of the last 50 years. He produced an album a year for over a decade. There are rumors that he has well over a thousand unreleased songs that he has recorded and not released. On some of his biggest hits he played every instrument on the recording. Often recording the song in one day. Often recording more than one song in a day in this manner.
One of my favorite Prince stories is when he played the Super Bowl halftime show in the pouring rain. The producers of the halftime show were worried that he would want to pull out. When they called him and asked him about the rain he gave a great response.
“Can you make it rain harder?”
The rain didn’t stop until he played his final song of the night, Purple Rain. Despite this fact, he gave what was easily the best Super Bowl Halftime show in history. A show that will stand the test of time for its pure virtuosity alone.
I’ll miss Prince because one of my fondest memories of my childhood was my eldest sister Teresa’s friends infatuation with Prince (even though I think Teresa was more into Phil Collins). One even dressed like Prince and his license plates matched Prince’s from PURPLE RAIN. It is up there with listening to Casey Kasem’s Top 40 on family road trips. Or Dad telling Teresa that if she wanted to go Hall some Oates, he could take her to a farm.
Prince dying is like a piece of my childhood dying.
I may have to become an adult yet.
Bowie and Prince have hit me hard. There are celebrity deaths that I think are a true shame and a loss of great talent, like Philip Seymour Hoffman – but I don’t have any personal connection to them. Bowie has been one of my great loves, and Prince was up there. Some of my youngest childhood memories, some of the good ones, are of bonding with some of the adults in my life over Prince songs. He was incredibly talented, but I think he meant something in many’s lives. That’s a great legacy.
“Prince dying is like a piece of my childhood dying.
I may have to become an adult yet.”
I completely agree. Prince wasn’t my cup of tea, but he was talented and I remember him while I grew up. Always there, always the influence.
Thanks for sharing.
David Bowie was an example of somebody that didn’t effect me when he died. I like him okayish, but felt no connection with him. Probably more effected by Hoffman’s death, but that is probably because of his tour de force performance in TWISTER.
Did I say TWISTER? I meant TWISTER. I mean TWISTER. Ugh… I meant DOUBT or CAPONE or TWISTER…
To quote Dusty in TWISTER, “The Suck Zone.”
It is actually hard to pick just one great performance in that movie. However, the scene when he argues to go to Aunt Meg’s by repeating “FOOOOOD!” with Rabbit.
Well…
It stirs the heart.
On a sidenote, that movie wasn’t very good when it came out. It certainly hasn’t aged well either.
“[Not] very good” is very, very generous of you.
Ah, Helen Hunt. Why? We get Bill Paxton, but you were at the height of your career.
Who wouldn’t sign up to film a movie in Pilot Mound, Iowa?
A fool. That is who.
Although I do wish that the people who made that movie had done the slightest bit of research on tornadoes. It would’ve at least given the movie a fighting chance at mediocrity then.
I feel the same about the movie PURPLE RAIN. Whomever made that movie should’ve done some research on Prince. Wait I’m being told that Prince made that movie. Nevermind.