Mourning After

My brother just Facebook messaged me two links to unreleased songs by the late, great musician Prince and all I could think was … meh.

It’s not that I didn’t love Prince.  I don’t know if I could deeply express how much his music and talent meant and inspired me.  When he passed a year ago last April I was devastated in a way I had never been by the death of a celebrity.  I cried for two weeks.  It hit home like no other had.  But maybe that’s the paradox of fame and the fan worship that accompanies it.  Learning how deeply you connected and had come to care for someone you really didn’t know.   Suddenly, I understood how all those Elvis fans felt decades ago.

I would equate his passing to how it felt to me personally with John Lennon’s.  It was a shock and loss that cut sharply across the arbitrary lines of separation we humans create for ourselves.  Of course, I could say that about Michael Jackson, too.  But Michael’s music as great as it could be never blew me away like Prince’s did (or Lennon with the Beatles and their groundbreaking output).  I was once a young aspiring rock musician.  And Prince was a musician’s musician who set the bar so high you exhausted yourself trying to grasp it.

Then in the days that followed his death there was a deepening sadness.  We begin to learn under that bad boy reputation and eccentric exterior was someone who had been quietly doing good deeds wherever and whenever he saw a need.  To those truly close to him he was a good friend and a funny cat to boot.  I already knew he was a great rock star, but how often do you hear of greatness in the most humane sense extending beyond that stage?  Done with the specific intention to avoid any fanfare.

Sure, he still had a reputation but it was not one of self destructive behavior we’ve come to expect from rock stars.  Or I guess we should say he just hid it really well.  But then how could the dynamic physicality of his performances not take their toll year after year, tour after tour?  With the revelation of his cause of death, was he no more than the poster boy (okay, extreme poster boy) of the sweeping epidemic of prescription drug abuse currently gutting much of what we term “middle America”?  (Hello, Minneapolis.)  Sometimes I think major shit has to hit the fan to get us all woke AF (Hello, Donald Trump is President?).  Sometimes … it snows in April.

His songs, however, were part of the story of my youth.  Just like all songs from the time I was about 12 to maybe 27 were the story of my youth.  They were the soundtrack of what was happening to my life during its biggest most turbulent growth spurt.  They gave a voice to emotions and feelings I couldn’t quite express in my own words.  They gave them a tone.   They gave them a beat.  They were brilliantly adept at matching whatever mood my young developing psyche could spew forth at any moment.  And I knew, in a span of about three and a half minutes per song, I was not alone.  Somebody understood.

But that experience is not unique to me.  It is not unique to my generation.  We didn’t make greater music than 'what the kids listen to these days!' (Well, maybe Prince did … but he was Prince.)  Any more than the generations before us bitched about how they made better music.  It just happened to be the sounding board for the collective consciousness of the group experiencing the most "feeling" at that moment in time.  Each generation gets to have that for themselves to only share among themselves.  And that’s what popular music should always be.

So hearing two unreleased Prince tracks decades later I find is not something I need in my life much any more.  I won’t relate emotionally in the same way I did between 12 and 27.  Musically, the style and production techniques sound of their era.  (Sometimes … things are unreleased for a reason.)  Better songs from him and others have gone on to influence the next generation of musicians to innovate, express, put their spin on it, their heart in it and be the collective conscious voice of their now.  Step aside, old farts.  Let them have that.  And don't worry.  If you don’t always get it, that's because not everything is always yours to get.

But hey, why not take an occasional break from flipping through the dusty photo album that is the soundtrack of your youth.  Listen in the present.  Listen to the present.  Listen and be present. Trust me, if you dig deep enough, you will find music being made as good as any that has come (and gone) before.

But, yeah, you're not likely to find another Prince.  Not for a long time.  RIP you ridiculously talented and hard working MFer.