Prince and the Revolution- Purple Rain

My tape is obviously damaged in some way, but the effect is appropriate. Bass heavy with all treble removed, it gives the effect of standing outside a club waiting to get in and hearing the pulse of the club through thick concrete walls. It's like I've been magically transformed to First Avenue in 1983 and am listening to Prince and the Revolution play a legendary pre-Purple Rain show but I can't get in. Of course it would be sold out. I'd be too young. I wouldn't know about it in the first place. And I lived three states away at the time.

You couldn't deny Prince. At least not in 1985. I tried, but eventually I heard "Let's Go Crazy" or maybe even "Darling Nikki" one to many times and gave in. I either traded or bought a used copy off of my neighbor and it became my lawn mowing soundtrack for the rest of the summer.

I can hear my Sony Walkman in the sound. I'd play the album once or twice before the batteries would start to go and the songs would start to slow down as the tape could no longer provide enough juice to turn the wheels at full speed. At that point mowing the lawn would become a real chore and I'd rush through the job so I could get back to my home stereo and its stable power source.

Prince albums were always fascinating to look at. Maybe that's what made me finally cave and get into him. I'd venture over to the music section of pre-Target discount stores (anybody remember Venture?) and obsess over the details found in the vinyl album covers of 1999 and Purple Rain, both of which seemed to be display with an equal amount of promotion at the time.

I still like Prince, but I've given up on the idea of an artistic comeback that could match the output he was steadily cranking out around the time of Purple Rain. Those days are long gone, and are about as likely as my old copy of Purple Rain suddenly sounding like an overly compressed mp3.

"Darling Nikki" still sounds as sleazy as it ever did, and I can't help but think of the PMRC and Tipper Gore when I listen to it. The newly acquired Prince fans that weren't won over by the radio and the film most certainly were intrigued by her lurid descriptions of what happened in Prince songs. I know I was.

I'm walking away from the club as "When Doves Cry" plays and kicks off the second side of the tape. The sound is growing more distant, the bass heavier, which is notable because there isn't a bass line in the song. That's how damaged the tape is. But I'll take this over warping. It's like memory itself. It's there but pieces are missing.

Purple Rain is tainted by memories of the movie now, which really is a different animal. But it's nice to hear this album again in fidelity that approximates what I was listening to then. I can almost see my Sony Walkman and cheap fuzzy yellow headphones as I carve lines into the back yard grass, trying to make out the lyrics to Purple Rain over the engine roar and hoping the batteries will make it until the end.