Being A Fan Of Prince From Afar

He was never in my wheelhouse, or at least I didn't think he was. In my younger days, I don't think I had the courage to declare myself, out loud, to be a Prince fan. In other words, I didn't have the courage to open myself up completely to a totally bold, courageous performer. I'm a white kid from small town Iowa. How in the hell can you relate to Prince?  But he was there, in my life, from a very early age.  And now he's not, and that's sad.

I grew up in the early days of MTV.  "Little Red Corvette", "1999", "Let's Go Crazy", "Raspberry Beret"... all great, catchy songs that I enjoyed.  Oh, and I loved his song, "Kiss".  I remember being a 9 year-old loving the falsetto voice he used for that oh-so-original song and sexy video.  But again, I was the opposite of what Prince was... I wanted to blend in, try not to appear weird, and go with the flow.  Prince... blend in... not so much.

So while you could appreciate and enjoy Prince from afar, in my small town and amongst my group of friends you were much more likely to openly listen to Mötley Crüe cassettes and play flag football in your Poison t-shirt.  Christ, KISS was the first band I really got into and their 80's output is largely garbage.  Prince was very sexual, gender-bending and ahead of his time.  I'm picturing what it would've looked like if a boy had shown up to my middle school sporting a Prince t-shirt back in the day.  I'm guessing some homophobic name calling would've ensued.

In later years, he was still on my radar.  His performance at halftime of Super Bowl XLI was tremendous.  My Bears sucked horribly that night in 2007, so Prince was a highlight playing in the Miami rain.  A few years later, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and his guitar solo at the end of this clip also had me on YouTube for multiple viewings...

As you get older, thankfully, a lot of people just stop giving a sh%t.  Hopefully you don't care about fitting in anymore.  Hopefully you can break outside of whatever rigid rules you self-imposed upon yourself.  Hopefully, if you were at all like me, you eventually realized that Prince was about as talented a musical motherf------ you were ever going to see, and you're proud to declare yourself a fan, or at the least somebody that can appreciate the genius.

Last night, I thought I'd cap my day by listening to some Prince. I had never actively added any of his albums to my library. My wife provided a couple greatest hits albums when we moved in together years ago (The Hits 1 & The Hits 2). But his death on Thursday reminded me that I had in my possession his magnum opus. An ex-girlfriend from way back when left her Purple Rain vinyl behind when she packed up her sh*t and dropped me like a bad habit. Last night I spun it in its entirety for the first time...

Prince was a lot of things. Artist. Virtuoso. Genius. Eccentric. Private. But he was always there, at least for the overwhelming majority of my life. It's sad to see him go.

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