“…sold some old pictures of all my little memories. Chump change is to unravel the mystery…” (Prince, “Old Friends For Sale” – Unreleased version)
Those were the words that came to mind when I first flipped through The Beautiful Ones, Prince’s unfinished memoir co-written with Dan Piepenbring (Random House, 2019). Seeing the pictures of his parents, girlfriends, backstage candids, handwritten notes, etc. made me feel as if I was eavesdropping on intimate moments that Prince surely would not have wanted if he were still alive. I then read the book — and listened to the audiobook — and read the book again as I listened to the audiobook. My first impression was that Piepenbring was making it too much about himself — a self-indulgent exposition on his privileged access to Prince. But then I recalled he had only 27 some odd pages of Prince’s own writing to work with and needed to find some way to stretch things out. He gets a B+ for effort in that regard, and in retrospect, the detailed account of his working relationship with Prince gives a rare and insightful look into what it was like being a satellite in Prince’s orbit, made even more compelling by the knowledge that these were his final months. Such information had previously been protected by NDA’s and gag orders when Prince was alive. Even still, some of the things Piepenbring reveals, particularly with what Prince said about other celebrities, struck me as should-be “off the record”. I’m talking about his less than flattering remarks about Katy Perry, Ed Sheeran, Bruce Springsteen, and David Letterman. Sensational media being what it is, those were some of the things that got the most attention when the book was first released.
Overall, the book itself is very well packaged with thick, glossy paper stock. Even removing the book jacket unveils a beautiful purple cloth with gold writing. Purple and gold! Just to pick it up gives one the feeling that this is not just your average memoir. It has the weight of a coffee table tome packed into a volume less than 8 ½ x 11 inches (almost as if made in the image of Prince himself, who was heavy with sheer musical genius packed into a compact 5’3” frame.) This book was something special. So why only a B+? I felt that half the book came off as a bit rushed with its pairing of pictures to quotes from old interviews. What could have been done instead or in addition? It would have been nice to get input from some others who appear in the pictures or are named in his writings. I for one would be most interested in hearing from the girls who contributed to his sexual development and fantasies that would later inform so many of his lyrics. I’m curious what became of Laura (first kiss), Debbie, Petey, Marcie, and Cari (yes, “Schoolyard” Cari!) today and what they would have to say. After all, they could surely be counted among “the beautiful ones” that inspired the book’s title that Prince chose himself.
I’ve been a diehard Prince fan since 1982 (with the release of 1999). Reading the book brought to light many thoughts and reflections — some new, and some revisited – in addition to reminders of old “flame wars” on the “Princeternet” in the 1990’s (before the web, twitter, Facebook, etc). As I set out to write my review those thoughts invaded my flow, and so some will be covered here.
First up is the crucial topic of race. There are some who see the memoir as Prince’s reclamation of his “blackness”, something he had been accused of losing at various stages of his career due in part to the genre defying music he often produced. It’s true that Prince has had a storied relationship with race, and one of his stated aims with the memoir was “to seize the narrative of his own life” (pg. 16). But anyone paying attention to his lyrics and public statements, especially later in his career, wouldn’t be too surprised. Prince was black, and both his parents were black (believe it or not this was the subject of many heated arguments on the aforementioned “Princeternet”). Perhaps it was a combination of wishful thinking that Prince was at least half white on the part of those who could not accept a black man being so stellar at shredding guitar, or the group of folks who chose to cherry-pick the “semi” part of “semi-autobiographical” from the Purple Rain movie where Prince’s mother is depicted as white. Indeed, it was refreshing to see Prince leaving no room for argument. He showed full-throated support (verbally and financially) for the Black Lives Matter movement and exhibited detailed awareness of the history of the black experience in America. One of the more surprising aspects was his apparent expression in support of “black separatism”: to protect their accumulated wealth, blacks should be “hiring their own police, founding their own schools, and forming bonds on their own terms” (pg. 17). I don’t think this declaration was meant to be Farrakhanesque, rather, it was more about black self-determination and self-defense in the context of a country that would allow such things as the 1921 Tulsa massacre to steal black lives, black property, and black wealth. He was keen on telling this history, and it saddens me that he isn’t here to witness the popular Watchmen series on HBO, which does tell that story in a fantastical alternate world with black (super)heroes, much like one of his known favorite movies Matrix.
With all this decidedly pro-black assertiveness, the elephant (sans flowers) in the room remains: why did Prince choose a relatively inexperienced and unknown white editor as his co-author? Piepenbring wonders this himself and offers no definitive answer. For his part, Prince does vet him on where his head is at regarding race and equality: what is the definition of racism? What does he think about the famous “doll test” (used in part to win Brown v. Board of Education)? Does he understand how “All Lives Matter” totally misses the point? Does he agree (Ayn) Randian philosophy should be dismantled? In the end, Piepenbring passes the tests, but not with flying colors as Prince still expressed some reservations: “I’ll be honest, I don’t think you could write the book.” (pg. 18) and he wanted to retain the right to pull the book at any moment.
Perhaps a major clue as to why Prince at least chose a white collaborator can be found in his statement about Hamilton: “It’s a diverse cast, even though they’re telling a European story. You trust them to talk about race and stuff.” (pg. 39). With one of the other stated aims for the book “to solve racism” (pg. 18) Prince was perhaps keenly aware that a book by two black collaborators alone may not be trusted to do the job. It would take a “diverse cast”. And I’m sure it helped that a white collaborator would allow Prince to have more control over the narrative on race and not be challenged by a young, white co-author as much as a black co-author might do.
Interesting to note, even as Prince challenged Piepenbring on defining racism, he gets it wrong himself when citing the first example of racism he could recall: a Jewish boy, his best friend, having a rock thrown at him. This was anti-Semitism, not racism. But in Prince’s world it is not hard to imagine all such “isms” are equally abhorrent (indeed, they are!)
If it hadn’t been clear already, Prince’s heightened desire to speak out on racism certainly seemed influenced by his own battles with the music industry. It is the reason behind him writing SLAVE on his cheek, and adopting an unpronounceable symbol as his name. Much has been said about why he changed his name, but not a lot has been written about why the symbol took the form it did. We knew it seemed to combine the male/female symbols in a new way that was different from the literal combination he had been using (eg., on his motorcycle in Purple Rain). And we knew he was serious about the name, perhaps because it held special, perhaps even spiritual, significance for him (eg., he made an unsubtle threat to walk off Rosie O’Donnell’s set when she made fun of his name by calling him “Taffy”, and his dislike for Star Tribune gossip columnist CJ who insisted on calling him “Symbolina” is well known – “Billy Jack Bitch”). But why the curly horn – one of the few instruments he didn’t play? One revelation, again from the Princeternet of the mid 1990’s, may hold a key. It turns out that page 74, print #366 of Symbols, Signs and Signets by Ernst Lehner (Dover, 1950) reveals a very compelling clue: the glyph for the alchemical symbol of soapstone is identical to Prince’s symbol without the circle. For their part, the designers of the symbol have neglected to mention the influence. But the principles of forensic archeology coupled with exact point-by-point resemblance lead to an unmistakable conclusion that the beloved “Love Symbol” was not independently derived, and in fact, includes an alchemical symbol as one of its constituent parts.
It’s likely Prince was aware of this connection, and he was sure to try to distance himself from the notion he was an adherent to alchemy – the dark art of trying to create gold from lesser elements. As a Jehovah Witness he would be expected to denounce such things, but just like he changed some lyrics and stopped performing his racier songs, he very well could have been engaged in a bit of revisionism here too. Before conversion, Prince was a seeker and you can find evidence of many spiritual and religious traditions in his music – some esoteric, some mainstream, and some just made-up. The gold bars contained among the inventory in his vault notwithstanding, it is extremely doubtful that Prince actually practiced alchemy. More likely he used alchemy as a metaphor for continuous spiritual improvement to reach a most evolved “golden” soul, with the caveat that “all that glitters ain’t gold” – a common adage in alchemy and popular life wisdom, plus a key phrase in the chorus to his song “Gold”. But perhaps the most convincing evidence of all came on January 8, 1996 during his concert in Tokyo, Japan. Right before performing “Gold” he made a very telling statement: “This song is about the ingredients changing right in front of your eyes…”!
In addition to alchemy, Prince expressed disapproval with the word “magic”, which he claimed was “Michael’s word” (as in Jackson), and that “Funk is the opposite of magic” (pg. 15, 20). For some reason that sentiment resonates as more truthful, like something that makes perfect sense and is self-evident only after you learn it. Indeed, I am hard pressed to find an instance when Prince even used the word in any of his lyrics. The only one that comes to mind is from “Love 2 the 9’s” (there may be others as I have not done an exhaustive search, this is just all I could think of off the top).
Much has been made of the supposed rivalry between Michael Jackson and Prince, but they have plenty in common: they were both supernaturally talented black men born in the Midwest in 1958 who amassed fame and fortune that challenged the music industry with their power and influence even as that industry marketed them to great mutual fortunes. But besides magic, there is at least one other difference. MJ owned the rights to, among other things, the catalogs of the actual Beatles and the so-called “black Beatles” and Prince favorite Sly and the Family Stone. I get the feeling Prince was appalled by the notion of owning some other artist’s music. Indeed “All artists should own their masters, he said, especially black artists.” (pg. 17). If Prince had ever purchased the rights to Sly and the Family Stone’s music I have no doubt he would have gifted them to Sylvester Stewart. Or at least to long time Family Stone bassist Larry Graham if Mr. Stewart was still MIA. [Side note: Graham and Stewart had parted on less than amicable terms, and Jesse Johnson, who parted with Prince on less than amicable terms, had scored the biggest get with his Sly Stone collaboration while Prince ended up with Graham.]
I often wonder what MJ would have done had Prince transitioned before him. It is conceivable that MJ would have made a bid for the rights to Prince’s music, thus causing one of the biggest controversial shakeups in music history! Perish the thought!
Prince loved movies so it makes perfect sense that he tried to make his own on several occasions (with varying degrees of success). His first foray into film, Purple Rain, was of course his most successful and the memoir reproduces an early draft of the story line as Prince conceived it. There are many interesting elements in this original draft. For one thing, the treatment is much darker than what eventually got released: a murder/suicide between the Prince character’s mother and father, bouts of split personality where he alternates between quoting the Bible (like his father), drunken cussing (like his mother), and tripping out in the middle of performances. This is likely an exaggerated view of his own epileptic “black outs” as a child. If this were the version that eventually made it to the big screen who’s to say it would or would not have been the same commercially successful venture that launched him into superstardom?
What I find most intriguing about this early draft was the foretelling it shows for some plot lines that would appear in his later films. There’s a description of the Vanity character which evokes the Mary character from Under the Cherry Moon: “too rich, too pretty, too much of a prude” … a “rich bitch” who plays “mind games”. (pg 218). There is also a house party that gets visited by bats, identical to a café scene in Under the Cherry Moon. In another scene, Prince and Morris try to kidnap Vanity by climbing through her bedroom window – Prince ends up in Vanity’s room while Morris ends up in her mother’s room. This again is much like a scene from Under the Cherry Moon where Prince and Jerome use a ladder to climb into Mary’s bedroom, with Prince ending up in her mother’s room instead. There is also a line in the draft that states “Nothing comes to sleepers but dreams” (pg. 219), a phrase which, save for one word exchange, appears in the Prince-penned “Round and Round” sung by Tevin Campbell in Graffiti Bridge. Lastly, there is a battle of the bands where the Time beats out Prince’s band – another scene similar to what happens in Graffiti Bridge.
That these scenes were resurrected for later movies shows the persistence with which Prince can stick to a vision, and his scope of control with making it come to fruition. And there’s a consistent overtone which highlights the profound impact of what Prince called “one of my life’s dilemmas” (pg. 5): the tumultuous relationship between his parents and how it affected his life and his music. This became very apparent in the words of the memoir he wrote himself.
Freudian psychologists would have a field day analyzing the words that Prince wrote, in fact, it reads almost as if he were responding to the cliched prompts that psychiatrists are known for: “Tell me about your mother” or “Tell me about your childhood”. He begins with the sight and sound of his first childhood memories: his mother’s eyes, and his father’s piano. In true Gemini spirit, he would become a physical and emotional amalgam of both his parents. On the one hand was his fun-loving, good looking mother who would offer up playful winks as if she were sharing a secret. And on the other hand was his disciplined, hard-working, Bible-toting father who played piano, led a jazz band on the weekends, and patterned himself after Duke Ellington. Prince seemed to take his worldly sense of style and adventure, and even his penmanship (not to mention his affinity for fair skinned beauties) from his mother. But it was the music, work ethic, and fear of God that he would inherit from his father. The imprinting seemed so strong that Prince himself believed it to be a case of “cellular memory” (pg. 5). Whatever the case, this attraction of opposites between his parents set up a tension that got expressed in his life and lyrics as the duality of sexuality and spirituality.
During times of harmony, his parents were a loving dyad. Among the items found in Prince’s vault was a love letter his mother had written to his father, and it is reproduced in the memoir. One of the most striking things about it is the penmanship – so uncannily similar to Prince’s own, accompanied by doodles of a couple kissing, also reminiscent of Prince’s own doodles. And in the letter his mother remarks on the inadequacy of the words “I love you” to express the depth of her feelings. It is not hard to imagine this was inspiration for Prince’s own lyrics in “Adore”: “love’s too weak to define just what you mean to me”.
But that reflects the best of times. There were also some worst of times in this tale of Twin Cities. When the harmony was broken and dissonance ensued, peace was interrupted by screaming, shouting, shoving, and striking. That’s when doves cried! Ultimately his parents divorced and Prince soon began to identify more with his father (even remarking that he came to understand why his father left). And even though Prince’s relationship with his father could be strained, living up to and besting his father’s musicianship appears to be a dominant motivation in his life.
John Nelson fronted a jazz band called the Prince Rogers Trio, after which Prince was named. Fun fact: Andre Cymone’s father played stand-up bass in the band, a generational pattern that Prince would repeat when it came time to form his own band. The band was billed as “A Whole New Concept in Music” – a new power jazz of sorts. The memoir shows a flyer (pg. 104) listing original songs with lots of references to colors, girls, and love. It’s not hard to imagine these titles as belonging to an unreleased Prince album: “No One Else” (a literal identical name), “One Kiss”, “Deep Purple”, “I Wish You Love”, “Blue Skirt Waltz”, “Red Sails in the Sunset”, and “September Song” to name a few. But beyond this stylistic title similarity, Prince definitely appeared to be shaped by his father’s self-sufficient workaholism when it came to creating music. Prince said of his father “If he needed something, no matter what it was, he’d make it himself.” (pg. 103). So when it came to recording, if Prince needed a sound, no matter what it was, more often than not he’d play it himself. Prince also said his father read the Bible every day, and we know that Prince too adopted this behavior, especially later in life.
Overall, The Beautiful Ones is a brief glimpse into the formative years of a musical genius. Prince had planned for the book to take us up to his GOAT-level performance at the Super Bowl in 2007, perhaps an indication he felt that moment was the pinnacle of his success. He only made it up to the years on the brink of his superstardom. But it’s clear from the things Piepenbring reports that Prince was in transition when he transitioned. He had grown tired of playing guitar (oh no!) and was focused exclusively on the piano, just like his father. He even hinted at giving up music to begin a phase of writing books instead. And he had lofty aims for his writings – in addition to the aforementioned “solving racism” and “reclaiming the narrative of his life”, he wanted to create “a handbook for the brilliant community.” (pg. 32). Sadly, these goals are left largely unrealized.
It’s hard to imagine a world where Prince doesn’t make music by choice. He seemed to take the famous quote of his father’s idol, Duke Ellington, to a new extreme: “Music is my mistress, and she plays second fiddle to no one.” For Prince, it seemed more like music was his wife, and all his lovers, even those to whom he was legally bound, really served as mistresses. Long before the memoir, he had said everything you need to know about him was in his music and lyrics. Thus it makes perfect sense that he would attach what could be called his life manifesto to the end of a song about palate cleansing sex and marriage pretense:
“Whatever you heard about me is true
I change the rules and do what I wanna do
I’m in love with God, he’s the only way
‘Cuz you and I know we gotta die some day…” (“Let’s Pretend We’re Married”)
Devastatingly, some day came for Prince on April 21, 2016, and now it is hard to live in a world where he doesn’t make music not by his choice. Thanks to the vault, we have yet to really know what that silence looks like. New old content (or is that old new content?) keeps emerging, and if legend is true, there is enough material for decades or more of releases. It’s almost as if Prince is winking from beyond, like his mother would do, reminding us that “time is a trick…”.
DMSR 