“I wish people would rediscover poetry. I don’t mean Wordsworth – although there would be no harm in that – I mean: ‘This is what it sounds like when doves cry’. Who’s going to write that nowadays? It’s an amazing line. If When Doves Cry came out now it wouldn’t be shot down as pretentious, you’d think it was amazing. But at the moment it seems there’s no imagination, imagery, or a subject other than oneself… There’s no imagery or metaphor.” — Neil Tennant, 2009
Dig if you will the picture.
Forty years ago this very week, two singles by Prince and The Revolution were occupying the opposite echelons of the British charts, both from their breakthrough soundtrack album, Purple Rain: When Doves Cry was at 69 (its 15th and final week on chart after peaking at No. 4 that July), while the LP’s title track assumed its eight place peak a fortnight after checking in at 25.
Like most of the world in 1984, I had barely heard of Prince before Purple Rain. In my defence, the Minneapolis marvel had scored just one minor hit in the UK with 1999 reaching the 25 spot the first week of January 1983.
If my memory serves, it was around that time that my school chum and fellow Antfan Steve Day and were perusing an Adam And The Ants fan club publication that featured an uncaptioned snapshot of Adam Ant in America, The insect warrior was posing with a funky and not unattractive black dude with a pencil-thin moustache, which immediately aroused my attention:
“Is that Prince?,” I asked of my senior namesake.
“I think it’s Rick James,” came the reply.
Fast forward 18 months, and, amazingly, I can still recall where I was when I heard When Doves Cry for the very first time. I was in the open plan kitchen-dining-living area of Lesley Ainscough’s family home at Coffee Hall, and, while she was arguably more interested in her chips, when its blistering, incendiary intro sledgehammered its way through the tinny transistor radio I remember being astounded by its audacity.
After all, Purple Rain’s lead 45 was a daringly stripped-down paean with no bass (virtually unheard of for a mainstream pop song at the time). Not to mention the intense, almost Freudian lyrics that recalled painful, blazing rows with his absusive father.
Several of Prince’s peak moments – Kiss, Sign O’ the Times – would later adopt this masterful minimalism, but when When Doves Cry set the template it was revolutionary and prodigiously strange. A masterpiece then.
And for someone who, by the summer of ’84, had honed and focused my attentions on the dark, weird and flamboyantly unconventional, it spoke to me. Massively.
Alas, slight confessional because I’ve always had a problem with the follow up 45, Purple Rain’s title track. Shoot me now then.
To me it was something of a shock because When Doves Cry was weird, electronic, and funky, yet now we’re supposed to accept some overwrought guitar ballad? I know right – the artists ahead of the audience and all that. But I disliked conventional rock music, and guess what? Forty years down the line I still do.
The funny thing is, for all my eulogising of When Doves Cry, I didn’t even buy it, nor Purple Rain in any form. 1984 was the year I became an ardent admirer of Dead Or Alive and David Bowie, and my pocket money dictated that the only albums I purchased in those 12 months were Sophisticated Boom Boom (DOA), Tonight (the Dame) and a Special Dance Mix edition of Fade To Grey: The Singles Collection by the third part of my new musical triumvirate, Steve Strange’s Visage.
By then, poor old Adam was, in Smash Hits parlance, consigned to the pop dumper bin. Alas, there would be a new pop duo that would enter my ear’s affections before too long, but for now Mr Neil Tennant of King’s Road Chelsea was still a jobbing assistant editor of said magazine.
This is his review of the movie that spawned the album. Let‘s do this.
Prince: Purple Rain (15)
Neil Tennant, Smash Hits, 30 August 1984
PRINCE loves to pout. To press together his moist, full lips while throwing a sulky, sensuous stare with his big eyes.
Even more, he loves to sit astride a powerful new motorbike, angrily kick-start it with a tiny, booted foot, and speed into the distance.
And, of course, he loves to perform. With Purple Rain, he’s constructed a feature film in which he can do all three, dominating the screen with those favourite poses.
The plot is thin. Prince plays The Kid, leader of a rock group called The Revolution who play at the First Avenue club. Their local popularity is challenged by a funky and zoot-suited rival group, The Time. Their leader, Morris Day, also challenges Prince in his love life, trying to entice away his new girlfriend, Apollonia, by starring her in her own group.
Discontent breeds within The Revolution. The two girl musicians, Wendy and Lisa, have written a song but Prince won’t allow the group to play any songs but his.
Meanwhile, in his shabby, suburban home, his parents fight. His black father, a frustrated musician, beats up his white mother and insults his son. They endlessly bawl and cry. That is what it sounds like when doves cry. The story of the film is how Prince works through each of these frustrations.
The dialogue is generally breathtakingly banal and, with most of the cast making their acting debut, delivered in a stilted fashion. Morris Day is an exception, just about stealing the show with his natural comic delivery.
The film was shot on a fairly low budget by a relatively inexperienced director — and it shows. It has the murky production quality of a made-for-TV movie. And it’s a good half-hour too long, sagging in the middle. There are far too many scenes of Prince’s moods and tantrums and of him zooming around on that purple motorbike.
The film comes alive, however, whenever Prince and The Revolution step onstage at the First Avenue club. The songs — all from the Purple Rain LP — are twice as exciting in performance. The two guitarists flank Prince, performing little choreographed dance steps while Prince flies across the stage in his psychedelic, high-collared purple coat, as breathtaking as Michael Jackson but much ruder.
The atmosphere of the film is also compelling. A deep, musky sexiness hangs in the air throughout, although in the one short love scene, both Prince and Apollonia keep their clothes on.
Judged as a feature film, Purple Rain is a bit amateurish, too long and slow. As a “rock film’, it is very ambitious and far superior to most with its frantic concert scenes. And for what it reveals about Prince, it is fascinating.
“And you — what do you dream about?” Apollonia asks Prince early on in the film. He only pouts in reply but his answer is clear.
Himself.
Edited by Steve Pafford
