Monday, August 5, 2019

Monday Music "When Doves Cry" by Prince


I am continuing my run of songs that I don't care for, I liked Prince's early music, from his Party like its 1999 and "Little Red Corvette", but for some reason this song raised my gag reflex.  I flat out didn't care for the song.  Price is or was a musical genius, he could play last I heard, 17 different instruments.   He was known for changing his name to a symbol because of a dispute with his record label, and he was known as the "Great Purple One".  Prince was very eccentric but he was a musical genius

     "When Doves Cry" is a song by American musician Prince, and the lead single from his 1984 album Purple Rain. It was a worldwide hit, and his first American number one single, topping the charts for five weeks. According to Billboard magazine, it was the top-selling single of the year. It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, shipping two million units in the United States. It was the last single released by a solo artist to receive such certification before the certification requirements were lowered in 1989.
The song ranked number 52 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and is included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Following Prince's death, the song re-charted on the Billboard Hot 100 chart at number eight, its first appearance in the top 10 since the week ending September 1, 1984. As of April 30, 2016, it has sold 1,385,448 copies in the United States.

According to the Purple Rain DVD, Prince was asked by the director to write a song to match the theme of a particular segment of the film – one that involved intermingled parental difficulties and a love affair. The next morning, Prince had composed two songs, one of which was "When Doves Cry". According to Per Nilsen, Prince's biographer, the song was inspired by his relationship with Vanity 6 member Susan Moonsie.
Prince wrote and composed "When Doves Cry" after all the other tracks were complete on Purple Rain. In addition to providing vocals, he played all instruments on the track. The song's texture is remarkably stark. There is no bass line, which is very unusual for an '80s dance song; Prince said that there originally was a bass line but, after a conversation with singer Jill Jones, he decided that the song was too conventional with it included. The song features an intro of a guitar solo and a Linn LM-1 drum machine, followed by a looped guttural vocal. After the lyrics, there is another, much longer, guitar and synthesizer solo. The song ends on a classical music-inspired keyboard piece backed by another synthesizer solo. Keyboardist Matt Fink revealed in 2014 that the baroque synthesizer solo was recorded by Prince at half speed and an octave lower against a half-speed backing track, then sped up to create the final version. Fink was then tasked to learn and perform the solo at the album's speed.
On versions edited for radio, either the song fades out as the long guitar and synthesizer solo begins, or the solo is eliminated altogether and the song skips to the ending with Prince's harmonizing and classical finish.


Purple Rain is the sixth studio album by American singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist Prince. It is the first to feature the billing of his band the Revolution, and is the soundtrack to the 1984 film of the same name. The album was released on June 25, 1984, by Warner Bros. Records.
In the United States the album debuted at No. 11 on the Billboard 200 the week of July 14, 1984 with approximately 1.5 million copies sold. After four weeks on chart, it reached No. 1 on August 4, 1984. The first two singles from the album, "When Doves Cry" and "Let's Go Crazy", topped the US singles charts, and were hits around the world, while the title track went to No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100. Purple Rain was present on the Billboard 200 for a total of 122 weeks.
Prince and the Revolution won a 1984 Grammy Award for Purple Rain, for Best Rock Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal, the four composers (Nelson, Coleman, Prince, and Melvoin) won Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media, and the album was nominated for Album of the Year. Purple Rain also won an Oscar for Best Original Song Score in 1985. As of 2008, it has sold over 25 million copies worldwide, making it the third-best-selling soundtrack album of all time. The album was certified 13-times platinum (diamond) by the RIAA. Purple Rain is regularly ranked among the best albums in music history and is widely regarded as Prince's magnum opus along with his 1987 double album Sign o' the Times. In 2012, the album was added to the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry list of sound recordings that "are culturally, historically, or aesthetically important".

The music video (directed by Prince himself) was released on MTV in June 1984. It opens with white doves emerging from double doors to reveal Prince in a bathtub. It also includes scenes from the Purple Rain film interspersed with shots of The Revolution performing and dancing in a white room. The final portion of the video incorporates a mirrored frame of the left half of the picture, creating a doubling effect. The video was nominated for Best Choreography at 1985's MTV Video Music Awards.[14] The video sparked controversy among network executives, who thought that its sexual nature was too explicit for television. 

4 comments:

  1. Not one of my favorites, but it did get a lot of airplay...

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  2. Oh I just had an orgasm. I love Prince. I still love him. He was weird, he was maybe asexual. But geez oh Pete was he brilliant.

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    1. Hey Momma Fargo;

      LOL, Do you want me to light that cigarette for you?, part of the service I provide. He toward the end was strange, and you are right, he was brilliant. In a few weeks once I go past the songs I hate, I will put on "Party like it is 1999" or little red corvette or something.

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