“The quiet tittle man with bovine, brown eyes and a whisper of a ’tache stares absent-mindedly out of the hotel window across London’s rainswept rooftops”

(un esordio descrittivo, quello che ci arriva dallo sguardo del giornalista (Steve Sutherland), che dice, sempre parlando di uno sguardo – ancora una volta – molto di Prince: la lotta perennemente visibile in lui, tra la voglia di essere altrove e l’obbligo – in quanto star nascente – di curare le pubbliche relazioni)

(…)

‘Actually’ – he decides finally with pronounced hesitation – ‘I think it’s much more embarrassing talking about these things than doing them. I mean, I find it a lot easier to sing swear words than to say them and when I first had a girl, I found it really hard to tell my mother but – Lord knows – I didn’t feel embarrassed while I was doing it to her’

(è già molto chiaro, leggendo le sue parole, il distacco tra il “suo” mondo, quello dove (magari con l’aiuto di Dio) musica e parole sono forgiate senza alcuno sforzo, senza imbarazzo ed il mondo degli “altri”, quelli che fanno domande, vogliono capire, intrufolarsi nel suo privato, quelli ai quali è necessario spiegare cose che invece dovrebbero essere e restare confinate nel campo dell’intimo più recondito)

(…)

“The man shifts in his seat, fidgets with his fingers and smiles uneasily. He’s nervous – so nervous he gives me the jitters”

(il modo di fare e di muoversi di Prince, il suo non essere evidentemente a suo agio, non piacciono affatto al giornalista: lo innervosiscono, addirittura)

Forse il nostro Steve pensava di trovarsi davanti all’ennesimo fenomeno mediatico provocatorio, sulla scena e, di conseguenza, nella vita reale, ma è colpito dal fenomeno esattamente opposto:

“I remember the quote from the New York Times: ‘With his sassy grace and precocious musicality he is heir to the defiant rock and roll tradition of Elvis Presley, Jimi Hendrix and Mick Jagger’

“I look again at the slightly dishevelled figure sitting before me and figure I must be in the wrong room. Just to check I ask for his history and, yep, believe it or not, this is definitely Prince”

(no, non hai sbagliato stanza, Steve, ti sei appena seduto davanti all’altra metà di Prince, quella dark, quella che ha sempre accuratamente nascosto e che inizia/torna ad indossare/impersonare subito dopo essere sceso dal palco: non ti dimenticare, caro mio, che in quel momento avevi davanti a te un Gemini, ascendente Scorpione)

(…)

“Christened by his father – a jazz musician – from his fictitious stage-name, Prince is the fairytale story of a juvenile runaway who really made good. At only 20 he has two platinum albums behind him in the States and a third, Dirty Mind, rapidly approaching the mark despite a total airplay due to the risque, sexual, overtones of its lyrics. Already a critically-lauded star back home, and accompanied by a wild reputation, he’s now making his first tentative foray into the foreign market with a one-off show at the Lyceum”.

(per quanto riguarda Prince, siamo sempre all’interno della narrazione di questi primi anni – che poi non si discosta di molto dalla realtà effettiva: l’osmosi con la musica paterna, il successo arrivato, nonostante (o forse proprio per) i suoi temi non proprio da educande presenti nelle sue canzoni)

(…)

“The first thing I was burning to know was what made a man referred to as the ‘solo Bee Gees of the libido’ by Rolling Stone on account of his falsetto vocals and naughty-naughty songs, take to the stage, with his five-piece band, dressed in a studded leather coat, Y-Fronts and black thigh-length tights?”

‘To me it’s not outrageous, it’s comfortable’ – he replies, trying to force a smile – ‘I’ve always dressed the way I’ve wanted to and if it goes with the music, it’s only because the music is part of me and so is the way I dress. I don’t try to do anything to shock people or to make money – that would make me a hooker’

(ci tiene, Prince, a sottolineare il fatto che gli abiti (?) che indossa sul palco lo fanno davvero sentire a suo agio, in una mescolanza musica/abiti/vita, voluta proprio da lui, non è una messa in scena, stando a quello che afferma)

(…)

“Prince is not a prat but neither is he the wunderkind America desperately tries to make him out to be. He’s accomplished – he’s master of 26 instruments, composes and plays virtually everything on all his albums and is the youngest person ever to self-produce for Warner Brothers- he’s flash, intelligent, a bit too self-obsessed for easy conversation, a little bit silly and kinda strange too. Things like his father leaving home, his brother flitting in and out of slam and a period lodging with his sister all seem to hold a fathomless fascination for him and he constantly calls upon his past, almost endowing it with some spiritual significance, as he struggles to explain the motives behind his music”

(interessante l’ultima osservazione di Sutherland: Prince è consapevole del peso, della spinta che il suo passato ha avuto all’interno della sua creazione, lo ha quasi sublimato, non sarebbe capitato spesso, in seguito, sentirlo parlare di queste cose)

(…)

‘I saw an analyst once because I was wondering why I was so sexual-minded and why I wanted to go against the grain so much because it got me into a lotta trouble a lotta times’ – he reluctantly confides – ‘He asked me to talk about my childhood y’know, ‘when you first experienced this and first experienced that?’ I realised that, when I was young, I used to read my mother’s dirty novels and I was more taken with them than anything – it was a lot better than comic books’

(notevole senso dell’umorismo, si direbbe: trasformare la materia vile in oro, alchimisticamente parlando)

(…)

“This apparent self-discovery has, he claims, not only enabled him to develop as a more full, unfettered personality but has given him new confidence in his work”

(la fiducia in quello che stava facendo: una costante, nella sua intera vita, quella che lo avrebbe sostenuto anche nei passaggi difficili degli anni Novanta, ma sempre, in realtà)

(…)

‘It was a revelation recording this last album’ – he explains more excitedly – ‘I realised that I could write just what was on my mind and things that I’d encountered and I didn’t have to hide anything. The lyric on the new album is straight from the heart, whereas the other albums were more feelings, more dreams and fantasies and they stuck to the more basic formulas that I’d learned through playing top 40 material in old bands. That’s probably why they were so big but that’s really upsetting for me because you say to yourself, ‘Well, do I just wanna be real big or do I wanna do something I’ll be proud of and really enjoy playing?’ ’

(Dirty Mind gli ha consentito davvero per la prima volta di mettere tutto se stesso, le sue esperienze all’interno di quei solchi)

(…)

‘“I wanna Be Your Lover” was a big hit off the second album’ – he continues – ‘but it was hard for me to play that song after, a while. I’ll never get sick of playing the stuff from the Dirty Mind album because I’ll always remember what state of mind I was enduring the time it was recorded’

(appunto)

(…)

“The frankness of the third album, dealing with strictly taboo subjects like incest and lesbianism, was bound to keep it off the radio despite its seductive disco settings but the subsequent notoriety ensured the sales and anyway, according to Prince”:

‘The sales weren’t important. There were points, I must admit, on the first two albums where I was writing to get a hit but that was too easy. I don’t like to do things that’s easy – it’s more of a challenge for me to write exactly what happens, exactly what I feel at that particular time. If I think a certain thought and I put it down on paper-exactly like I hear it in my head, that’s a challenge to me as a writer. More than my songs have to do with sex’ – he says – ‘they have to do with one human’s love for another which goes deeper than anything political that anybody could possibly write about. The need for love, the need for sexuality, basic freedom, equality…I’m afraid of these things don’t necessarily come out. I think my problem is that my attitude’s so sexual that it overshadows anything else that I might not mature enough as a writer to bring it all out yet. I’m gonna stop this soon’ – he suddenly spurts – ‘I don’t expect to make many more records for the simple reason that I wanna see my life change. I wanna be there when it changes, I don’t wanna just be doing what’s expected of me. I just wanna live … until it’s time to die…’

(lo adoro, quando fa considerazioni come quelle che fa qui: a lui le hit interessano, ovvio, ma fino ad un certo punto, perché ciò che gli sta davvero a cuore è il rinnovamento, la possibilità di seguire il corso dei pensieri e della creatività, ovunque portino, dal momento che le sfide creative lo attirano come poche altre cose)

(…e poi, vabbè, il sesso, di cui parla in continuazione: fa parte della nostra natura, è il suo orizzonte, la completa)

(la conclusione del ragionamento è tutta-tutta-tutta sua: “voglio solo vivere, fino a quando arriverà il momento di morire”)

“He trails off and that’s the end of the interview. I rise, reach the door and turn to say goodbye but he’s already back there, gazing out the window. I remember a line from one of his songs: “Sex related fantasy is all that my mind can see,” and ponder on the dark, mysterious beauty turning tricks in the private bedroom of his mind”

(Prince ha mantenuto questa abitudine, nel corso di quasi tutta la sua carriera: si alzava, spesso bruscamente, e questa era davvero la fine dell’intervista, senza appello)

Fonte: Steve Sutherland, Melody Maker, giugno 1981