Un’intervista è davvero lunga (per analizzarla e raccontarla, la dividerò in più parti), ma importante, per due motivi: il primo è che si tratta di una delle più lunghe rilasciate da Prince nel 1983 – prima che chiudesse ogni contatto con il mondo dei media. Per anni.

(in questa intervista è già guardingo e solo ad un certo punto si lascia andare)

Il secondo motivo è che troviamo qui molte notizie, molti elementi della sua vita che poi Prince avrebbe evitato accuratamente di toccare in pubblico.

(per esempio, da un certo momento in poi, avrebbe rifiutato di rispondere a domande sul suo passato)

Ci sono, tra queste righe, molte parti della sua vita: parla della sua famiglia, della sua adolescenza. Della povertà.

L’intervista, per Musician, è di Barbara Graustark.

Estate 1983.

“Sure he’s a weird kid. For Prince Rogers Nelson, a man whom Henry Miller and Howard Hughes are undoubtedly behavioral models, the two S’s of sex and secrecy are paramount. His reluctance to talk to the press is well established and his role as a beacon of sexual controversy is past legendary. Jimi Hendrix may have helped open the floodgates when he asked an innocent generation, ‘Are you experienced?‘ But Prince didn’t have to ask. His sexual excesses in a dank, dark Minneapolis basement with his confident and companion Andre Cymone and a host of neighborhood girls shaped the values of his earliest songs and mirrored the experiences and insecurity of a liberated generation”

(nell’introduzione sono presenti gli elementi di base dell’alone di leggenda che già circonda Prince: stranezza caratteriale, riluttanza verso le interviste, il tema del sesso nelle sue canzoni, l’allusione all’umida cupezza del basement di Minneapolis in cui egli aveva trascorso la sua adolescenza, prima del successo)

“His first albums were full of funky innuendo. For You established him as a poetic prince of love, with a mission to spread a sexy message here on earth – a message reinforced by his “special thanks to God” credit on the LP’s jacket. Prince had heard the call, all right, but it wasn’t the Lord’s sermon that he was preaching, and with his next album, Dirty Mind, he catapulted out of the closet and into the public eye as a raunchy prophet of porn”

(qualche cliché, qualche gioco di parole – “prince of love” – l’allusione alla strana commistione tra il sesso hard che gronda da ogni solco di Dirty Mind e la dedica contenuta nel disco “special thanks to God”, un ossimoro, ma solo apparente, conoscendolo)

“That album established Prince in rock critical circles as a truly special case. He created his own musical world in which heavy-metal guitars crashed into synth-funk rhythms, where rockabilly bounced off rapid punk tempos, all of it riding under lyrical themes of incest, lost love, sexual discovery and oral gratification. It was then that I became interested in talking to this elusive boy genius”

(Graustark ha intuito, come altri, un importante aspetto della musica di Prince: è un’intersezione di temi, generi e tecniche, molto eterogenei tra loro)

“His concerts that fall had been a hot, erotic blast of wind through the chilly Northeast, and I was primed to meet a proper, swaggering conqueror – ‘The leader of a pack in a brave new world without rules or categories or any limitations’ – as Boston critic Ariel Swartley had extravagantly described him. What I found facing me that sleepy-eyed morning was shockingly different: a man-child in the promised land. Despite the studded trenchcoat, the leather jock bikini and the blatant bare chest, he was a shy and unsure creature, small as a leprechaun and just as elusive”

(…Prince è uno capace di incendiare anche gli ambienti più gelidi)

(quel giorno, però, Graustark si trova davanti – come era già capitato di notare ad altri – un ragazzo dall’aria assonnata, vestito in modo provocatorio, certo, ma sembrava più un ragazzino timido, insicuro, un piccolo essere sfuggente, desideroso di trovarsi altrove, in quel momento)

“The interview became a lengthy excursion into Prince’s pained past and through songs that had a purpose beyond the titillating of fantasies, as I was soon to learn. Prince’s preoccupation, disclosed between the lines of the interview, was loneliness, which in the world had become painfully interwoven with sexuality. His own childhood was something else. Multiracial, one of nine children of a hard-working Italian mother and a half-black father—a struggling musician who was mostly absent during his youth—Prince was a veteran of foster homes and a chronic runaway”

(qualche elemento non vero, tra le righe che raccontano la sua vita, l’origine dei genitori, ad esempio, unito a cose vere: il dolore, la povertà, la mancanza di un tetto sulla sua testa, la solitudine dell’adolescenza)

(un veterano, un esperto – suo malgrado – di case, per lui mai definitive, sempre e solo case d’appoggio momentaneo, case da cui fuggire)

“At the time of our interview, he was proud and hurt, contemplating ending interviews altogether. He communicated with the gravity of a crestfallen child, speaking in short grudging bursts of words that nevertheless revealed a great deal more than he wanted anyone to know. At the end of our long visit, he gave an eloquent summation: ‘That was the longest I’ve ever talked’ – he said with a child’s awe. He gave me an uncertain grin and, as he trudged off into the New York rain, wobbling a bit on his high-heeled cobra boots, I liked him immediately and had the feeling that Prince would survive his current bout with success”

(proud, hurt, crestfallen child, gravity of a crestfallen child, great deal, child’s awe: dalle parole e dalle espressioni di Graustark si capisce che ha davanti a sé una persona a disagio)

MUSICIAN: Let me start off with the question, to me at least. Dirty Mind seems to be the antithesis of what sex should be. Or is it? Why was that album called Dirty Mind?

PRINCE: Well, that was kind of a put-on… I wanted to put it out there that way and in time show people that’s not what sex was about. You can say a bad word over and over again and sooner or later it won’t be bad anymore if everybody starts doing it.

(Graustark gli fa notare che, dal suo punto di vista, Dirty Mind è l’opposto di ciò che il sesso dovrebbe essere e Prince risponde che con quel disco ha inteso creare una specie di messa in scena, indicare che il sesso vero non è quello: se, nella vita di tutti i giorni, dici una parolaccia più e più volte, alla fine anche lei ti sembrerà una cosa del tutto normale, “suonerà” come normale)

MUSICIAN: Are songs like “Head” and “Sister” serious or satiric?

PRINCE: “Sister“ is serious. “Head” could be taken as satire. No one’s laughing when I’m saying it, so I don’t know. If people get enjoyment out of it and laugh, that’s fine. All the stuff on the record is true experiences and things that have occurred around me and the way I feel about things. I wasn’t laughing when I did it. So. I don’t suppose it was intended that way. That’s why I stopped doing interviews. I started and I slopped abruptly because of that. People weren’t taking me seriously and I was being misunderstood. Everything I said they didn’t believe anyway. They didn’t believe my name. They didn’t believe anything.

(i due brani più scandalosi sono seri o satirici? Prince risponde che entrambi arrivano dalla vita vera, “Sister” è serio, “Head” potrebbe rientrare nel genere satirico, ma tutte le canzoni dell’album hanno a che fare con la vita vera, con cose che ha visto accadere intorno, a sensazioni che ha provato e non stava affatto ridendo, quando le ha provate; da qualche tempo chi lo intervista fraintende tutto quello che dice e questo è il motivo per cui ha smesso di incontrare i giornalisti: non credevano a quello che diceva, che il suo nome fosse il suo vero nome, non credevano a nulla)

MUSICIAN: Your father’s stage name was Prince Rogers. Was that his real name?

PRINCE: That wasn’t his real name. He made it up.

MUSICIAN: And what’s your last name? Is it Nelson?

PRINCE: I don’t know.

(cominciano le risposte provocatorie)

MUSICIAN: Your point about being misunderstood is kind of important. We should try and be as straight as possible with each other so I know that what you’re saying is being interpreted correctly.

PRINCE: Okay. I tell the truth about everything but my last name. I just hate it. I know how it’s just the name that he had to go through life with, and he hated it too. So that’s why he gave me this name and that’s why he changed his when he went onstage. I just don’t like it and I just really would rather not have it out. It’s just a stupid name that means nothing to my ancestry, my father and what he was about.

(Graustark non si accontenta di risposte superficiali: vuole capire e chiede a Prince di essere sincero con lei, solo così potrà interpretare)

(ok, risponde Prince: dice la verità su tutto, tranne che sul suo cognome, ma solo perché lo odia; sa bene che se lo porterà dietro per sempre, ma l’ha odiato lo stesso, preferirebbe non averlo avuto)

(partono le domande più importanti, cui seguono le risposte più importanti: suo padre, la sua famiglia, gli studi, l’adolescenza)

MUSICIAN: Was your father very much there when you were growing up?

PRINCE: Well, up until the time I was seven he was very much there. Then he was very much away. Then I went to live with him once…I ran away the first time when I was twelve. And then he worked two jobs. He worked a day job and then he worked downtown playing behind strippers. So he was away and I didn’t see him much then, only while he was shaving or something like that. We didn’t talk so much then.

(un ragazzino che a dodici anni scappa già di casa, un padre che, per mantenere le sue due famiglie, fa due lavori: in fabbrica di giorno e nei locali, di notte; nei locali dove ci sono anche le spogliarelliste: lui, il vecchio John, un moralista così intransigente; il racconto di Prince – se è totalmente vero – risulta intrigante)

MUSICIAN: Did he have any feelings about you being a musician? Was he a supportive person?

PRINCE: I don’t think so because he didn’t think I was very good. I didn’t really think so either. When I finally got a band together he used to come and watch us play every once in a while. But he finds it really hard to show emotion. I find that true of most men and it’s kind of a drag, but…

(cosa pensava il vecchio John del fatto che tu suonassi? ti ha appoggiato?)

(no e non pensava che io fossi bravo, nemmeno io lo pensavo: a volte veniva a sentirmi, quando ho iniziato a suonare con una band, ma per lui mostrare emozioni era davvero difficile, cosa che sembra essere caratteristica di molti uomini)

MUSICIAN: Is your father a good musician? What does he play?

PRINCE: Piano.The reason he’s good is that he’s totally…he can’t stand any music other than his. He doesn’t listen to anybody. And he’s really strange. He told me one time that he has dreams where he’d see a keyboard in front of his eyes and he’d see his hands on the keyboard and he’d hear a melody. And he can get up and it can be like 4:30 a.m. and he can walk right downstairs to his piano and play the melody. And to me that’s amazing because there’s no work involved really; he’s just given a gift in each song. He never comes out of the house unless it’s to get something to eat and he goes right back in and he plays all the time. His music…one day I hope you’ ll get to hear it. It’s just—it sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard.

(Prince parla del rapporto di suo padre con la musica, ma molte delle cose che in questo momento dice del vecchio John, sarebbero divenute parte del suo modo di essere, da lì a qualche tempo: fare dei sogni pieni di melodie, che lo spingevano, anche alle quattro di mattina, a sedersi davanti al suo piano e suonare; andare a lavorare solo per guadagnare da mangiare, per il resto: suonare tutto il giorno)

(tutte caratteristiche anche di Prince)

(la musica di mio padre suona come nessun’altra che io abbia mai ascoltato)

MUSICIAN: How did you get into music? Where were you? What were you doing?

(come hai iniziato a suonare? in che modo?)

PRINCE: I was at home living with my mother and my sister, and he had just gone and left his piano. He didn’t allow anybody to play it when he was there because we would just bang on it. So once he left then I started doing it because nobody else would. Every thing was cool I think, until my father left, and then it got kinda hairy. My step-dad came along when I was nine or ten, and I disliked him immediately, because he dealt with a lot of materialistic things. He would bring us a lot of presents all the time, rather than sit down and talk with us and give us companionship. I got real bitter because of that, and I would say all the things that I disliked about him, rather than tell him what I really needed. Which was a mistake, and it kind of hurt our relationship. I don’ t think they wanted me to be a musician. But I think it was mainly because of my father, who disliked the idea that he was a musician, and it really broke up their life. I think that’s why he probably named me what he named me, it was like a blow to her ‘He’s gonna grow up the same way, so don’t even worry about him’. And that’s exactly what I did. I was about thirteen when I moved away. I didn’t really realize other music until I had to. And that was when I got my own band and we had to play top forty songs. Anything that was a hit, didn’t matter who it was. We played every thing because they were mainly things that I wanted to go on, not things that were going on. Which is different from what I write about now.

(la storia del pianoforte lasciato a casa da suo padre, quella già raccontata molte altre volte, il divorzio e l’arrivo di un patrigno difficile da accettare, il fatto che in famiglia non accettassero la sua passione per la musica, che lo rendeva così simile a suo padre: a tredici anni si era allontanato per stare dietro alla sua nuova band)

MUSICIAN: Do you feel a strong identification with anything … anybody?

PRINCE: No. I think society says if you’ve got a little black in you that’s what you are. I don’t.

(indipendenza, di giudizio e pensiero: fin da subito)

MUSICIAN: When you moved away, did you move in with your father?

PRINCE: Well, that was when I went to live with my aunt, also in Minneapolis, because I couldn’t stay at my father’s. And my father wouldn’t get me a piano, it was too much or whatever, so…he got me a guitar. I didn’t learn to play the right way, because I tuned it to a straight A chord so it was really strange. When I first started playing guitar, I just did chords and things like that, and I didn’t really get into soloing and all that until later, when I started making records. I can’t think of any foremost great guitarist that stuck in my mind. It was just solos on records, and it was just dumb stuff; I hated top forty. Everybody in the band hated it. It was what was holding us back. And we were trying to escape it. But we had to do it to make enough money to make demo tapes.

(per sfuggire al patrigno, va a vivere con suo padre, poi va da una zia, il padre gli regala una chitarra, ma lui non sa nemmeno suonare con gli accordi giusti, crea una band, ma ha ancora molto da imparare)

MUSICIAN: How’d you get to Andre Cymone’s cellar?

PRINCE: Andre Cymone’s house was the last stop after going from my dad’s to my aunt’s, to different homes and going through just a bunch of junk. And once I got there, I had realized that I was going to have to play according to the program, and do exactly what was expected of me. And I was sixteen at the time, getting ready to turn seventeen.

(l’approdo a casa di Andre: la sua salvezza, poiché lì trova la calma, il luogo, il tempo, il modo di studiare e comporre; ha sedici anni, quasi diciassette, c’è molto lavoro da fare, compresi i demo, necessari per farsi conoscere fuori da Minneapolis)

MUSICIAN: Were you still in high school?

PRINCE: Mm-hm. And, that was another problem. I wasn’t doing well in school, and I was going to have to. Otherwise the people around me were going to get very upset. I could come in anytime I wanted, I could have girls spend the night, and it didn’t make a difference. I think it had a great deal to do with me coming out into my own, and discovering myself. I mean, the music was interesting at that time, once I got out of high school. And I got out of high school early, when I was like sixteen.

(la scuola, croce e delizia: non andava bene ed avrebbe dovuto farlo, perché altrimenti tutti quelli che aveva intorno si sarebbero arrabbiati)

(due mondi contrastanti: quello del dovere, la scuola, e quello del piacere, la musica, dove si è gettato a capofitto non appena terminate le scuole superiori, per immergersi totalmente in se stesso)

MUSICIAN: Did you finish?

PRINCE: Yeah. Because I got all the required credits. And that’s relatively early. In about two and a half years, or something like that. It was pretty easy and stupid. To this day, I don’t use anything that they taught me. Get your jar, and dissect frogs and stuff like that.

(interessante il suo giudizio su quello che ha imparato a scuola: nessuna delle cose che gli sono state insegnate gli è poi servita, specie sezionare le rane in laboratorio)

MUSICIAN: How’d you support yourself?

PRINCE: Well, that was the problem. Once I got out of high school it was interesting for a while because I didn’t have any money, I didn’t have any school, and I didn’t have any dependents, I didn’t have any kids, or girlfriends, or anything. I had cut myself off totally from everything. And that’s when I really started writing. I was writing like three or four songs a day. And, they were all really long. Which is interesting for me as a writer, because it’s hard to just take a thought, and continue it for a long period of time without losing it. And it’s harder for me now to write than it was back then, because there’s so many people around me now. I wrote a lot of sexual songs back then, but they were mainly things that I wanted to go on, not things that were going on. Which is different from what I write about now.

(come è riuscito a tirare avanti in quegli anni? – chiede Graustark. Prince risponde che è stato molto difficile, perché era senza soldi, ma c’erano anche dei vantaggi: non aveva nessuno che dipendesse da lui ed ha potuto isolarsi da tutto il resto, ha iniziato a scrivere, a comporre, anche tre/quattro canzoni al giorno, tutte lunghe, perché aveva tempo per concentrarsi e nessuno intorno, tutto il contrario rispetto all’oggi)

MUSICIAN: You mean, what you were writing about then was just a fantasy of women?

PRINCE: All fantasies, yeah. Because I didn’t have anything around me…there were no people. No anything. When I started writing, I cut myself off from relationships with women.

(in quel periodo è stato davvero solo: né persone a cui chiedere aiuto, né donne da amare, nulla)

MUSICIAN: Did you ever have a relationship?

PRINCE: Several solid relationships (laughs). When you’re broken, and poor and hungry, you usually try to find friends who are gonna help you out.

(mai avuto storie d’amore? moltissime! se sei in bancarotta, povero ed affamato, di solito cerchi di trovare amici che siano in grado di aiutarti)