Goodbye, Prince

I’ve been meaning to write this goodbye post since the day Prince left us for the afterworld that he always dreamed of. You know, the one where you can always see the sun, either day or night. However, life kept surprising me with other sad news, including the loss of my father. I can’t help thinking that my father’s birthday was on April and Prince died in April, and that my father died in June and Prince’s birthday was in June. Life has a twisted sense of humor, indeed.

I was 5 years old when I was first exposed to Prince’s music. My mother took me to the movies to watch Batman, in 1989. Unfortunately, I didn’t even notice Prince’s music because of how young I was. I paid more attention to the images of Batman and the Joker dancing with the devil on a pale moonlight. And that wasn’t bad at all, because at least I became a Batman fan.

I think the first Prince song that I can remember listening to was “The Most Beautiful Girl in the World”, which was a huge hit in the mid 90’s. At that time, he made controversy because he changed his name to the now iconic and unpronounceable symbol, so the media baptised him as “The Artist Formerly Known as Prince”. At that time, I thought he was just being silly. Then again, I was too young to understand and I had no idea that he had to do that in order to free himself from his Warner Bros. contract and fight for his music.

The first song I liked from Prince was “When Doves Cry”, but in the voice of Quindon Tarver in 1996’s Romeo + Juliet, a movie that I still adore and that has an outstanding, beautiful soundtrack.

Three years later, a local radio station started playing “1999” because it was, well, 1999. I LOVED that song and it made it to the station’s top 20 countdown every Saturday. Even though its apocaliptic lyrics, I saw it as a fun dance tune. But what’s really interesting is that I actually thought that song was new, when in fact it was released in 1982. I can vaguely remember listening to his other songs on the radio, like “When Doves Cry” and “Purple Rain”. I think I even downloaded them on Napster at some point.

2010 was the year that The Purple One finally came fully into my life. A dear friend of mine introduced me to his music and shared with me some of his albums. I’ll be forever grateful for that. The first album I listened to was a greatest hits compilation. Songs like “She’s Always in my Hair”, “Let’s Go Crazy”, “Gett Off”, “Diamonds and Pearls”, and “Raspberry Beret” instantly captured my ears and my soul. But then I listened to the Purple Rain soundtrack (which is my favorite Prince album) and one of its songs made me fall in love madly with Prince: “The Beautiful Ones”, a hauntingly ravishing and heartbreaking song about unrequited love. Sure, there are gazilions of songs about that particular subject, yet this is the best and most powerful one so far. The song starts smoothly, then it grabs you by the hair and takes you to confront your unreciprocated feelings in a tormentuous climax, only to leave you laying down on the floor, hardly catching the breath that was taken away from you because of all the misery that the unrequited love brings you. Prince conveys all those sentiments to life not only with his lyrics and the way he sings them, but with his performance in the Purple Rain movie as well. With that song, I said to myself: “Ok, Prince, take me with u.”

I kept exploring most of the albums from his repertory, the ones that I could get, and I was mesmerized. His love lyrics were so relatable. His social commentary was on point. His funky songs made me feel like a star when I sang them while folding my laundry. His provocative and sexually charged songs taught me another perspective of sexuality and its beauty. In conclusion, Prince took me to another place in where it’s ok to let loose and express yourself completely. I admire the guts he had to empty all of his dissapointments, vulnerabilities, sexuality, and other feelings into his songs and share them with the world. He did it in such an unique way. He also reinvented himself constantly and created so many iconic visuals with his outfits and videos.

And that’s how he ended up becoming a significant part of my life. These past six years I've listened to him basically every day. “The Beautiful Ones” is still a staple in my everyday playlist. It was a goal of mine to see him live. He meant so much to me and I respected him greatly.

One month before his death, I had a dream with Prince, which I wrote on my phone so I would never forget it. I dreamt that I was in London to see him live on his “Piano & A Microphone” tour, which now we know would be his final tour. He looked exactly like he was looking lately: with his gorgeous afro and wearing clothes that made him look like a funky yoga instructor. He was all around surfing between the crowd. Then, he sat in my line and there were two persons sitting between us. Suddenly, he took my left hand. I obviously freaked out! I thought: “I’m never washing this hand again!”. Later, I saw him outside and he let me hug him. I got close to his ear and told him that I was grateful for his music and that it was very important to me. And the dream ended. Frankly, I didn’t remember the dream until days later after he passed away when I was browsing my Notes app. Then the dream made sense to me: without knowing it, that was my goodbye to him.

The day he left us was horrible. The same friend who introduced me to his music sent me a message with the sad news. I was about to have lunch at home, since I was working from home at the time, so my plate remained unattended for a while. I wasn’t able to do anything else but cry. I couldn’t believe it. I thought Prince was fine after he was released from the hospital a week earlier. It was reliving the nightmare I had when Gustavo Cerati died almost two years before. It was also reliving the darkness and emptiness from the day that David Bowie died just three months prior. It didn’t feel right nor real. My phone slipped from my hands towards my bed and I started to cry. The pain was keen, like if I had known Prince in person. I felt a sense of unfairness. Once again, a great artist was gone too soon. Someone who deserved to live didn’t exist anymore. I would never see The Purple One live. All my dreams of seeing him performing live shattered in a second.

I miss Prince everyday. He will definitely keep living through his music and performances, but I miss him. It’s devastating when all your heroes start to leave this planet.

I don’t believe in the afterworld, but if it exists and if Prince found it, I hope it is just like he described it in “Let’s Go Crazy”: “A world of never ending happiness.” Also, if it exists, it’d be nice to see him there and tell him all those things that I told him in my dream. And you can bet that I won’t wash my hand if he takes it.

Goodbye, Purple One. You will be “forever in my life”.