When Doves Cry by Prince
(click here to play or right click + save = mp3 download)
No, this is not a remix nor an obscure live track. Yes, it is the same old 28 year old version originally released on Purple Rain. No, Prince didn’t just die. There is really no reason whatsoever to resurface this track as a Song of The Day other than while listening to it during an elliptical workout yesterday it hit me like a sock full of nickles – Bob Dylan included, this may be the most prophetically awesome song ever recorded by a Minnesota artist.
Shock value aside, there is some merit this. Mainly in what the two artists mean to the state and the degree to which they were influenced by it. Granted, I spent a massive period of my late teens and twenties discovering the Eastwood polarization of the Bob Dylan catalog. The bakers dozen decade that transcended Bobby Zimmerman first into a household folk icon who later plugged in and held a unequivocal creative edge through 1976′s Desire can be seen as the “good”. The point in the late nineties where his mean streak erupted from a coma of complacency and showed both on stage on in the studio that he still had balls can be viewed as the bad (as in bad-assed). The ugly of course lies in the unspeakable 20 or so years in between.
Growing up in Northern Minnesota, you learn to adopt Bobby D as one of your own. For me it’s a little more personal. The man was born in the hospital across the street from where I currently live, raised in a town I pass through routinely when I go fishing and he came of age in his rough infancy as a performer in the same Dinkytown neighborhood I lived in at a similar age. Ironically, my office is located on Bob Dylan Drive in Duluth. Despite all the love, respect and admiration for the genius musician that myself like so many others around these parts hold dear, Bob Dylan is really a just an ungrateful prick when it comes to Minnesota.
He’s never done much to publicly acknowledge his upbringing here and will only speak vaguely about it when pressed by local media when an opportunity arises. Rumor has it that he was opposed to the renaming of Michigan Street here to honor him. In 1998 he returned to play a long awaited and heavily anticipated concert at the Duluth Arena yet didn’t mumble as much a sentence or integrate a special song to decipher the venue or crowd as being any different than any other show he’d ever played. No “it’s good to be home“. No Desolation Row or Girl From the North Country.
On the other hand, Prince was not only born in Minnesota but has maintained a lifelong residency here. In 1980, he made his television debut on American Bandstand to which the late Dick Clark remarked “this is not the kind of music that comes from Minneapolis, MN“. Soon his “Minneapolis Sound” scene would proliferate and be revered nationally through the 80′s featuring additional acts such as Morris Day, The Time, Sheila E and producers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. He was responsible for the cult classic movie Purple Rain that brought street credit to the state. As a businessman, he has had ownership interest in a plethora of clubs in the Twin Cities. Not only is Prince a season ticket holder of the Minnesota Vikings, he wrote and recorded the song Purple & Gold in preparation of the team’s NFC Championship game in 2010.
Though anyone can rant and rave all they want that Dylan wrote more prophetic material in his heyday, you have to wonder if his life long distain towards the State of Lakes at some point rescinds his qualifications of being a true Minnesota artist. What you can’t disagree with is that When Doves Cry is timeless classic – melting a melodic fury of urban synth pop into a dark tale of internal confusion regarding the abnormally normal growing pains of adjusting, universal in both life and love. There was nothing like it before and there’s been nothing like it since. Tim Fischer Duluth, MN
(Click Here To Play of Right Click + Save = mp3 download)
