21 things you didn’t know about prince

Prince has passed. You already knew that, but I had to write it down to make sure he really is. Because Prince is mine, well, at least sort of. First he was my brothers, but he would listen to his music so often that I couldn’t help but join in.

I would do anything for Prince. Feigned fainting scenes during concerts hoping I would be carried backstage and Prince would see met and realize that Susannah Hoffs was not for him and I was the one who should tag along on his tour.

I also hypnotized my high school band that they finally allowed me to sing along during their performances. The song of choice was evidently ‘When You Were Mine’, because one day I would become Mrs. Prince.

When our dog passed away, I cried myself to sleep with his photo while listening to ‘Crazy You’ from his first album (which he single handily played all 28 instruments for, just so you know) on repeat. Long story short, Prince and I, I and Prince. One thing is for sure. That get-together is no longer going to happen.

“Feigned fainting scenes during concerts hoping I would be carried backstage”

So in-between all the madness and that awful feeling of grief for someone you didn’t know personally yet had such an impact on you life, I’ve made a list. A list of 21 things you probably didn’t know about Prince. Well, at least I didn’t.

1.     Prince wrote his first song when he was just 7 years old. Okay, the lyrics might not have been literary works of art, but he did make a song entitled ‘Funk Machine’.

2.     Prince was a huge fan of Joni Mitchell (he references it in his song ‘The Ballad of Dorothy Parker’: ‘and it was Joni singing’). He wrote her endless amounts of letters, all in the classic Prince style consisting of a lot of hearts. Joni thought the sender was some random weirdo…

3.     When he was 10, his step father put him on stage with James Brown and he kept dancing until Brown’s personal body guard took him down.

4.     There was a time when he was very poor and he would stand in front of McDonald’s to catch of whiff of the scent.

5.     There was so much smoke in the video’s for ‘1999’ and ‘Little Red Corvette’ that the entire set got a severe case of diarrhea.

6.     Talking about videoclips. Prince directed them all himself. Sometimes his record company would hire a director, but Prince would personally direct them to the exit with a pile of magazines like Larry Williams for the video for ‘When Doves Cry’.

7.     Speaking of ‘When Doves Cry’; Prince is, together with the Beatles, the only artist that had a number one album, single and movie at the same time.

8.     His favorite meal was a combination of spaghetti and fresh orange juice.

9.     During the making of the movie ‘Purple Rain’, he asked Apollonia to keep her marriage a secret so that people would think they had a relationship. While in the meantime he was secretly waiting for me. Something else we kept a secret.

10. Prince played the guitar for Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’.

11. Michael Jackson wrote the song ‘Bad’ as a duet for him an Prince.

12. You could say that Prince’s marriage to Mayte was pre-arranged. Mayte’s mother would send Prince old fashioned video tapes (it was the nineties) of Mayte belly-dancing to his music.

13. Speaking of belly-dancing; Prince found it very seductive and so he would send them music that she would then reply to with more videos.

14. This continued on until Mayte was 18 and officially old enough for him to meet up with.

“While in the meantime he was secretly waiting for me. Something else we kept a secret”

15. Prince became a Jehova’s Witness in 1997 and from that moment on he wrote less about sex and also deleted any sexual infused material. I have to admit, from then on, I was a little less interested.

16. Prince’s first child died a week after he was born.

17. Even when Prince produced les music halfway through the nineties, he kept his Paisley Park complex. Costed him five hundred thousand dollars a year, but still, useful to have.

18. That same Paisley Park Studios also consisted of catering for ten months. And tailors. And directors. Just incase he ever needed to shoot a video.

19. After passing away yesterday, the American iTunes Chart’s top ten has completely been taken over by his music.

20. In the Batman era, Prince was so obsessed with Kim Basinger that he made an entire album with her. It was never released because as beautiful and sexy as she was, her singing voice isn’t.

21. And yes, his real name is indeed Prince. Prince Roger Nelson to be exact.