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Prince · S3 E2
Head
A song so explicit that performing it on television becomes an act of rebellion. The provocation is deliberate, and it works
Late 1980, a club stage on the Dirty Mind tour. The lights drop, a drum machine kicks in with a grinding rhythm, and Prince starts talking, not singing, telling a story that will clear half the room.
"Head" (Prince, live in Detroit, 1986). Six years after writing the most provocative track on Dirty Mind, Prince is still performing it with full commitment. The spoken-word seduction, the grinding funk groove, the theatrics: nothing has been toned down.
Head, Prince (1980)
"Head" doesn't begin like a song. It begins like a scene: Prince speaking directly to the listener, narrating an encounter with a bride on her wedding day. The music underneath is skeletal: a pulsing bass line, handclaps, and a drum machine stripped to its bones. Prince turns a funk track into a one-act play, and the explicit content is almost beside the point: the real shock is the ambition.
Sources
Thorne, Matt. "Prince: The Man and His Music." Faber & Faber, 2012.
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
The Line in the Sand
With "Head," Prince draws a line. His first two albums had sexual undertones; this song has no undertones at all. It says exactly what it means, and Prince dares the entire music industry to deal with it. Warner Bros. can't promote it, radio can't play it, and Prince doesn't care.
Sources
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
Nilsen, Per. "DanceMusicSexRomance: Prince, the First Decade." Firefly Publishing, 1999.
TAP TO REVEAL: How many vocalists perform on "Head"?
“Every night on that tour, you could watch the room split in half during 'Head.' Some people left. The rest pushed closer to the stage. There was no middle ground.”
— Bobby Z (Robert Rivkin), Prince's drummer, as recounted in Matt Thorne, "Prince: The Man and His Music" (Faber & Faber, 2012)
The Stage Show
On the Dirty Mind tour, "Head" becomes the moment the show either wins you over or sends you home. Prince performs it with full commitment: dropping to his knees, acting out the lyrics, daring the audience to look away. Promoters complain. Prince doesn't change a thing.
Sources
Nilsen, Per. "DanceMusicSexRomance: Prince, the First Decade." Firefly Publishing, 1999.
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
Head: The File
Gotta Broken Heart Again, Prince (1980)
The same album that gave the world "Head" also contains this: a tender, almost fragile pop ballad about lost love. "Gotta Broken Heart Again" sounds like it belongs on a completely different record. That's Prince's trick: he puts the explicit and the innocent side by side and makes you deal with the contradiction.
Gotta Broken Heart Again, Prince (1980)
No provocation, no staging, no shock value. Just a guy singing about heartbreak over gentle guitars and a vocal so unguarded it could crack. After the theatrics of "Head," these lyrics land differently: Prince proving he can be as emotionally naked as he is physically naked on the album cover.
What does Prince do at the start of "Head" that was unusual for a funk track in 1980?
The controversy is growing, but so is the band behind Prince. Next episode: Dez Dickerson, André Cymone, Lisa Coleman, Doctor Fink, and Bobby Z. Prince assembles a multiracial, mixed-gender group in an industry that doesn't know what to do with them.
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