Video will appear as you scroll through the story
Prince · S3 E4
Controversy
Is he Black? Is he white? Is he gay? Is he straight? Prince answers every question with a funk beat and the Lord's Prayer
October 1981. Prince opens his fourth album with a question that has been following him for two years: am I Black or white, am I straight or gay?
"Do Me, Baby" (Prince, 1981). A single from Controversy and one of Prince's most beloved ballads. The same artist who wrote "Head" and "Dirty Mind" also wrote this: a slow, vulnerable, intimate track that defies every label the industry has tried to stick on him.
Do Me, Baby, Prince (1981)
"Do Me, Baby" is built on a simple keyboard progression and Prince's multi-tracked vocals, layered so thick they sound like a choir of one person. The production is lush but never cluttered: fewer instruments, more space, letting the voice carry everything. For an artist known for provocation, this raw vulnerability might be the most provocative thing on the album.
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 Question Nobody Can Answer
By 1981, the music industry doesn't know where to put Prince. Radio formats are rigidly divided: R&B stations won't play his rock songs, rock stations won't play a Black artist. Journalists keep asking about his race, his sexuality, his influences, as if any single answer could explain what he's doing. Prince decides to make an entire album out of the question.
Sources
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
Thorne, Matt. "Prince: The Man and His Music." Faber & Faber, 2012.
TAP TO REVEAL: What does Prince recite in the middle of the song "Controversy"?
“People were obsessed with trying to figure out what he was. Black, white, male, female, gay, straight. He loved that nobody could pin him down. That was the whole point.”
— Dez Dickerson, Prince's guitarist, as recounted in Matt Thorne, "Prince: The Man and His Music" (Faber & Faber, 2012)
All of the Above
The Controversy album is Prince's answer to every question, and the answer is: all of the above. He puts funk, rock, pop, and new wave on the same record. He mixes sex and religion, politics and dance music, balladry and punk. The title track literally transitions from questions about identity into the Lord's Prayer, daring the listener to make sense of the contradiction.
Sources
Hahn, Alex. "Possessed: The Rise and Fall of Prince." Billboard Books, 2003.
Nilsen, Per. "DanceMusicSexRomance: Prince, the First Decade." Firefly Publishing, 1999.
Controversy: The File
Annie Christian, Prince (1981)
The darkest track on Controversy, and one of Prince's most political. "Annie Christian" references the Atlanta child murders, the assassination attempt on President Reagan, and the murder of John Lennon. Prince turns real-world violence into a haunting, backward-tracked dirge. This is the song that proves Controversy isn't just about identity: it's about a world coming apart at the seams.
Annie Christian, Prince (1981)
The lyrics read like a crime report filtered through a nightmare. Prince lists real tragedies and lays them at the feet of a single character, Annie Christian, who stands for every destructive impulse in American life. The specificity of the references makes it impossible to dismiss as metaphor. Prince is naming names and naming dates.
What question does Prince ask at the opening of the song "Controversy"?
The identity questions have been answered, but the Controversy album has one more fight to pick. Next episode: Prince takes on politics and religion at the same time, and the reaction from both Washington and the church is exactly what he wanted.
0 XP earned this session