TILL I FIND A RIGHTEOUS ONE
Out of the dark a simple lyric enters the chat (this is what the kids say!). Till I find a righteous one...Well it starts simple but it immediately brings me back to the start of the song.
Wendy?
Yes Lisa.
Is the water warm enough?
Yes Lisa.
Shall we begin?
Yes Lisa.
This will mark at the least the second time I've thought and written about a song off of Prince's 1984, colossal album, Purple Rain. I just went back through 4 years of posts but can't for the life of me find the actual post but I remember it being about hearing Erotic City, a B side to Let's Go Crazy at a Circle K. A song that prompted my dad to smash the record in our Long Beach, MS garage. Subtlety, not his love language.
The song today is Computer Blue and really I have no deeper thoughts about it. It was good. Lots of Prince shrieking and carrying on. I'll turn it up while driving today. I'll stop and let the smells of Sea Breeze and Prell shampoo wash over me. I'll say to myself that it feels like a blink ago while knowing I mean eons and I'll likely play the whole album start to finish.
I'm just here to remember.
//
I love the random wash of nostalgia. How at 6:07 on a Monday morning, a simple lyric enters my head and a path is opened to recall. I always follow the path. Always.
I follow it because it's a simple pleasure. Of connecting a time, a place and a song. Sometimes it's deep. Sometimes not. There's an over dramatic quality to stopping and following "Till I find a righteous one." I don't think it means anything. It's just a good line. And so I'll soak it in for a few.
I'll again conjure up the memories of a house no longer standing. Of an album that fully engrossed 13-14 year old me. An album that to this day I can listen to start to finish.
Last year I had a music conversation about this album and we started talking about Prince. Nothing before and nothing after Purple Rain mattered. It utterly engrossed me. Yeah, there were songs here and there, but Purple Rain was 9 songs in a row, each seemingly better than the one before, ending with an 8:41 eponymous single. To me. There is Prince. And there is Purple Rain. The latter. Larger.
I'll remember the accompanying pseudo autobiographical movie that followed. Of a glimpse of a bare breast when Appolonia cleansed herself in Lake Minnetonka. I you are of a certain age, there are movies you will remember because HBO had the rights to show them, and they did, over and over and over. Purple Rain was one of them. It was campy and overly dramatic, but the music, and the soundtrack. Impeccable.
These are the snippets of life that matter to me. The ability for 6 words to produce 500. Of smells and sounds. Of anger and 80's lust.
Till I find a righteous one. Computer blue.
#hugsandhi5s
