Wednesday 3 September 2008

The Prince of Amazon Blurbs


This time last year, Prince was in the middle of his 21 night residency at the O2. And very Princely it was too. This year, to celebrate/cash in on the residency, comes a book. I say 'book', because whoever is writing his amazon blurbs has gone a touch purple themselves.


The book will be 'juxtaposing his dueling worlds of music and solitude'. And as well as photos 'it will incorporate Prince's evocative poetry and lyrics'. Nope, I was unaware the man who wrote 'Do Me Baby' was a poet on the sly either. Perhaps in his moments of solitude? But most impressively of all, there's a free cd music, which is included 'as part of the dimensional experience'.


Perhaps that's what my books are lacking -- not enough attention to the dimensional experience...

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Dear Tom,

How dare you question the poetic skills of His Royal Badness???

Enclosed is a sample from the superior Jehova's Witness concept album, The Rainbow Children, just to prove you wrong:

'And whether the enemy makes a run on the palace
Or whether the enemy does not,
The children will be laced with the protection of the word of God
The opposite of NATO is OTAN
And if the number 13 is such a bad luck number
When there's no such thing as luck
Then the berries, talons, arrows and stars
Are all superstitions, what the ...'

That's from a song called 'Muse 2 the Pharoah'. And how about this biting political commentary from the 80s album 'Controversy'?

'Ronnie talk to Russia before its too late
before its too late
before its too late
Ronnie talk to Russia before its too late
before they blow up the world
You go to the zoo, but you can't feed guerillas
can't feed guerillas
Left-wing guerillas
You can go to the zoo, but you can't feed guerillas
who wanna blow up the world.'

I bet you feel cynical now, Tom – Benjamin Zephaniah has got nothing on the man...

P.S. Those lyrics were parsed from a website, in case you're worried about my levels of devotional fandom...

Tom Bromley said...

All I'm saying is that good poetry is different to good lyrics.

Yes, Prince can write some great lyrics -- Sign O'The Times, for example. But he has also penned, among others...

Horny Pony
Violet the Organ Grinder
Rock Hard in a Funky Place
Hide the Bone
Soft and Wet
Irresistible Bitch
and from the 'Come' album, the, erm, orgamsic, Orgasm...