prince - "strange relationship" (from the sign 'o' the times lp, available for purchase here.)

prince, my good friend, i know you have a dirty mind & a funky imagination, but you really have no idea just how strange. (to think, i'm lecturing him on loves bizarre; what a day it was!)

many people think this is the runt off of sign 'o' the times--i'd say it's "it," but i can understand why people think the way they do. if it were sandwiched between two mediocre tracks on, say, the rainbow children, i don't know if i'd have noticed it. (if nothing else, consider this a reminder that you should own sign 'o' the times, which to me remains the best album of the last 25 years, by a wide berth.)

and i hate to say why i noticed it, but in order for this go anywhere i have to : the lyrics. it speaks to me. there.

i've always been drawn into strange relationships and i can only come to the conclusion that this is so b/c i myself am strange & unusual. fair enough. "strange relationship," though, is not mixtape material; it makes some valid points, but they're lost in callousness & irrationality, and seem to be spoken from a position of considerable distress. the conclusion, however, is sound : the relationship, strange & unorthodox though it may be, is worth holding on to. (the sound meanwhile is concussive, thudding drums, but w/ the light touch that characterized so much of his material from the era.)

the lyric sheet says that prince sings, "honey if you LEFT me, i might do something rash." maybe i just don't want to think about being left, but i've always heard it as "if you LET me" (compare the lyrics as sung to the lyrics on the sheet and you'd see enough discrepancies to support this view). there is, in our exchange, the danger of either side doing something rash, particularly your humble. (oh, i know all about callousness & irrationality. other things, too.) i just need to remind myself--well, of many things, but notably that, if i can't keep myself in check, our ongoing dialogue is traded in for just another exit line. and, baby (!), i'm tired of that scene.