“Take Me With U” by Prince
If I could leave you after five songs with one parting thought it would be to see the bands and musicians you love perform live, you will never regret it. My motto in life is “When in doubt, buy the ticket.” This is equally true for plane tickets.
I love seeing bands live. It is really one of my favorite things to do and I wish I did it more often. As long as I am wishing, I also wish I had the bottomless pockets in order to see everyone I want to see. I have had the chance to see a lot of great musicians in my life sometimes at the expense of other things, like eating in college, but hey I saw Bjork, Fugazi, The Roots, King Crimson, and Kristin Hersh. Unfortunately, bands don’t stay together forever and unfortunately as we have seen more and more in the past few years people die too young. I know for a fact that If I hadn’t experienced Prince’s live show in my lifetime, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life.
I saw him twice during his 21 nights concert series at the Forum in Inglewood, CA in 2011. Each show was a two to three hour performance of hits in a seamless supersong. What I love about seeing concerts in Los Angeles especially is that there are so many great musicians passing through that you get these amazing cameos, like Stevie Wonder walking on stage or perhaps the amazing Sheila E drumming the entire show or an icon like Maceo Parker adding his touch to already fantastic live reworked versions of Prince’s hits. (Or Maceo Parker doing a solo encore.) Not that seeing Prince wasn’t enough. It definitely was. I think I spent both shows in a state between wonder, unbridled joy, and weeping.
2016 was a hard year. The world lost David Bowie then Prince a few months later. It felt like 2016 was getting personal. Two people who made it ok to be weird were gone. My theme this week was all about influences and influencers. These two, along with Annie Lennox and Cyndi Lauper were my role models in being more daring and it being ok to not go with the status quo.
It took me a while before I could hear Prince’s voice without getting sad, which seemed to be the antithesis of his music. I had just started to be able to listen to Prince again when I was planning the playlist for my wedding in early 2017. Then it was a decision on how much Prince I could add without the dance party becoming the seamless supersong of one of those 21 nights in 2011.
I chose “Take Me With U” for the recessional song. I remember thinking this song was the perfect 80s love song. Wouldn’t it be nice to just love being with someone no matter where you are, no matter what you do, whether it be in their mansion or out on the town? Not for what you can get from them but just because you want to be with them. No game playing, no one having the upper hand, just being together. Wouldn’t that be cool?
NEXT up one of my Prince concert buddies….