Unless you count the greatest hits package, this was the 15th studio album from Prince, who, at the time of its release was going by a symbol with no pronunciation. From what I understand, the “Come” album was originally scheduled for release some time in 1993 with a much more horrendus, animated front cover. I think some of the songs on the album were slightly different renditions as well, but I could be wrong on that one. I do know that there was supposed to be some kind of poem at the beginning of the album. Anyhow, things didn’t go according to plan and Warner Brothers wound up releasing it in 1994 as a contractual obligation. I remember there being some confusion when this record was released. In particular, that it was attributed to “Prince,” yet he was going by a glyph.
However, on the front cover of the album, his name was followed by the years 1958-1993. Meaning that the “character” called “Prince,” had “died” via a self-inflicted gunshot, because he was caught in a trap and he couldn’t walk out…because he loved Mayte too much baby. Sorry, I couldn’t resist. Anyhow, this more or less meant that the guy who was now using a symbol as his moniker was free to do whatever he wanted, which is why he was posing in front of a “cemetary,” which was actually a cathedral in Barcelona. According to Prince, that whole plan worked. I, personally don’t believe it did, because if that were the case, he would’ve instantly been freed from his contract with Warners. He wasn’t entirely free until 1999. Although he didn’t switch his name back to Prince until May 2000.
On another note, I still remember seeing this album appearing on a Saturday morning TV show down here in Australia all the way back in 1994. The show was called “Video Smash Hits,” and it’s been off the air for years, but I still have quite a vivid recollection of the host holding up a flyer and saying, “That’s the cover of the new Prince album. Sounds great!” Then the following week, he had an actual copy of it in his hand. Of course I was extremely excited about this new release and I wanted to get myself a copy, but since I was all of 12 years old at the time and seeing as how the cover bore the infamous “Parental Advisory” logo, I was simply not allowed to purchase this album. I was later informed by a certain relative of mine, who got me into Prince, that the record was “very explicit.” Of course, this only made me want to hear the album even more. Not too long after the album was released, a TV special called “The Beautiful Experience” was aired and I recorded it onto an audio tape. So of course, by that stage, I’d already heard most of the album, along with a few other treats, including some songs from his follow-up, “The Gold Experience.” In 1995, I finally bought myself a copy of the “Come” album for ten bucks at K-Mart. Oh yeah, I still remember that! Indeed, the album was explicit, but not in the way of cursing. Let’s take a closer look at this album.
Come: As we all know, with Prince, sex is a spiritual experience and this song is certainly no exception. He tells his woman that he wants her to wash between her soul & through her hair, while asking her, “If you had the chance to see the future, would you try? If you will, so will I.” In other words, he was trying to get deep here…..umm…..perhaps that was a bad choice of words, because the song is laced with sexual imagery. At one point he even pretends to go down on his woman! Oh yes, this is Prince being extremely graphic. Hence, the “Parental Advisory” logo. Yes, he cussed in the song, but only for a little while, ie: “Can I fuck you baby?” “Fuck it. Why don’t you just do it on the chair? You should get that shit started.” The version that I first heard was completely different to the one that’s on the album. The music behind that one was much more upbeat and almost techno influenced, with Prince speaking the lyrics in that deep voice of his. The album version however, is a much more “jazzy” affair with hip hop flavoured beats and a running time of….. eleven minutes and thirteen seconds. That’s a longass title track if I ever saw one. This then segues into…….
Space: Essentially this is a song about Prince missing his lover and at times bordering on the line of obsession. Painting your lover’s face on top of your celing for instance, is something that most people probably wouldn’t do….unless of course they were a little sick & twisted. To put it bluntly, he pretty much wants to fuck this girl’s brains out. I mean, what else could he possibly mean by “everything I ever wanted to do your body, baby I would do to your head”? The fact that he used samples of typical “space travel” sounds made me think that he was assuming the role of an astronaunt in this song. The other reason why I felt like this was because he told his woman “you are the reason I’m high” and no, he wasn’t referring to the use of illicit drugs, thank you very much. This song was also released as a single from the album and was accompanied by a maxi single, which….I, personally own on vinyl. One of those mixes featured some sampled vocals from a bald headded female rapper from Canada called The Poet 99 who also appeared on the “Emancipation” album a couple of years later.
Pheromone: This is the first song on the record that begins with some poetry. In this case, the words he’s said are downright freaky!: “My left hand under your head. Upon my right (or is that while my right?) embraces time….Therein my virgin, love’s one.” How creepy is that? Calling your girlfriend “my virgin.” Sheesh….what’ll he think of next? Then again, this song is just freaky anyway, it’s all about a man with a sexual fetish for pistols. Yep, this crazy fucker gets a hardon whenever his partner points a gun to his nose while he pulls his dingaling…..and believe me, that’s exactly what one of the lyrics in this song is. Prince is pretty much the narrator here, as he’s describing everything that he’s seeing. For a while there I misinterpreted one of the lyrics as “I want to sail, I want to watch.” Of course he really said “I want to save her.” He’d look kinda foolish trying to sail, don’t you think? By the way, the intro to this song features some very dirty language indeed: “Pheromone make a n*gga go crazy, fuck around make a n*gga wanna die.” He says this really quick and….sorta….under his breath, so you can’t really make it out. It’s an excellent song though. Shame he’s never sung this one live. Another one from “The Beautiful Experience” TV special.
Loose: Next up is yet another attempt at techno music, which, going by the lyrics, was written to make folks just get up and dance, or rather as Prince himself hollers throughout the chorus, “Push your weight up to the front and shake your motherfucking ‘do loose!!!” In other words, “shake your hairdoo loose.” Or get loose….whatever that means. This was another one of those songs that I first heard during the “Beautiful Experience” special in 1994. An instrumental remix titled “Get Loose” appeared on “Crystal Ball” in 1998. Apparently that particular version was inspired by some of the strippers who would hang around his now defunct “Glam Slam” nightclub. As a 12 year old boy I used to get my cheap thrills out of hearing him dropping the “MF” bomb, but nowadays, I must say, I really don’t think very much of this song at all.
Papa: This song appeared alongside “Loose” on “The Beautiful Experience” special and it does the same right here on the “Come” album. Possibly the darkest Prince song ever written about a hard-working family man who abuses his four year old son and eventually goes so crazy that he shoots himself in the head. Prince recites the lyrics in his natural speaking voice and occasionally sings a few lines. Overall, this creates an even darker, brooding atmosphere. The same can be said for the samples of the quiet storm sounds that he’s used throughout the song. It’s almost like a huge drop of thunder is about to be unleashed as Prince is singing the song to us. He even warns us: “Don’t abuse children or else they turn out like me.” Could this be an allusion to the way in which he was raised? Possibly. He never really shied away from that in his art. Just look at the movie “Purple Rain” for instance. Even the song “When Doves Cry” has some clues in it. At the conclusion of the song, Prince breaks out his dark blue cloud guitar and spits out some killer guitar licks, while Michael B throws down some heavy beats and Prince screams out the final lyrics. “Ain’t nobody crazy, deep down we’re all insane. Every single one of us knows some kind of pain….There’s always a rainbow…at the end of every rain.” Prince totally kills that. Shoots it down cold. Although I find this song to be quite disturbing to the point where, at times, I skip over it.
Race: Another spoken word piece kicks off this next jam, which is all about racial intolerance. I think it was left off of his last project, which was the “Symbol” album from 1992. Again Prince is speaking the lyrics, but this time he’s doing so in a much quicker manner, to the point where he’s almost rapping. He called this method rhythmic speaking. The main message here is that we are all equal, no matter what our ethnic background or places of birth may be. Prince’s attitude back then was: Cut me, cut you. Both the blood is red. Gotcha!” I think that’s a fantastic message. Does he still feel like that today? Hell, I’m not even paying attention. Good luck to him if he doesn’t. The thing that makes this song so unique is that he’s actually havin’ a blast singing it and layin down some seriously funky ass grooves on his big yellow symbol guitar, which he plays in the video clip for this song. I think he was even doing the Humpty Dance in that clip….or at least that was his own personal interpretation of what it looked like. I still get a kick out of hearing this song every now and then. My only complaint is that the album version is slightly different to the version in “The Beautiful Experience.” He’s taken out some funky guitar licks and replaced them with handclaps. This song also appeared on the “Prince Interactive” CD ROM game and you could mix around with it.
Dark: Let’s see here….Prince has been dumped by his girlfriend. As a result, he finds himself feeling sad, bitter and extremely angry. He doesn’t even understand why this woman has decided to leave him, but what’s worse is that he even feels like cursing her and the very ground on which she walks. Damn! This is definitely a dark ballad from Prince. He sure ain’t playin’ around. Can you imagine him doing a song like this nowadays? Shaking his fist at an ex-lover of his, while dressed up in a “Phantom of the Opera”-styled get up screaming out: “Damn you!!! Curse you!!” I know I sure can’t picture such a scenario. So it’s just as well he recorded this and included it on the album, although I can’t help thinking that perhaps the song was a metaphor for his battle with Warner Brothers. There are even some old interviews around where he says something along the lines of, “Whenever I start talking about my battle with Warner, I start getting angry and bitter.” Comments like that kind of make you wonder……..I guess it is a possiblity. A remix of this song was later included on his “Crystal Ball” album in 1998. I prefer this one, as it kicks off with a spoken word piece/poem and features much more live instrumentation. Nothin’ can top Michael Bland hitting those snares, or Sonny Thompson thumpin’ on his bass. Best lyric: “Just as sure as Noah built the ark, that’s how sure I am you broke my heart.” That’s another reason why I don’t think he’ll ever do such a song again, being a Witness for the prosecution.
Solo: Next up is another ballad, but this one is completely different and unlike anything you’ve ever heard Prince do before. Believe that. He sings the entire song in that soaring falsetto of his and he’s backed by nothing more than a harp. Yes. I’m deadly serious. You would almost expect this type of song to be used in a play, or a musical of some sorts where they sing in an operatic tone, which would make perfect sense as it was co-written by a man called David Henry Hwang, who writes such plays. The song sounds haunting, but it’s definitely not one of my favourites. I can appreciate him trying something new though.
Letitgo: I always loved this song, which was the first single lifted from the album. It’s very much a laid back r’n'b cut with a hip hop type of beat and a very cool solo that comes in halfway through the cut. I’m not sure if that’s a Purpleaxxe keyboard that he’s used or if it’s something else all together. St Paul Peterson’s brother Ricky played on this track, as well as another fella by the name of Eric Leeds, who’s on the flute. For a split second, I thought that maybe this was a “Prince is dead” type of song, but now that the whole name change era is over and done, it seems kinda….I dunno……irrelevant? Silly? What’s the word I’m lookin’ for here, folks? I think the main message here is that he’s had one too many servings of pasta fasola and baked beans on toast, so now he’s gotta let it go. Nah for real, I think what he’s saying here is that he wants to try and be more open with his feelings, as opposed to keeping them all bottled up. I’m not too big on him using a vocoder these days, but in this case, it works very well.
Orgasm: Prince has basically taken the guitar solo from “Ronnie Talk To Russia” off his “Controversy” album and sampled it here on this track. Another thing he’s sampled is his ex-girlfriend Vanity – ahem! Reverend Denise Matthews, who is….err….well, I’ll let you do the math here. She sounds like she’s having a good time for some reason or another. While she’s doing this, Prince is whispering phrases like, “Don’t be shy it’s only you and I” and “Imagine what you look like from across the room…..Come…..you’re almost there.” Then at the end he says, “I love you.” And with that, the album is over. Done. Finito.
Verdict: When I look back at this album, I realise that it’s quite an adventurous one. Yeah, he talks about sex, child abuse, racism and even more sex, but if you pay very close attention to what he was doing here, you’ll notice that he’s taken some pretty big risks with his music. I mean, he’s tried to do a friggen opera song on this album! How ballsy would you have to be to try something like that? Maybe it doesn’t appeal to me, but still, it’s nothing he’d ever done before or since. Overall I think this is a really great album even if he was completely over it when the label decided to put it out. In 1995, he played “Letitgo” live and in 2003 he released it on his old website, but I dare Prince to just bust out with “Pheromone” or something like that one day. I know he recently did some shows with a lot of obscure songs, but still, I dare him to do it. Go on, Prince! Sing these songs live – I dare ya.
