Prince is on our minds and in our hearts at the moment.

For The Wild Word it was also a chance to delve deeper into the theme of GROWING UP.

With the passing of one of our musical greats, our contributors, in paying their respects, explore the idea of heroes and idols, sexual awakening and coming-of-age, passion and fandom, and the soundtrack and essential hits of our youth.

Times, times

2016 is the carnage of heroes. You turn on the telly and every other story Is telling you somebody died.

Like Bowie, Prince was a trickster, believer, shape shifter, he flaunted a fluid sexuality. Can you be straight and move like that? Wear that? Yes, he said. You can be anything.

He was the absolute showman, a dirty angel, he hit all the high notes, played every instrument, wind milled guitar solos any teenage kid would fantasize over, locked away in our suburban bedrooms.

He was over the top, a purple prophet, unpredictable, and that’s how we need our super stars, they take it all too far, so we are allowed to wake up and go on, the dream always ahead, of a different way to be.

He unlocked our boredom, opened the door of possibilities, you don’t have to be like everyone else, you don’t have to do what you’re told. You can be tiny, but your attitude can make you a giant.

I had every album, saw him live twice. Was fascinated at his boundary crossing, code switching, ass wiggling, he was camp and macho at the same time. He had so much, some people are given so much, but he used every inch of what he had, every talent lit up, every note hit.

It’s silly, no

When a rocket ship explodes

And everybody still wants 2 fly

He was touched by the Holy Spirit, and he never lost contact with the source. Pouring out music, unstoppable, believing in its power to light us all up. Prince was absolutely sincere. Tiny, freaky, fluid, strange, but absolutely who he was.

We will not see his likes again.

Some say a man ain’t happy

Unless a man truly dies

Oh why

Time, time

Tribute image is by Ashling McKeever.  Ashling is an artist and illustrator and lives in Dundalk, Ireland.

Text by Emer Martin.  Emer is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East, and various places in the U.S. She is the founder of Rawmeash, the publishing cooperative. She  lives between the jungles of Co. Meath, Ireland and Silicon Valley, California. Her websites are www.rawmeash.com and www.emermartin.com

The thing about Prince for me was the sex.

It was 1984 and Purple Rain, both the film and the soundtrack, opened the floodgates to things my then 10-year old mind was just beginning to comprehend. The sultry look in his black eye-lined eye. The sheer funk and groove of his music made my hips move in a way they hadn’t before, imagining things I was pretty sure I was too young to be thinking about. Giddy and confused, that was me. He oozed sex, confidence, and bravado with just a hint of danger. And yet behind this overt display, it was clear the music always came first. The moments of raunchiness were always maintained by the dignity and musical integrity of a man who could play the shit out of any instrument, any style. He took them all on to create his own sound and that is how he wanted to be remembered.

And so I shall forego my adolescent fantasies and say what others have already said—the music will always live on, and that is as it should be.

Good night, sweet prince.

Kristin Tovson is a dancer, sometimes writer and English language trainer, but most often yoga teacher living in Berlin since 2009. She came here from the US with her German husband on a Fulbright fellowship and then stayed to raise a family. She is mom to two spitfire girls, ages 4 and ½ and 2. She loves macaroni and cheese from a box, especially with a glass of wine in front of the television. www.kristintovson.wordpress.com

I came of age in Singapore in the early 90’s. I’m sure I must have heard ‘Kiss’, or ‘When Doves Cry’ on the radio or in a movie at some point, but the first time I really listened to Prince’s music was on the Batman Soundtrack. I was a comic book fanboy and the movie was heavily marketed, even in Singapore, so it’s not that surprising that I bought the cassette. Looking back, that album probably isn’t his greatest work. The frenetic cut-and-paste beats of ‘Batdance’ grabbed your attention, but it was basically a teaser trailer for the movie and soundtrack. I do remember sitting through all the credits to listen to the love theme ‘Arms of Orion’, but it was ‘Partyman’ that was the perfect superhero-themed introduction to his signature Minneapolis sound that turned me into a fan.

The unpronounceable Love Symbol album was my defining Prince album. It was a “concept” album, a “rock opera”. There was some sort of storyline that played out in between the tracks, but to this day I couldn’t tell you what it was about. But it didn’t matter. Every single song was perfectly crafted and produced, they flowed into each other, but they were all different, and they showed off everything I love about Prince (or The-Artist-Formerly-Known-As-Prince as he was soon to become) — the in-your-face funk of ‘My Name Is Prince’ (“and I am funky!”), the get-you-in-trouble-for-listening-to-it ‘Sexy MF’ (which was censored to “sexy mother-OW!” in the Singapore release), the soulful Purple Rain-esque ‘The Morning Papers’, the jangly pop-harmony perfection of ‘7’ (I always wished I knew what chord he was playing), and the operatic climax and resolution of ‘3 Chains of Gold’ and ‘The Sacrifice of Victor’. I listened to this album non-stop on my Sony Walkman (with “auto-reverse”) probably for my entire senior year.

He’s not the reason I started playing guitar, but he certainly gave me some aspirations once I was good enough to even attempt to play his stuff. When I was in grad school in Santa Barbara I put on a purple blazer and played ‘Purple Rain’ (I sang and played the lone guitar) at a local coffee shop. I wish there had been cellphones back then, I would have loved to hear how bad I sounded. But it felt so good, like running around with a cape on, pretending to be Superman.

I know he had this whole reputation and image built up around the sex thing. But seriously, the songs themselves are so…vulgar, with no subtlety at all (c’mon, ‘Gett Off’, ‘Cream’, ‘Sexy MF’, ‘Come’???), even as a teenager I knew that wasn’t anything that would be attractive to the opposite sex. For me, it wasn’t about the sex at all. Obviously I knew he wrote a lot about sex, but I never could imagine how girls/women would find him or that image at all sexy! If he was “sexy”, it was in a kind of weird and creepy way (which might have been what he was going for). But to me, that sexual image was mostly a little embarrassing, and sometimes made me uncomfortable to be seen or heard listening to his albums.

The thing about Prince, for me, was how he touched something bigger than us, something universal, something so powerful, and he channeled that through music. I like to think it’s called soul music because when the artist sings, you hear straight to their soul. They’re pouring their heart out to you, and in the grunts and screams you can hear their deepest yearnings and most primal urges. Prince had one of the best screams in music ever. Just listen to the end of ‘The Beautiful Ones’ and you’ll know what I’m talking about. ‘Do you want him? Or do you want me? Coz I want you!’ Totally gut-wrenching, you knew he felt it at the very core of his being, and he was laying this bare for us to hear.

I wouldn’t say I feel sad that he’s gone. Many people are saying “he’s gone too soon”, or “why is everybody dying this year?” His passing has just let me remember episodes from my adolescence, and also reminded me of just what a singular talent he was. But there’s no regret, no sorrow. I’m just thankful for all the incredible music he’s given us to enjoy over the last few decades. It’s as if he’s given us so much already, I feel like it’s enough for this lifetime.

Ching-Wei is a music technology enthusiast and Engineering Manager at SoundCloud, where he teaches computers how to understand music. He currently lives in Berlin with his wife and two sons, but will be moving to New York this summer to continue his work at Spotify.

Thirteen years old, gigantic red Sanyo walkman with wasting batteries, dark room and ‘Little Red Corvette’ playing a tad too slow but the “ride is so smooth”.

Desperately hoping to get to the end of the song, I would remove the batteries and rub them vigorously in the hope that they would work long enough until I was satisfied. Other nights I would cry myself to sleep to ‘Sometimes It Snows in April’, the melancholy that it encouraged was like a blanket of indulgence that I allowed only in the privacy of my own head.

There was no available porn during my sexual awakening years but we had Prince and the odd pack of nudie cards. The peculiar, purple, androgynous blast came into my life through my best friend and confident, we were Catholic girls but of the Frank Zappa variety.

I don’t know how many hours we spent playing Prince’s albums on our radiogram. Yes, you heard that right! A radiogram was a big coffin-like piece of furniture that housed a turntable, sometimes an area for cocktails, and space to keep your collection of ten albums.

Prince became our whole world for a few years. We had it all: the calendars, Smash Hits covers, every new single, album, MTV recordings that we had watched so much the tape stretched. We even managed to get our hands on Paisley print blouses, the thing that kept us apart from the Cureheads were the shoulder pads.

The past 48 hours have transported me back to those coming-of-age days, of my attempts at defining myself. Betraying my tribe for ‘Starfish and Coffee’ instead of ‘The Aul Triangle’, declaring my loyalty to Prince with an air of provocation in my tone and paisley stance. My vivid inner life had me married to him with kids living in his mansion.

A bit like an imaginary friend, Prince and his music faded into my past only to be resurrected at parties, or through the waft of memory that would lead me to his greatest hits on my iPod.

Today however, I have indulged in nostalgia, the once treasured music videos that were carefully planned and taped from MTV are all over my Facebook feed as I drink my morning coffee with “butterscotch clouds, tangerine and a side order of ham”.

Thank-you Your Majesty for being the background of my difficult, quirky, naughty, humorous teenage years.

Growler is howling at the moon tonight.

Growler is an artist who lives, works and plays in Berlin. She is a mama, a lover and a teacher. She has had a life long fascination with vaginas and their ability to hold so much. She has recently discovered that she is like a vagina in her own abilities, juggling many things in her life.

“…maybe I’m just like my mother she’s never satisfied, why do we scream at each other, this is what it sounds like when doves cry”.

The first time I heard those lyrics it was from one of my older brothers who had sang them in response to my mum, who had been berating us—my siblings and myself, all four us then teenagers. There was plenty of banter in my household, so I laughed then, but went and looked for the song after. Not a small deed in those days of no Internet.

The comparison of troublesome relationships with the call of a meek bird struck me as with its pain and genius. Those lyrics spoke to the child of a dysfunctional family, as I was, and said and taught me so much in years to come.

That tune and Purple Rain became worldwide hits and consecrated Prince as a rock legend. At first I had found his screams unnecessary, his music loud, his style too cheap. Then his lyrics found a way inside of me.

Without his irony, his music, his style, even, I would never have survived being a teenager in the least cool decade of man’s history. The hideous wrong perm? He had one and gave it dignity. The oversized shoulder pads in his tight waist jackets? Became his signature and therefore mine.
He gave it style and swag.

The motorbike and the ladies with perfect curves, sexist and politically incorrect and frowned upon nowadays, for him the norm.  Yet he seemed to love women and surrounded himself them, he chose them to play with: remember Sheila E, his drummer, Wendy Melvoin, his guitarist, all sexy, and clever and powerful? He duetted with them, wrote about them and for them. From Shaka Khan’s heartfelt and catchy ‘I Feel for You’, which he wrote at 17, to me the hallmark of 80s dance music, to Sinead O’Connor’s painfully beautiful ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’, the melancholic and flippant ‘Manic Monday’ for the Bangles. All marvelous, all hits.

He could sing what he pleased, how he pleased and about whatever he pleased, as ‘Starfish and Coffee’ proves, which makes me think how many times I must have heard the whole Sign O’ the Times album on repeat.

It was his lyrics that influenced me. They were powerful. He could write so much in so few words. His strong freeze-dried pictures said it all.  How can you beat lines like “cause you have a pocket full of horses, Trojan and some of them used, but it was Saturday night I guess that makes it alright…” Don’t you just get the bitter disappointment of a deceived and beaten lover in ‘Little Red Corvette? Or “seems I was busy doing something close to nothing but different from the day before” and then he sees her walking in wearing not “much more” than a “raspberry beret”. And the hilarious “so when you call that shrink in Beverly Hills, you know the one, Dr Everything’s gonna be alright” in ‘Let’s go Crazy’.

And only he could in Sign O’ the Times jot down in a handful of words all the tragedy that was about to clip the wings of our generation when the first evidence of AIDS made the headlines via ‘a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name’.

Prince was a master at portraying the contradictions of man and his existential qualms so lightly yet so powerfully.

I never did get to see Prince live, but in the summer of 1989, I camped outside a sold-out Lovesexy Tour concert at the Allianz Riviera stadium in Nice. Colourful lights flashing from all sides of the arena, ‘Partyman’ from the Batman soundtrack album was playing, one deep vibration of bass and guitars right in our chests and Prince’s unique voice above all. It was as though a spaceship was about to take off. My boyfriend, not a fan, and I looked at each other stupefied and elated. The force of it blew us away. From time to time girls were carried out of the arena by paramedics, what was going on inside was unimaginable. That was the closest I would ever get to seeing one of the “best minds” of my generation.

This loss saddens this adult and leaves that dysfunctional teenager inconsolable.

Romina Pastorelli is a mother of two, English teacher, translator and wanna-be writer. She lives in Turin, Italy.  Between jobs, cooking meals and taxiing her children around their very active social life, she squeezes in some yoga, the endless proofreading of her first romance novel.

How can you just leave me standing?

Alone in a world that’s so cold?

My favorite Prince song is “Head.”

What an audacious and compelling ditty that is…

Nan DePlume is a writer who has lived in various spots in America and Europe. She enjoys Internet videos of cats tackling toddlers.