Around the Sign of the Rain Parade

I don't know if this is the case for all teenage boys/girls, but as a teenager I completely obsessed about one band, and that was Prince and the Revolution; they helped me through some tough teenage times, going spotty ;-), suffering unrequited love, dumping / being dumped, having to go into (a children's!) hospital ward as a vain teenager for IVs, and Prince's music was there to help me through. At the time I could probably name all of the songs on his first 10 albums in the correct order; and list all the B Sides I had/didn't have. Growing up as a teenager In the 80s it was either him or The Smiths really, they were great but I was never that keen on Morrisey's voice. Many people think the 80s was a trashy time for music, but anyone who was actually there will tell you there was a hell of a lot going on musically, and Prince was definitely at the top of the pile. To be honest in these celeb obsessed Heat/Nuts/X Factor days it's hard to remember how important music was back then, you had about 5 independent weekly music papers (MelodyMaker, NME, Sounds, RecordMirror), but hearing this 3-hour special on the best Prince tunes of all time took me right back to some of those exciting times where hearing a song for the first time could make you explode with insurmountable joy. Catch it now before it expires:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio2/30at50/prince.shtml

here's my unofficial esoteric Prince top ten:

1) Around The World In A Day
2) Take Me With You
3) Sign O The Times
4) I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man (phew ;-))
5) If I Was Your Girlfriend
6) Forever In My Life
7) Mountains
8) Condition of the Heart
9) Paisley Park
10) Raspberry Beret

p.s. Man City have lost today and are now out of the FA cup; the team is divided over the manager(Hughes) and the crowd is also divided about whether the manager should be sacked. it's all very divisive, depressing and I'm trying to take my mind off it ;-)

p.p.s. After writing this post, I had a dream about a girl who played me a "Prince" song called "Remi Moore", she said she loved it. Unfortunately when I woke up I couldn't remember anything about the melody, except that it was synthy and dreamy...the song was about a suicidal man who was saved by a girl called Remi Moore, but I can't remember anything else about it.