This Week...When Doves Cry.

Commentary

I was going to begin this week with my usual rushed take on the weekly events, yet another Donald Trump or David Cameron related story that I put some sort of sarcastic slant on in an attempt to derive humour. This week however closes with the news that Prince has left us.

I wasn't someone who heard Prince on the radio in my former years and was instantly converted to his music. I can't even remember the first time I heard his music. Although those early memories don't remain for me Prince, as he did with countless others, has been pivotal in creating the greatest memories that I am lucky enough to own. 'Purple Rain' has left me with a faint voice the next morning more times than I'd care to mention. 'Another Lonely Christmas' still easily remains my favourite song of the holidays. 'Sister' genuinely fueled a horribly awkward conversation between me and my, well, sister when she heard it blasting from my room one time. 'Controversy' became an instant classic for our group of greasy haired 16 year olds which continued until our transcendence towards struggling adulthood, a song that as recently as last week scored the marriage of two of my best friends in this now Princeless world.

"I’m not a woman. I’m not a man. I am something that you’ll never understand" he says, a statement that could not be truer coming from anyone else. Unashamedly sexual, bold, sleazy and gritty Prince at the least was someone whose simple excistence made you a more creative, more confident, more impassioned and a more empathetic person. At his best he gifted infinite generations with the belief that freedom of expression can come in any form, whether as a man who was reborn as a symbol or "A STRAIGHT BLACK MAN WHO PLAYED HIS FIRST TELEVISED SET IN BIKINI BOTTOMS AND KNEE HIGH HEELED BOOTS" as Frank Ocean described him, telling of Prince's influence on his own sexuality. He could pen odes to giving 'Head' while telling of a girl wearing nothing more than a 'Raspberry Beret', simply put his mere creation helped us all be more like us.

Prince was someone who was human but almost mythical as one, a strange entity that for some unknown reason chose our shared lifetimes to inhabit. With the gift that is sharing the same lifetime as Prince comes the possibility that he may leave before you but hey, whatever planet he's on I bet there's some real sexy shit going down there.