美国国家公共电台 NPR Prince Contained Multitudes, New Book Confirms

 

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Now to music. Many people were shocked and upset by the death of singer-songwriter Prince last April.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "WHEN DOVES CRY")

PRINCE: (Singing) Dig if you will the picture of you and I engaged in a kiss.

MARTIN: New Yorker contributing writer Ben Greenman decided¹ to turn his grief into an exploration of Prince's work. Greenman's new book is called "Dig If You Will The Picture." Leah Donnella of NPR's Code Switch team tells us more about it.

LEAH DONNELLA, BYLINE²: Ben Greenman has been a Prince fan since 1982 when he was in middle school. But even a dedicated³ Prince follower⁴ like Greenman has trouble categorizing Prince's music.

BEN GREENMAN: From very early on, he just shattered ideologies⁶.

DONNELLA: Greenman is a culture writer for The New Yorker and the author of several books about musicians, both fiction and nonfiction. He says Prince loved to play around with constructions of race. When he first signed a contract with Warner Brothers in the late '70s, Prince didn't want to be categorized as a black musician. Remember, this was before MTV and before so-called black music was heavily marketed to white audiences.

So Prince stirred up rumors⁷ about his racial identity claiming to be multi-racial, even though both of his parents were black. In his 1984 movie "Purple Rain," Prince's dad is played by a black man, and his mother is played by a white, Greek woman.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "PURPLE RAIN")

OLGA KARLATOS: (As Mother) You don't care about me.

CLARENCE WILLIAMS III: (As Father) Don't I keep the heat on?

KARLATOS: (As Mother) I don't like it here. You never talk to me.

PRINCE: (As The Kid) Dad, please.

DONNELLA: In Greenman's new book, he also talks about the ways Prince toyed with gender⁸ and sexuality. Take the 1981 song "Controversy⁹."

GREENMAN: There's a line early on when he says am I black or white? Am I straight or gay? A famous lyric¹⁰.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "CONTROVERSY")

PRINCE: (Singing) Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?

GREENMAN: And some of it was to create mystique. But as he went on, some of it became a legitimate¹¹ inquiry¹².

DONNELLA: Prince had a sort of alter ego⁵ he called his Camille persona, which he used in songs like "If I Was Your Girlfriend" where he was trying to convey things from a more female perspective.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "IF I WAS YOUR GIRLFRIEND")

PRINCE: (Singing) If I was your girlfriend, would you let me wash your hair? Could I make you breakfast sometime?

DONNELLA: And according to Greenman, there was a strategy behind Prince's race and gender bending.

GREENMAN: That process was to isolate¹³ two theoretically opposed aspects of a self of a person - male, female, black, white, straight, gay, good, evil - and he played out that opposition¹⁴ in his work. Sometimes he resolved it to his satisfaction, usually he didn't. And the tension between those two things powered the work. That was the engine at the center.

DONNELLA: Behind the scenes, Prince was notoriously shy, and he didn't do a lot of interviews. But when he did, he committed hard to the idea that he and his music were not to be put into a box. In a 1999 TV appearance, Larry King expressed confusion at what to call Prince who at the time was not going by Prince, but an unpronounceable symbol.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "LARRY KING LIVE")

LARRY KING: How would you describe your music? What idiom would you put in it?

PRINCE: The only thing I could think of - because I really don't like categories - but the only thing I could think of is inspirational, and I think music that is from the heart falls right into that category.

DONNELLA: The way Prince forced fans to reckon with their own notions of identity was a form of activism, Greenman says, an activism that evolved over the course of Prince's musical career.

GREENMAN: A lot of the way he addressed social issues was revolutionary early on and sort of slogan-based. He would urge people to educate themselves or overthrow¹⁵ the existing order. Don't listen to everyone. And they were - it's not that they were bromides necessarily.

On an album like "Controversy," he talked about Reagan and he talked about nuclear proliferation and he talked about the Atlanta child murders. He was very into the news in the news cycle, and I think always was. There's a song very late in his career called "Baltimore" about the Freddie Gray case and the unrest in Baltimore.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "BALTIMORE")

PRINCE: (Singing) Does anybody hear us pray for Michael Brown or Freddie Gray? Peace is more than the absence of war.

GREENMAN: Those kinds of songs get processed differently than the songs that are part of the core Prince identity of the '80s. I think those in some ways are easier to go back to. They have a different kind of energy. It's like staring into the sun.

DONNELLA: For Ben Greenman, writing "Dig If You Will The Picture" was a way to start processing that overwhelming brightness that defined Prince's career. Leah Donnella, NPR News.

1 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 dedicated   

adj.一心一意的；献身的；热诚的

参考例句：

• He dedicated his life to the cause of education.他献身于教育事业。
• His whole energies are dedicated to improve the design.他的全部精力都放在改进这项设计上了。

4 follower   

n.跟随者；随员；门徒；信徒

参考例句：

• He is a faithful follower of his home football team.他是他家乡足球队的忠实拥护者。
• Alexander is a pious follower of the faith.亚历山大是个虔诚的信徒。

5 ego   

n.自我，自己，自尊

参考例句：

• He is absolute ego in all thing.在所有的事情上他都绝对自我。
• She has been on an ego trip since she sang on television.她上电视台唱过歌之后就一直自吹自擂。

6 ideologies   

n.思想（体系）( ideology的名词复数 )；思想意识；意识形态；观念形态

参考例句：

• There is no fundamental diversity between the two ideologies. 这两种思想意识之间并没有根本的分歧。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Radical ideologies require to contrast to their own goodness the wickedness of some other system. 凡是过激的意识形态，都需要有另外一个丑恶的制度作对比，才能衬托出自己的善良。 来自辞典例句

7 rumors   

n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷

参考例句：

• Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

9 controversy   

n.争论，辩论，争吵

参考例句：

• That is a fact beyond controversy.那是一个无可争论的事实。
• We ran the risk of becoming the butt of every controversy.我们要冒使自己在所有的纷争中都成为众矢之的的风险。

10 lyric   

n.抒情诗，歌词；adj.抒情的

参考例句：

• This is a good example of Shelley's lyric poetry.这首诗是雪莱抒情诗的范例。
• His earlier work announced a lyric talent of the first order.他的早期作品显露了一流的抒情才华。

11 legitimate   

adj.合法的，合理的，合乎逻辑的；v.使合法

参考例句：

• Sickness is a legitimate reason for asking for leave.生病是请假的一个正当的理由。
• That's a perfectly legitimate fear.怀有这种恐惧完全在情理之中。

12 inquiry   

n.打听，询问，调查，查问

参考例句：

• Many parents have been pressing for an inquiry into the problem.许多家长迫切要求调查这个问题。
• The field of inquiry has narrowed down to five persons.调查的范围已经缩小到只剩5个人了。

13 isolate   

vt.使孤立，隔离

参考例句：

• Do not isolate yourself from others.不要把自己孤立起来。
• We should never isolate ourselves from the masses.我们永远不能脱离群众。

14 opposition   

n.反对，敌对

参考例句：

• The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
• The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。

15 overthrow   

v.推翻，打倒，颠覆；n.推翻，瓦解，颠覆

参考例句：

• After the overthrow of the government,the country was in chaos.政府被推翻后，这个国家处于混乱中。
• The overthrow of his plans left him much discouraged.他的计划的失败使得他很气馁。