Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
Jim McDermottApril 26, 2016

I can’t tell you the last time I listened to a Prince song (although I know it was “Kiss.” For me, Prince always starts with “Kiss.”) And if you had asked me a week ago when was the last time I saw him perform, I’d have bet it had been decades.

But in the wake of his death last week and all the articles that have been written, I've realized I saw his Super Bowl half-time show in 2007. Whether you particularly like Prince or not, I don’t think there’s anyone that saw that show that’s likely to forget it. Though it was a downpour, he and his band were completely unphased. And he ended with Purple Rain.

It is moving of course to rewatch that performance now, but honestly, I remember it getting me weirdly choked up even back then. Somehow the rain took it out of the realm of “Super Bowl extravaganza” to a place that was much more intimate and personal. Even watching from home I felt like I was a part of something special and that it was speaking to something important inside of me.

One of the great insights of St. Ignatius of Loyola is the value of daydreams. The things that stir our hearts when our mind wanders off are worthy of our attention, St. Ignatius believed. His spirituality is actually on one level an invitation to daydream, to let our hearts and our imaginations be open and see where God leads.

And I think for a lot of us pop culture is our version of Ignatian daydreaming. The books we read, the shows we watch, the music we listen to all function as ways we take our hands off the wheel and let something else guide us, speak to us.

Prince sold almost 600,000 records in the first three days after his death. Some of that might seem ghoulish or nostalgic. But I think we also go back to his art because we know daydreaming with him has been meaningful to us in the past.

As someone tweeted after David Bowie died, “Thinking about how we mourn artists we've never met. We don't cry because we knew them, we cry because they helped us know ourselves.” And we listen to their songs because our instincts tell us, even now we have much more we can still learn.

I came of age at the same time as Prince’s music. Songs like “Kiss,” “Purple Rain” and “When Doves Cry” featured prominently at every college party I went to and at many of the wedding receptions that followed graduation. But it was also not an enlightened era. (Seeing the hysteria among some about allowing transgender students to choose their own bathroom suggests to me the current era still has a long way to go.)

Rewatching old Prince videos these last few days, I see his boldness in a way I didn’t back then. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him. He did what felt right and in doing so he also revealed how fun and sexy and crazy cool and right it could be just to be that strange and wonderful creature that God made you.

That’s a daydream worth revisiting. So come on Prince; take us away.

Jim McDermott, S.J., a screenwriter, is America’s Los Angeles correspondent. Twitter: @PopCulturPriest.

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
L J
7 years 11 months ago
That was a fun and upbeat article on Prince and I appreciate it. I was never a Prince fan, even if he was very popular in the dorms of my Jesuit college campus when he hit the scene in the 1980s. . Alas Prince was also a very tortured man much like Michael Jackson. No one will really know what drove Prince to abuse the prescription drugs he did for 25 years at such high dosages and in combination with others. When I learned of his death and read about his drug dealer bearing it all for the media, I was angered that someone who had such talent, creativity, bravado and wealth could be driven to lead such a tortured life. St Ignatius of Loyola, and so many other wise men and women of many Faiths, teach us to evolve, grow, mature and shed our chains, most of which are self-inflicted. What happened to Prince? Why was such a gifted man so sad and tormented ala Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe, et al? Why did he choose his path? 57 is far too young to die alone in one's house/studio and in an elevator. . May we all be vigilant and, as Pope Francis, show mercy towards those in our midst. The world is broken from all of the rock throwing at each other. I am tired of the constant polarizations and left vs right canard, as those in our midst suffer....on our watch . Oremus
Winifred Holloway
7 years 11 months ago
When Prince came on the scene one of my sons, a teen at the time, had a poster of Prince in his room and was quite into him. I, a busy mom, didn't get the attraction until I listened to his music. He was a brilliant musician and it seemed to me at the time, an intuitive performer, telegraphing both the erotic and the spiritual. Actually, linking them much like some of the early Christian mystics. I am making an assumption here, but it is sad that he had no one looking after his best interests. Who could say "whoa" when he took risks to his health. You can be so famous and untouchable that the people around you fear telling you the truth and imparting some tough love. RIP

The latest from america

The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
The Society of JesusMarch 28, 2024
A child wounded in an I.D.F. bombardment is brought to Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, on March 25. (AP Photo/Ismael abu dayyah)
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Kevin ClarkeMarch 28, 2024
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.
Stephanie SaldañaMarch 28, 2024