Get up, come on lets do something! 
Welcome to day 11 of the ‘3121’ #PrinceTwitterThread series. Thanks for sticking around and thanks to all the wonderful contributors thus far! Today we will take a look at track number 9 on the #3121album. I'm talkin' about 'The Word'.
For those that are not familiar with The Word, check it out while reading this thread. It is available on most streaming services, but for convenience here is the Spotify link: open.spotify.com/track/4JghB6n4…
If one thing became apparent the last couple of days, it is how different each and every track on ‘3121’ is, yet the album has a very cohesive feel to it. It is only when you single out tracks that their unique style surfaces.
In the case of ‘The Word’ that style is dominated by the acoustic guitar up front in the mix and a very stylish, electronic sounding beat underneath it. The vibe is calm, soothing and almost ethereal.
The one thing that immediately hooked me when I first heard the song are the funky keyboards emulating a saxophone. Seriously, I only have to hear a few seconds an it is stuck in my head for the rest of the day.
When the acoustic guitar is not upfront in the mix, Prince’s vocals are dominant. He is telling us about ‘The Word’. The message is clear, yet he’s not preaching. He’s just inviting the listeners to ‘go get saved’. More on that later.
It’s not until the chorus starts that multiple layers of voices are added to the song. Very well executed, as always. Vocal arrangements are one thing I have always admired in Prince’s work. He is an amazing singer, but he has also been a brilliant vocal arranger.
That has been the case from the moment he introduced himself to the world with ‘For You’. Now there he was showing off. Almost three decades on in ‘The Word’ it is almost Prince on automatic pilot, yet still very impressive. How many layers are there? They all blend perfectly.
By the way, Prince used to record most of his vocals sitting down. You can ask any vocal coach, what he achieves sitting down behind that mixing desk is mighty impressive.
I love how effortlessly the song builds. Check that Santana-like guitar solo that comes creeping in around 2:40 min. and explodes about half a minute later. So good! And when it fades, it leaves us with some latin percussion before a frantic scream closes the song.
Now that scream is weird. It does not quite sound like someone that has just been saved. And being saved is the theme of the song. Not only for this song, ‘Get On The Boat’ has the same theme. More on that in a few days (and in the following tweets).
Being saved/saving people can be considered a recurring theme in Prince’s body of work. A theme that has slowly developed itself, as on the first five albums there was no hope. In ‘1999’ he literally sings about the end of the world, without a chance of eternal life.
It is not until ‘Purple Rain’ that Prince tries to convey to his audience that there is more. ‘The afterworld’ in ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, the ‘Lord coming soon’ back masked in ‘Darling Nikki’ and in the subtitle of the ‘17 Days’ 12” version. Prince lets us know how to be saved.
And let’s not forget the guidance he gives in the spiritual tour de force that is the title track of the ‘Purple Rain’ album. @deejayUMB had a lot to say about that in a previous thread:
From there on the way to be saved fluctuates as Prince’s beliefs changed. When he recorded the song ‘Crystal Ball’ in 1986, he has ‘his baby’ fearing hell and wanting to be saved from that. The song is about making love during the apocalypse.
Once he had entered the ‘Lovesexy’ era he was praying to Jesus himself in the song ‘Anna Stesia’. ‘Save me Jesus, I’ve been a fool.’ This belief, that a higher power would be able to save him/the listener, continued on albums that followed and during concerts.
On the ‘Lovesexy ‘88’ tour Prince had the audience chanting ‘God Is Love, Love is God’ and he frequently included call and response segments to ask the audience if they believed.
At the time he wrote from the firm belief that devoting yourself to God and Jesus was the path to being saved. Although in songs such as ‘Forever In My Life’ (1987) and ‘Saviour’ (1996) it is a woman that saves him here and now, in this life.
These human saviours are rare in Prince’s work though. For instance in ‘Elephants And Flowers’ (1990) he has the protagonist of the song ‘looking 4 a saviour in a city full of fools’ and he can’t find it as he has to ‘love the one who is love’ to find salvation.
More examples are to be found in ‘Thieves In The Temple’. When Prince sings ‘love if you’re there come save me’ he is asking God to save him (‘Love is God') and in ‘Still Would Stand All Time’ he acknowledges once again that ‘love can save us all’ (read: 'God can save us all').
Another example from the ‘Jesus saves’ era is ‘Thunder’ (1991) in which we are promised to witness Jesus at dawn and it is God (Love) whose hand we need to hold.
‘Love say "Take my hand, it'll be alright
C'mon save your soul tonight’
‘Love say "Take my hand, it'll be alright
C'mon save your soul tonight’
By the way, during the Diamonds And Pearls tour in 1992 Prince had the audience chanting once again. This time ‘Live 4 Love’ (= ‘Live 4 God’)
Around the time Prince changed his name to the unpronounceable symbol, his belief systems seemed to shift. ‘My Name Is Prince’ still has the more traditional view for instance, but the more he fought his record label, the more he relied on himself.
So on ‘New World’ (1996) it is no longer God or Love that saves us from obliteration, yet it is ‘the sharpest vibration’. On the ‘Emancipation’ album the traditional saviour is still present on ‘The Love We Make’ though.
In the later 1990s Prince’s religious beliefs moved towards that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a religious group of people that is known for going door to door. Their main goal is to save as many people as they can. More on that in my ‘Get On The Boat’ thread on Wednesday.
Just a quick shout out to @ruthlesdva, who worked with/for Prince in the '3121 era', was responsible for decorating the room as seen in previous tweet and over the past couple of days has been amazing in commenting on all our #3121album threads. She's awesome!
Anyway, so Jehovah's Witnesses are trying to save you. Think about that when they are at your door and you tell them you are not interested.
In the song ‘The Truth’ that is what Prince moves towards. ‘Questionnaire, What did U stand 4’ | ‘Questionnaire, Who did U save’.
In the song ‘The Truth’ that is what Prince moves towards. ‘Questionnaire, What did U stand 4’ | ‘Questionnaire, Who did U save’.
In the song 3rd Eye on the ‘The Truth’ album Prince goes even further as he proclaims:
‘Ultimately the only one
That can save U is U’
‘Ultimately the only one
That can save U is U’
Fast forward to 2006 and Prince is slowly circling back to where he came from, despite his beliefs. In ‘The Word’ he sings ‘Come on, go, let's get saved’. Instead of the active ‘the only one that can save U is U’ or actually saving people himself, he’s now more passive.
In that passive approach he harks back to themes in sons we mentioned earlier. ‘There won’t be no pain’ from ‘Elephants And Flowers’ is ‘No reason to feel this pain’ in ‘The Word’. ‘Gotta tell the truth’ from ‘The Truth’ is now ‘The truth has got to be told.
‘The Word’ is Prince’s way of going door to door. Basically this is him continuing what he started on ‘The Rainbow Children’. ‘Share the truth, preach the good news, don't let nobody bring you down’ (from ‘The Everlasting Now’).
One song that has not been mentioned is ‘7’, yet that is another song that can be linked to ‘The Word’. Even musically they are somewhat similar, with the acoustic guitar in a lead role.
It might be fun to insert Psalm 31:21 here. Although it is a weak link, it can be appropriate. In the New World Bible Prince was reading at the time, the psalm says verse: ‘May Jehovah be praised, for in a wonderful way, he has shown his loyal love to me in a besieged city.’
In ‘7’ Prince brings us a vision of the apocalypse and he sings of a ‘new city with streets of gold’, which – in the Prince universe – might be the aftermath of that besieged city or maybe even a new version of that dreadful city we heard about in ‘Elephants And Flowers’.
Within the Bible the ‘streets of gold’ image is only used once and refers to ‘the New Jerusalem’ (Revelation 21:21) the same place where there’ll be no more pain (Revelation 21:04). Actually that majority of Revelation 21 is the inspiration for ‘7’.
The ‘gold’ here is actually a metaphor for ‘purity’. In Prince’s body of work ‘gold’ is used quite often, from the ‘The Gold Experience’ era to ‘3 Chains O’ Gold (‘the nucleus of Prince’s soul’) or the chariot in ‘Love Sign’ (‘The cool, fuzzy voice said, "Come save your soul"')
The ‘streets of gold’ metaphor is only is used twice though. In ‘The Word’ he uses ‘the streets of gold’ to describe the lips of the person he’s singing to. Claiming ‘they’ll never be streets of gold’. Possibly meaning ‘they will never be pure’.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it is more of a statement. In the Bible it reads ‘If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us’ (1 John 1:8). Prince is longing for ‘The Truth’. As a matter of fact, it is fitting with other parts of the song.
Another vivid image used in ‘The Word’ is the ‘treachery of the wicked one’ with his ‘4ked tongue’. Speaking with a forked tongue means telling lies, it is derived from the book of Genesis in which Eve is seduced by the devil (in the form of a snake) to eat the forbidden fruit.
We could do a whole thread about Adam and Eve in Prince’s music. They are probably the most recurring characters in his body of work. But let’s stick with ‘The Word’ here, in which Prince warns us for the lies of ‘the wicked one’.
To quote apostle John once more: ‘The whole world is lying in the power of the wicked one’ (1 John 5:19) and Prince is warning us here. As said earlier, he is not overly preaching. He is stating it all as a matter of fact.
Let’s not forget the spiders in the chorus. Predators known for their patience in catching their prey. They are commonly used in popular culture, yet not really present in Prince’s body of work apart from this song and in ‘Golden Parachute’. The use here is poignant though.
Basically Prince is warning the listener for the long term plans of the ‘wicked ones’ that slowly creep up on us without us fully realizing. ‘Act upon every urge, U can’t get no satisfaction’, Prince sings.
That is a warning for the times we live in now. Most people act on urge, they don’t see the long term effects of their actions. Society as it is these days is built on instant gratification, yet we all feel more empty that ever. Prince warned us we were heading in that direction.
One last thing and that’s the ‘new xhaltation’ that Prince sings about. He is once again threading territory he’s been on earlier, het with new beliefs and new visions.
On a quick side note, look how xhaltation is spelled in the lyrics, could have been the title of a song on the internet only album ‘Xpectation’.
Anyway, where did we hear something similar before? Yeah, that’s right…
And here’s another one…
And another… And there are plenty more… please leave them in the comments!
What makes ‘The Word’ powerful, as you can enjoy it without getting the message shoved in your face. It is there, but you can overlook it and just enjoy the great song. Yet you hear it and subconsciously start thinking about it. And before you know it you are over 50 tweets in.
So I’ll leave it there. Hope you enjoyed this. Please spread ‘The Word’ of this #PrinceTwitterThread series and enjoy the threads that are still up the next couple of days. I’ll be back on Wednesday for a thread on ‘Get On The Boat’.
For now I’ll leave you with this as a way to merge the two threads together. A live performance of ‘The Word’ at the 2007 ALMA Awards, that merges into ‘Get On The Boat’. Enjoy!
A very special thanks to my co-host @deejayUMB, all the contributors in this #PrinceTwitterThread series: @yan_kry, @darlingnisi, @RichardCole_NOW, @PrincesFriendYT, @CaseyRain, @CasciTRitchie, @ehphd, @arrthurr and @pressrewind75 and you, the audience!
