Despite the thread title, I don’t aim to ruin this MASTERPIECE of a song for anyone, but as the saying goes don’t ask how the sausage gets made…
Lemme pause that.
If you’ve never read or discussed “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, that last idiom might’ve gone over your head. So I’ll say again… SPOILER ALERT!!! Proceed at your own risk.
Now that THAT is out of the way, what inspired this thread was me waking up to take a piss and having When Doves Cry stuck in my head from a dream and wondering what the hell that even meant. So I did some digging.
It turns out that the track is in response to another track and was a back and forth between Prince and Stevie Nicks. Long story short, Little Red Corvette inspired her to write Stand Back. If you listen to both songs, it’s an obvious rip off *ahem* inspired song.
As the story goes, when Prince was originally done with the album Purple Rain, the track When Doves Cry wasn’t even a thought or concept until he heard Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks. This is where it gets… weird/creepy and some might say inappropriate.
Edge of Seventeen is obviously about the loss of a teenager’s virginity. In the song Stevie Nicks moans like a dove crying “ooh ooh ooh”. Now is she older than this seventeen year old?
It kinda sounds like it…
Prince’s response, When Doves Cry (a call back to the end of her song) is written from the perspective of the teenage boy. Mystery solved.
Lemme pause that.
If you’ve never read or discussed “The Jungle” by Upton Sinclair, that last idiom might’ve gone over your head. So I’ll say again… SPOILER ALERT!!! Proceed at your own risk.
Now that THAT is out of the way, what inspired this thread was me waking up to take a piss and having When Doves Cry stuck in my head from a dream and wondering what the hell that even meant. So I did some digging.
It turns out that the track is in response to another track and was a back and forth between Prince and Stevie Nicks. Long story short, Little Red Corvette inspired her to write Stand Back. If you listen to both songs, it’s an obvious rip off *ahem* inspired song.
As the story goes, when Prince was originally done with the album Purple Rain, the track When Doves Cry wasn’t even a thought or concept until he heard Edge of Seventeen by Stevie Nicks. This is where it gets… weird/creepy and some might say inappropriate.
Edge of Seventeen is obviously about the loss of a teenager’s virginity. In the song Stevie Nicks moans like a dove crying “ooh ooh ooh”. Now is she older than this seventeen year old?
It kinda sounds like it…
Prince’s response, When Doves Cry (a call back to the end of her song) is written from the perspective of the teenage boy. Mystery solved.
