The death of rocker Prince, the little symbol or the artist formerly known as Prince or whatever he was calling himself of late, got me thinking last week about my teenage years and quite frankly about my own mortality.

If you haven’t heard the Minnesota-born musician was found dead last week in his home.

Few can argue the fact that Prince made huge contributions to music at the time.

He changed the world of rock ’n‘ roll music in the 1980s — which happen to be what generational experts would call my formative years.

While I’ve never been one to be so deeply moved by a musician that I would shed tears over his loss, clearly Prince’s music did that for many around the globe.

Prince’s meteoric rise to fame in music does, however, mark my teenage years.

I remember driving around during high school, listening to Prince’s songs such as “Little Red Corvette” and “1999.”

In the mid-1980s, the concept of 1999 was so far removed from our youthful reality that it seemed eons away. We would, we thought at the time, be “almost 30” when 1999 rolls around.

Little did we know how quickly time would begin to fly upon high school and college graduation.

All the while as the music played, I had absolutely no clue what Vice President Al Gore’s wife Tipper was getting up in arms about.

You may recall Mrs. Gore created the Parents Music Resource Center that ultimately led to parental warnings on music packaging, games and such.

Perhaps I was alone as a relatively naïve teen at the time who simply had no clue what all the fuss was about the lyrics of Prince’s songs.

I couldn’t make out half of the words anyhow.

Ditto for other popular musical artists of the time and the belief in the day that our brains were being turned into sinful mush because of the music.

In our parents’ day, it was Elvis Presley’s gyrating hips that were to blame for society’s problems.

I look back on some of those lyrics now and realize just how raunchy some of that stuff was.

But the only thing is, those words didn’t ruin me or compromise my morals, which were set early by two loving parents who dragged me to church for years to try and keep me focused on the right things, despite my temporary teenage rebellion.

Today, 1999 seems a distant memory. For me it was a late night in the newsroom building an “early newspaper” ahead of the dreaded Y2K (the fear of catastrophe caused by the clocks on computers around the world clicking over to “1900” instead of “2000.”)

It’s difficult to realize that’s been more than 15 years ago.

From images online, Prince didn’t appear to have aged much. I certainly have.

The old saying goes, “You can’t take it with you.” And that’s certainly true.

Prince entertained millions and millions of adoring fans, but in the end, he died alone in his house with none of the applause or screams of adoration.

In the end, even if we’re surrounded by friends or loved ones when the final curtain draws closed, we’ll all be alone to face our maker.

It’s not about how much money we gather up or how many fans cry when we’re gone, but rather, if we know the Lord and have Him in our hearts.

Hopefully Prince did because if not heaven is going to miss hearing his voice sing with the angels.

 

Kevin Cooper is publisher of The Natchez Democrat. He can be reached at 601-445-3539 or kevin.cooper@natchezdemocrat.com.