"The Chord Strikes, Devil No Like" - the "Parade" Album

I had a nice vacation--well, it was really a "staycation" because I didn't go anywhere. I did take some time to work on the book, and I was excited to talk to another person who attended Prince's childhood Seventh-day Adventist church. I was able to get a great anecdote from him. I also made some progress ordering some Prince-related public documents (birth certificate, marriage certificate, etc).

I want to talk about something that is top-of-mind for me today--Prince's 1986 album "Parade," which is also the soundtrack to his second film, "Under the Cherry Moon."

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So...I don't know much about this album. I was listening to the album at work, and I realized that I've probably only heard the full album about four times. As many of you know, Prince has a huge discography of released music (let's not even get into the "vault"). In the current version of my book, I've analyzed a good chunk of his albums, but there are some that I still need to spend some time with, and "Parade" is one of them (unlike Matt Thorne, I will not reference every song that Prince has ever written, but I will cover all albums between 1978 and 2004).

I've been familiar with "Kiss" (of course), "Anotherloverholeinyohead" (one of my all-time favorite Prince songs--so funky I can barely take it) and "Sometimes it Snows in April" for some time. The others are pretty much new to me. So far, I'm really feeling "I Wonder U" and "Under the Cherry Moon." I'm also amazed that the album is so concise--I'm used to extended jams from Prince.

However, my personal taste is not important. I'm looking forward to analyzing the spiritual themes in the album and the movie.

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Though I own the movie, I only saw it once years ago, so I don't remember much. I'm looking forward to watching it again with an analytical eye. Also, I now have some first-hand information about the making of the film from Prince's former press agent, Howard Bloom, who was working with him at the time.

What are your favorite tracks from "Parade," and what did you think of "Under the Cherry Moon?"