NORTHERN PLANNER

If you put a gun to my head and made me pick a favourite album, I'd probably pick Sign 'O' the Times by Prince. As with most music, much of this is to do with who and where I was when it came out.

Thirteen and all over the place. Who isn't at thirteen?

The album’s strength is it’s lack of focus, trying and failing to make sense of the time it was written in, or the person who wrote it.

This is a claustrophobic outpouring of talent from a man working alone, with too much in his head to ever simply bottle.

Or not quite. This is Prince's best album because he had editors too.

A record company made him reduce the album by a third, while his sound engineer was brave enough to tell him no.
How ever good you think you are, don't let your ego get in the way of feedback.

That's not the main point I want to make though.

Some songs, some films, some albums when you experience them for the first time, they immediately connect.

Music especially can engulf you, so you listen to the record over and over until eventually, that thunderclap of inspiration fades and you move on to the next thing.

Every now and then though, while that first rush is never the same again, some  stay with you.
In many ways they get better, changing as you change. 

Sign 'o' the Times is like that for me. Leave it a while, come back and it re-connects in new ways. 

It's why you need a leave your own project for a bit then come back. It's the only way to know if you merely fell in love with your first idea. 

Anyway. This album isn't the same because I'm not. My context is very different. 

Take 'I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man'. It could have been written specifically for online dating for over 45s. 

The crowning glory of the album though, is 'If I Was Your Girlfriend'. I used to love this because it's just so, well, different. 

Now though…

 

It's a song about a man jealous of the relationship the woman he loves has with other women.

Back when most most men didn't even know this was a problem, there Prince was nailing the simple fact that men are pretty crap.

They have relationships side by side, rarely face to face and just don't talk about things the way women do, in fact many still don't know they want to.

For most blokes, it's hard to let your guard down with other men. Even with your partner in some cases.It's all suppressed until it explodes all over your life.

It’s exhausting being strong, “Why can’t we just hang out, go to the movies and cry together?”

Naturally, it should follow that menfolk should get their act together and thankfully, this is happening in places. However, I'm convinced there's an easier solution. More men should be encouraged to make friends with more women.

It won't make you better at pulling, in case you think I’m driving at that. I've been lucky enough to have friends who are girls most of my life and I'm still useless at all that, even for a funny looking man with no hair.

It can make it easier to talk about stuff though, develop your emotional intelligence and get the odd hug.

I'm fine being single but I really miss physical closeness. Obviously you miss sex, but my body craves a more fundamental touch even more. 

It can also makes more able to reject the kind of relationships where, just because you’re a man you have sole responsibility for the big family worries, or expected to put up a shelf, or be the football coach.
Thank God for Me Too, but while it’s long overdue, it’s also time for more males not having to be ‘the man’.

Obviously I wasn't thinking much of this when I was a thirteen, but great pieces of art are like living things, not fixed static things.

They are like people. As you change, they change with you.

Some become nostalgia, which is still a great thing. To reach back and feel twenty again is quite something.

Like those friends from the past, great to see again, wonderful to catch up on old times. Yet you realise there is little else to talk about.

It’s painful to feel that person gone sometimes, especially if you still live with them. 

Yet a precious few reveal more about themselves as your experiences alter who you are.
Sometimes it’s the other way around and they reveal more about you. 

I’m no longer prepared to compromise on one hit wonders.