Did Prince Have A Calling from God For His Success?

Did Prince Have A Calling from God For His Success?

While I am no particular fan of Prince’s music, I mean the Artist formerly called Prince, I did recently watch a Larry King interview him in 1999. Whether or not I was a big fan of his music is not relevant to this musing. To each his own in this area. Amen. I was taken aback about how mellow, philosophical, shy, and soft spoken Prince, or whatever the force that he be, was during the interview. In a very quiet, humble way Prince attributed his success to a calling from God, and whatever way he became a success, God was the pilot. He made it quietly clear that it would not be smart to go against God’s directives to him throughout his journey. 

Certainly Prince is not the only famous person to attribute their success to God. There was a time when successful humans used to go the full distance and claim they were God, or at least one of the God’s, whatever.  The Pope doesn’t declare he is God but does claim to be God’s emissary from God to those of us on earth. I would like to be a Pope and keep a lot of secrets given to me by Him. A lot of successful athletes always thank God after every victory. Many everyday people sincerely and often declare that ‘my life is in God’s hands’. Is any of this ever really true? I suppose it isn’t a crime to believe we have a calling from God, and there is some truth that both religion and drugs can help us feel better about our lives. A drug like heroin can work right away and our problems don’t bother us as much; religion takes some time to condition our mind to accept our troubles as the consequence of our sins/God acting in mysterious ways. At least there will be a wonderful Heaven after death. 

It has always been a puzzlement why God would actually get involved as to who wins an athletic contest. Sometimes I wonder, at the start of a game, what percentage of the athletes are praying to God for them to be victorious. If they lose and are mad at God, at least they are quiet about it—I never see someone after a game yelling at God and shaking their fist at him, or some agitated individual with an Uzi running around screaming “Where is God, he has screwed up my sure bet on a game for the last time”.  

Nevertheless we can’t prove that Prince did not get a calling from God. Still, out of all the billions of people on this earth, why would God select Prince to get a calling?. Did Prince do something to deserve this calling? These successful people who contribute a calling from God for their success, they never seem to list exactly what they did to deserve such a calling. Many of us would like to use those tips to get a calling ourselves. I can remember being at a Billy Graham concert in which he asked people to come forward and let God take command of their lives. It certainly was tempting. I could have gone home and told my mother: “Don’t ever fuss at me again, from now on I am doing God’s calling and no one else’s. I shouldn’t have waited so long—I could already be wallowing in success up to my neck.”  I am not aware of any stats whatsoever that those who did go forward had more success in life compared to the population in general—if we exclude those from rural, suburban, or urban ghettoes. Location obviously has a lot to do with how likely you are to be successful in life. Strangely, many of those who energetically claim to be saved have pretty difficult lives. I guess that is the basis for the saying, ‘religion is the opiate of the poor’. 

But let’s not quibble here over something we can’t prove and just assume Prince really did get a calling from God. Prince is a musician, very talented playing various instruments, and can assemble some kind of bells and whistles on the stage to really appeal to thousands of screaming fans. I try to imagine why God would feel such a strong need to call on Prince and give him the skill to do all this. I would feel more comfortable if Jonas Salk, who came up with the polio vaccine, would claim he had a calling from God to do such a thing. Ok, let’s not start judging how God thinks. So let’s again assume that God had a good reason to enable Prince to assemble a production which would excite huge number of people (mostly females), to have apoplectic orgasms during the show. Certainly heroin doesn’t come close to doing that for any of us. 

One of Prince’s first albums and hits was titled: Jack You Off. These are the lyrics:

If you're looking for somewhere to go
Thought I'd take you to a movie show
Sittin' in the back and I'll jack you off
I can't give you everything you want
But I can take you to a restaurant
If you're not hungry
I'll jack you off

If your man ain't no good
Come on over to my neighborhood
We can jump in the sack and I'll jack you off

If you're tired of the masturbater
Little girl, we can go on a date
And if you like, I'll jack you off

I'll jack you off, jack you off
I'll jack you off, jack you off
I'll jack you off

I only do it for a worthy cause
Virginity or menopause, you'll have
an instant heart attack if I jack you off

If you really really want to be a star
We gotta do it in your momma's car
Naked in a cadillac, I'll jack you off

If we can't find no place to go
Girl, I'll take you to a movie show, we can sit in the back
And I'll jack you off

I'll jack you off, jack you off
I'll jack you off, jack you off
I'll jack you off, yeah
Yeah, yeah, I'll jack you off

? Alright say, we'll put some funk on here
I'll jack you off

If you ain't chicken baby, come here
If you're good I'll even let you steer
As a matter of fact, you can jack me off
Yeah, that's right

I'll jack you off, yeah
I'll jack you off

These lyrics don’t strike me as offensive, sinful, or thoughts of a deviate, but it does seem strange that God would be ‘calling’ Prince to get a start to success via songs like this. I don’t think we ever think of God as being sexual. Sex habits and practices are things we make jokes of as opposed to serious aspects of life. Let’s suppose Prince looked less sexy and was the mirror image of Rodney Dangerfield—would he have written these lyrics and gone out on the stage gyrating in sexual ways? I suspect the audience would have a little more difficulty reaching any orgasmic level. Many might have been injured in the rush to get out lest he be serious. The image of who is going to ‘jack us off’ is important. O.K., let’s assume God also made Prince sexy so this stage appearance would be effective. The success here made Prince millions of dollars over the years and allowed him to live a luxurious life style. O.K., I guess if someone is doing God’s calling they deserve to be richly rewarded. But again, we don’t really think of God as being awed by wealth. Prince has one brother and a bunch of step siblings. There was a lot more than jacking off going on in his family clan. They will now inherit all those millions of dollars. Was this part of God’s plan when he had Prince answer his calling? What the hell did any of these people do to deserve millions of dollars? That’s a neat way to become wealthy, be Prince’s half brother. My parents never even gave me any half-siblings. 

Wouldn’t God want all this money generated from his calling to Prince, at least go to the least fortunate, those most in need of some financial assistance? I mean, wouldn’t God have said to Prince in whatever method of communication Prince and God were using, that: “Look Prince, I have made you very wealthy and have made this music successful for you. Now you write out a will and leave all your millions to those charities which help the less fortunate.”  O.K., this would seem brilliant enough: it wasn’t the music or Prince which were the end goal, but a way to generate millions to help the less fortunate. This sounds like a real ethical plan. But the actual end result is really hard to ok. Like what kind of God would spend time coaching Prince to achieve all this success and then allow the proceeds to go to a handful of nondescript nothing burgers? Many of us are nondescript nothing burgers and why are we left out here? Of course I am just jealous.

It is really impossible to logically conclude that this was God’s plan all the time. There is no wiggle room here. I am not now sure Prince was really genetically shy or soft spoken. Maybe he cleverly worked his physical sex appeal and musical talents into a  persona which was enhanced by being soft spoken, philosophical, shy, and mysterious—exactly what many females would dream for in a sexual encounter. Suppose it is all a fabricated personality. Is that any reason to think less of him? He found a way to be successful, and why should we criticize that? I don’t. We are all on stage strutting our thing, whatever our thing is. I guess many of us don’t have the obligatory ‘thing’ to be successful.

But wait a minute. As I write this, there are suspicions that he was using opiate derivates of some sort, and this implies he was not a contented person. He needed opiates to give him relief from whatever in his life was making him unhappy. When the drug report comes out, if they call it an overdose of opiates, see if it gives the blood alcohol content. Opiates and alcohol do not mix. It can be a fatal combination. Actually, any depressant combined with opiates can inhibit breathing enough to be fatal. The point which is most puzzling is this: if Prince’s accomplishments in life were God’s calling, then why would Prince, having amassed considerable wealth and fame, feel so unhappy with his life that he needed to take some form of opiates in order for his misery not to bother him so much? Something is amiss here. I know, so what else is new about real life these days?

Finally, why did God let him die at age 57? Did Prince stop doing God’s calling? Maybe Prince began to see a little bit of Rodney Dangerfield in the mirror. That would signal the ‘gig’ is up. What can we really conclude about Prince and his relationship to God?  I think we delude ourselves when we start thinking we can conclude much of anything about a lot of things.  Understanding more about various matters is obviously possible for us. But in the end, the only conclusion possible is that life is good theatre; that the laws which govern the evolutionary process have worked well for millions of years; that for every gift there must be a gift giver; that the gift giver is God (however we envision God); that the only universally accepted ethical principle is the Golden Rule; that whoever follows the Golden Rule can meet the requirements of any organized religion as a means to any Heaven after life; that those who follow the Golden Rule end up more contented in life than those who do not. Life is what it is—not that we have the intellectual ability to ever know exactly what it is.  For those like myself, who spend an inordinate amount of time trying to understand more about the different aspects of life, there is a limit to how far we can understand. No matter how many musings I write, it only reinforces how much I don’t know, and how little I will ever know. On the other hand, if I don’t seek enough input to write all these musings I will, every year, be just as ignorant as I was the year before. Most will say, “so what?” Am stumped here, good question.

In the end, nothing above need change how we feel about Prince or his music. At least he ‘jacked a lot of people off’. After the orgasm the reality of their lives did not change. A little thrill here and there is not a crime or unethical, but these little thrills have nothing to do with any contentment in our lives. It is a disappointing discomfiture to realize, over time, that the evolutionary process is not designed to ensure our personal contentment. It was the pure luck of which sperm managed to fertilize a particular egg that gave us all a chance. We play the genetic and environmental cards dealt the best we can, and if we seek contentment, the Golden Rule is the only path that leads in this direction—and then, only when it is not blocked by unforeseen situations. In the end no one gets out of this world alive. Tis a pity, most of us really wanted to be a big wheel in the total scheme of things.  As Prince found out, success is a tricky concept. He didn’t take his great leap into the dark via a difficult long drawn out dying process. I wouldn’t mind my demise being someone in my building going to the guard and explaining ‘Reid is unresponsive lying in the elevator’. The guard would no doubt reply: “Well count your blessings”. 

When we get to be over 75, we sometimes look back at how many good people we have known who died so much younger. This brings on, for me, a guilt complex. Maybe it is true that only the good die young. What a nightmarish thought. Alas, too late, I guess, for me to be anything but good for nothing. 

Rest in peace ‘Former artist known as Prince.’