50 great things about Prince's 'Sign O' The Times'

I thought horse is a fairly common slang word for heroin, or at least it was back when Prince wrote the tune?

Both jazz terms, yeah?

When I think of the magic of this record it makes me sadder than all others, that this guy is not with us any more.

My guitar teacher thought it would be interesting to help me figure out the chords to "Dorothy Parker," and yeah, it was! We realized one reason Prince played everything himself is that it would take a lot less time to do that than to explain to someone else how to contribute to a totally out there sui generis song like that one. In fact, there are a couple of tracks on "Sign" that similarly transcend genre in really fascinating and less than obvious ways.

Also, I decided the opening drum sequence of the title track makes a really cool ringtone.

Which tracks are you thinking of?

Well, Dorothy Parker, for one. It's funky, and jazzy, and just - weird. The bridge-thing where he quotes Joni Mitchell, wtf is that? Or Forever In My Life, what is that? Strange Relationship, that's another one that's funky but not really funk. It's like looser influences like jazz or folk have altered more immutable forms, like funk or dance pop or whatever. I mean, Play In the Sunshine is essentially ... rockabilly? Something like that. But then it's got that crazy fusion-y coda.

forever in my life is quite gospelly in its arrangement i think.

the melody i mean.

xps what are the chords to Dorothy Parker?

And does it feature the famous Prince "sus 2" chord?

Dorothy Parker doesn't have that sus2 chord. That's the weird chord in the third line of the chorus in "Sometimes it Snows in April." It does have plenty of weird quirks and changes.

The main progression in TBDP is a descending progression from Am7 (iv) to Em7(i), making every stop in the descending bassline before a quick trip to the V to build tension before the final line (before "Dorothy was fast," etc). Looks like this:

Am7
Dorothy was a waitress
Ab(flat 5)
On the promenade
Em7/G in bass F#m7
She worked the night shift
Fmaj7 B
Dishwater blonde, tall and fine
Em
She got a lot of tips

The bridge, as it were, changes from E minor to G. The second bridge modulates from A minor to A major on the "should have done it sooooneeeer" part. The ballad of dorothy parker line looks something like this:

A Bm Am Bm B+
This is the ballad of Dorothy Parker

Then it goes back to the main progression. This tab (and the rest of the tabs on this website) seems pretty good: http://princetabs.50webs.com/dorothy.txt

Sorry, click the link for better spacing, I haven't been able to figure out how to space text on ILX

xxxps to StillAdvance --- To me, Forever In My Life seems to be a minimalist version of a Sly Stone song. The melody reminds me a lot of Everyday People, weirdly.

I'm not good enough at this stuff to recognize if it's right or wrong, Only chord in our own little chart not up there is Cmaj7, maybe in the very early intro? Before the singing starts. There's a brief measure or two at maybe the end of the bridge where we just wrote a big "?," because it just goes wacky.

xpost It's totally Sly-y, but the muted-ness of the vocals and rhythm are even weirder, kind of like sing in the shower demo-esque.

It could be a Cmaj7 with a G in the bass in the verse progression (instead of the Em7 with the G in the bass)

Whatever the chords, what a weird little masterpiece

Dorothy Parker doesn't have that sus2 chord. That's the weird chord in the third line of the chorus in "Sometimes it Snows in April."
No, that chord on the third line of the chorus is really unusual. I think in that song he actually uses the sus2 as the third chord on the verse and then as the first chord on the chorus. He also uses it in "Purple Rain" and a number of other songs.

Anyway, the weird, weirdest? most interesting? most surprising? chord of "Sometimes It Snows," which appears in the third line of the chorus, seems to be a G#7 with an open B and E on the top. Which I guess you could call a G#7#9#5, which is a strong enough chord in itself, but is particularly surprising in the context of the song, since a) the prior two times in the chorus he just played a G#m7 and b) the chord introduces a new note, the B#(=C), which your ear will not be expecting given what the harmony was doing up until then and c) if you voice the chord so that the B and B# (=C) are right next to each other, a half-step away, instead of using a more open voicing, it packs even more of a punch.

Re: "Now he's doing horse" — wow, I've misheard that lyric all these years. Embarrassed to admit I thought it was "now he's doing whores."

Reefer was totally a hooker gateway drug back in the day, don't worry about it :)

78. He rhymes "moon" with "June" in the title track.

79. "Her favorite number was 20"

https://theshibeparkvaults.bandcamp.com/album/sign-o-the-times-rehearsals-disc-1

https://theshibeparkvaults.bandcamp.com/album/sign-o-the-times-rehearsals-disc-2

cool but who gets the 7 bucks if you actually pay for those things?

80. The way "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" takes a curve from 80s New Wave pop into an early 70s "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"/Traffic blues rock jam, from which it only returns for a very brief instrumental reprise of the first part of the song, then out.

78/79/80 all v great things

Those Sign O The Times rehearsals are currently free to download btw

still looks like they're $7 to me. weird to see bootlegs posted so brazenly on Bandcamp.

wtf I'm not paying some asshole for these

i've just been streaming, it's free to stream in full

maybe just free in Europe then?

interesting recreationg of "Dream Factory" the album that was scrapped then combined with the Camille album to become Sign O the Times

http://albumsthatneverwere.blogspot.com/2016/05/prince-and-revolution-dream-factory.html

Heyo

http://www.okayplayer.com/music/princes-sign-o-times-concert-movie-will-air-showtime.html

I haven't seen this since we threw out our VCR (we had a VHS copy) so I'm pretty excited to hear that my Twin Peaks:the Return-motivated Showtime subscription comes w this bonus

I don't understand why that article calls the SotT movie "rare" and "out of circulation"? It's been reissued on Bluray which is pretty easy to find, or at least it was when I bought it a couple of years ago. Great concert movie anyway, all the little stories that come with each song's performance are neat, and the choreography is gorgeous. And it has that massive Sheila E drum solo, my favourite part!

it is not available in America

multi-format copies of it on Amazon are currently $175

Oh, that's weird. Why would they reissue it in Europe but not the US?

some rights dispute, I assume. bigger Euro market, who knows

Forget it Shakes, it's Paisley Park.

[snips nostril]

There's a Japanese Blu-Ray you can get for about $50 which is Region A, meaning it will play on standard US players.

Here you go.

80. The way "I Could Never Take the Place of Your Man" takes a curve from 80s New Wave pop into an early 70s "Can't You Hear Me Knocking"/Traffic blues rock jam, from which it only returns for a very brief instrumental reprise of the first part of the song, then out.

― Hare in the Gated Snare (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, July 6, 2016 1:23 AM (one year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yes, with a screaaaaaaaaam.

That's my favorite song on this. It has a good message too -- don't lead on single mothers looking for companionship when you're out at the bar on a lonely friday night.

Region 2 DVD available for as little as £3.36 - multi-region DVD players are CHEAP

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prince-Sign-O-Times-DVD/dp/B0009PZ89E/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1503572329&sr=1-1&keywords=sign+o+the+times

yeah I had that dvd and... gave it away :O

quite a few dvd players can be made multi region using a universal remote (or another customizable ir-transmitter, some old phones can be used)

Until Youtube just started putting up Prince videos, I had never seen the video for Sign O The Times before, so I didn't realize that Prince was somewhat responsible for the birth of the lyric video.

movie news

PSA: Sign O’ The Times is on Amazon Prime.

— Chris McKay (@buddboetticher) March 10, 2018

If only Stop Making Sense had plasma ball interludes, then it might be as good as Sign O' The Times.

Also, the outfits in the So'TT film have held up better than Purple Rain.

Um...holy shit.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EZM5i3CXkAA3Dbm.jpg