I Would Die 4 U Quotes

“Two lines in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stand out after talking with people close to Prince. When he’s imagining himself as her girlfriend he sings, “Would u let me wash your hair?” And later as a man he says, “Would u let me give u a bath?” Those desires I’m told are part of his real life. Someone who was intimate with him and knows others who were, too, says Prince was not doing exactly as much screwing as he’d have you believe. I was told by someone who knows that Prince loves to bathe women. And brush their hair. And sometimes he did these things in lieu of intercourse. It was not part of trying to get laid or deepen the sexual experience, but as a worshipful appreciation of femininity. A person who was close to Prince said, “One girl told me that she got frustrated because he’d rather bathe her.” A woman who was in a relationship with Prince years ago told me that when he gave women baths he took total control. “He ran the bath, he put the bubbles in, he took your clothes off, he washed you, he washed your hair, it was a whole procedure and process. He put lotion on you after. He’d give you a robe. I don’t know if it was worshipful or if it was sweet and sensitive.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“A former-girlfriend told me, “He has great respect for women. And a blatant disrespect and disregard for women. Not when he’s speaking to you, but in his actions. They’re not genuine. He’s not honest. He’s not a good husband. He gets bored easily. He’s not monogamous. He’s very controlling. And he’s not that sweet to them.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Stars entertain us. Icons do something much more. They embody us. They tell us something about who we are and who we want to be. They are both a mirror and a shaping force.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“He’s in touch with things most guys don’t pick up on, small things or details. They just don’t, but he reminds me of a woman or of being in a relationship with a woman in that every subtle action you do is noticed without having to be explained. He gets the way you gesture or the way your eyes move down or he can sense insecurity. He’s also very masculine but not in a dude way, in a man way, like, strong. He’s confident but he’s as impatient as he is patient. He’s both things at the same time. He’s a true Gemini. He’s masculine but he’s in touch with his femininity. It’s complicated.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Professional success has not cured Prince’s interpersonal problems, it’s just given him the space to not have to say sorry.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Eric Leeds said, “This is a guy who has done some exceedingly generous and thoughtful things for me and other people but then a day later he could turn around and say something so off the wall and so ridiculously stupid and you’d say how do I reconcile these behaviors? People would wonder is he a bad guy who has good days or a good guy who has bad days? I think it’s because he has the emotional maturity of a five-year-old. And he never understood the value of doing something thoughtful for somebody on its own merits. He really didn’t understand the consequences of him doing something nice for somebody any more than he gave importance to the consequences of him doing something really nasty to somebody. The child doesn’t know that yet. You teach your child what works and what doesn’t and establish how relationships work. Well, Prince never got that and, to this day, he never has.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Eric Leeds said at one point Prince wanted the band to all be vegan. Alan told his brother that to survive being in Prince’s band you had to at least pretend to drink the Kool-Aid, so, Eric said, you had guys being vegan when Prince was around and eating whatever they wanted when he wasn’t around. “He attached some spiritual component to it but looked at it as another way for him to exercise control,” Eric said. “If you’re gonna work for me then you have to conform to my ideal.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“The familial rupture led to Prince becoming a person who cannot trust others, and must be in dictatorial control of everything around him, Leeds explained, “Anyone assuming any kind of control frightens the hell out of him. So much of what he does is driven by fear, fear of someone else having control.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“He sings, in one of the deepest lyrics in all of his oeuvre, “Would you run to me if somebody hurt you, even if that somebody was me?” Could I be the shoulder you cry on and could the bond between us be so deep that I’m the one you want holding you after I made you cry? Could I be your salvation if I’m the sinner? When he snaps back to a male perspective he remains female focused, sweetly trying to win her over in a way that he thinks she would want, ways that move through intimacy rather than traditional masculine expressions of sexuality. He offers a tickle war that’ll make her laugh and laugh then suggests he’ll kiss her down there where it counts and “drink every ounce” and then they’ll have the ultimate cuddlefest: “I’ll hold u tight and hold u long and together we’ll stare into silence and we’ll try 2 imagine what it looks like.” People say Prince did crave that sort of intimacy in his relationships with women even as he struggled with the intimacy he wanted. Two lines in “If I Was Your Girlfriend” stand out after talking with people close to Prince. When he’s imagining himself as her girlfriend he sings, “Would u let me wash your hair?” And later as a man he says, “Would u let me give u a bath?” Those desires I’m told are part of his real life. Someone who was intimate with him and knows others who were, too, says Prince was not doing exactly as much screwing as he’d have you believe. I was told by someone who knows that Prince loves to bathe women. And brush their hair. And sometimes he did these things in lieu of intercourse. It was not part of trying to get laid or deepen the sexual experience, but as a worshipful appreciation of femininity. A person who was close to Prince said, “One girl told me that she got frustrated because he’d rather bathe her.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Then Prince and his bandmates sing, “Tried to run from my destruction. You know I didn’t even care.” What a seminal line for gen X. The”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“The metaclimate in America during gen X’s youth was marked by declining national self-esteem. We grew up in the shadow of Watergate and the Vietnam War (the first war America ever lost), we watched the Iran hostage crisis stretch on through 1979 and 1980, and we feared the potential nuclear apocalypse of the long Cold War with the Soviet Union, which seemed as powerful as America, or perhaps more so, making it difficult for us to cling to the image our parents had taken for granted. Even Henry Kissinger said that we had passed our historic high point. It appeared as though we were in the twilight of America as a dominant nation; you didn’t have to be paying close attention to geopolitics to see that. At home, in the 1970s, we had three”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Entertainment isn’t a meritocracy. Van Zandt was making an argument about the necessity and importance of managers in music. He said the Beatles would still be in Germany and the Stones would have been playing dinner theaters, if not for great, visionary managers who helped sell them to the world. The same can be said for generations. No icon is so talented that they don’t need the right generation to receive their message. Of course, some icons transcend their time, but that’s nearly impossible without first connecting deeply with the generation that’s consuming culture when you’re at your peak. The”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“One of his chief strengths was his ability to observe, assimilate and then reinterpret,” said Dez Dickerson, who played guitar with Prince from 1979 to 1983. “So, with every engineer he worked with, he was observing and assimilating recording techniques. He was also observing and assimilating songwriting techniques and stuff that was freely happening inside the band. And all of that influenced him and he became a shape-shifter—he became great at assimilating these techniques and reinterpreting them in a way people didn’t recognize. And that became the genius of Prince.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Imagine America as one house on a suburban lane. Years before he became a Jehovah's Witness, Prince knocked on America's door through his music. He came to the door holding a guitar and an umbrella while concealing a Bible. He flirted his way inside the door and told us he had a dirty mind and was controversial, and then he sat down in the living room on the good couch. And, when America's guard was down, because we thought we were having a conversation about sex, Prince eased out his Bible and said, "Let me also tell you about my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon

“Stars entertain us. Icons do something much more. They embody us. They tell us something about who we are and who we want to be. They are both a mirror and a shaping force. Zeitgeist is German for the spirit of the times, the general cultural, intellectual, and political climate within a nation, or a specific group, in a particular period. You could call it the collective consciousness of a given people at a certain time. Icons can see and feel the Zeitgeist of their generation more clearly than the rest of us. They have the antennae, the sensitivity, and the intellect to become a thermometer of their era, and they have the talent to reflect the Zeitgeist through their art. For generation X, one of those icons was Prince.”
― Touré, I Would Die 4 U: Why Prince Became an Icon