Enculturation: Jeff White

"No one's mentioning the lyrics. Maybe I should have put in a lyric sheet."
Find quite a comprehensive and well organized collection of song lyrics at The "Who's Prince?" Discography.

Foucault discusses the "scissions" between the writer of a text and the "I" within the text as the place where the "author" resides. In many of Prince's and 's songs, the "I" seems to offer no scission. When asked whether he feels the public's perception of him is accurate, Prince resonds "There's not much I want them to know about me," he says, "other than the music." But the separation between what should be perceived about him and what should be taken from his music is, at times, confusing. For instance, in the song "Hello," Prince responds to an actual event:

As far as the incident concerning the photographer goes, it's The main thing it says is that we're against hungry children, and our record stands tall.

However, when the scission is "misperceived" and conflated when he does not intend it, The Artist becomes somewhat disgruntled:

Q: What is your preoccupation with sex all about? it features in nearly all your songs. Does sex really loom that large in your life?
"My songs aren't all about sex. People read that into them."
Q: But sex is such a dominant theme. Your
"Is it? That's your interpretation? Come where? Come to whom? Come for what?"
Q: Oh, come on!
(Laughs) "That's just the way you see it. It's in your mind."
This is the first subject he warms to: different perceptions. How one man's meat is another man's muesli. This, he explains, is why we can't label music, feelings, people. He says something convoluted like: everything is something else to everyone.

Early in his career, he claimed to be writing as a product of his environment:

I don't want people to get the impression that sex is all I write about. Because, it's not and the reason why it's so abundant in my writing is mainly because of my age and the things that are around me. Until you can go to college or get a 9 to 5 job, then there's going to be a bunch of free time around you. And free time can only be spent in certain ways.

As , he claims to not be as overtly sexual in his lyrics, leading one reporter to claim:

At first it seems an unlikely sentiment coming from the man who once wrote about But Prince hasn't turned into a bluenose, he insists - he's just changed his outlook on how to present his still eros-heavy creations.

Throughout his career, Prince had fun with the image he knew to exist of him in popular culture:

From 12" version of "Kiss" (as the song fades out): "oh my God, isn't that Prince on televion? Would you look at that?
From "Bob George" on The Black Album: "Prince? That skinny mother fucker with the high voice? Please."

Of course, the ultimate joke in his career seemed to be the release of the song "My name is Prince!" on the album __ just before he announced his name change. Since that change, he has continue to play with popular perceptions and criticisms:

From "Now" on The Gold Experience: "Don't worry 'bout my name it's too long too remember
I could tell you now but we'd be here 'til next September"
From "P Control" on The Gold Experience and in a different form on Crystal Ball:
"Good morning ladies and gentlemen
boys and mother fuckin' girls
this is your no-name captain
and I'm here to rock your world
From "Rippopgodazippa" on Crystal Ball"I just wanna call your name, but I don't know what 2 say'
Ripopgodazippa
If U're always with me
U'll never have 2 call me
Touché, touché

These several exerpts represent many more in the works of The Artist, and I contend that they are more than simply self referential. They contibute to the blurring distinctions between writer and the "I" in the texts where Foucault locates the author. They make the songs and the life necessarily bound in ways that force traditional classificatory processes to pause and account for more than simply what is "in the text" because the text extends, not only via personae and image, but via the connections between biographical events and fictional ones.