Prince: If Eye Was Ur Girlfriend. “Funkiest ‘gay song’ ever”, we thought.

I remember when this song first came out (1988, I think). Most of the fellas I hung with, like most everybody in the Black community (that I knew of) were quick to react to the title. “WHAT the helll?? ‘If I was your girl’???

And you know how young guys talk. “Uhggg. This muh fucka talkin’ about bein’ a woman, an’ shit!” “Seee … TOLD y’all. That dude a fag!! “Yo, his music be bumpin’. But hell naw. I cain’t fck with dude (Prince).” [Oh btw, the mid, late 80’s were DEFF-ly not as liberal minded on “gay” as today].

It’s amazing how throughout history, many of the great innovators, higher thinkers, creative minds of that time … were initially misunderstood or even persecuted for their “strangeness”, etc. And yes, I’m sure, some of them may have been “different”, to a certain degree. But the true reason these guys were trashed by the masses was because, typically, common folk don’t easily grasp the type of serious “science” they were putting down. They’re on some “higher level shit”.

And what makes (made) Prince so great, in my opinion is, he could do high level artistic stuff, that still had “pop” appeal! I heard some one say once, “he was both Miles Davis AND Elvis … all rolled into one”. Which is not an easy thing to do.

But anyway, back to 1988. The fellas were missing the entire point. Prince wasn’t using the word “girlfriend” in the context of “if I was a woman”, or “if I was gay”. No. “Girlfriend” was urban slang for “friend”. Wendy Williams uses it all the time. “Hey, girlfriend”. He was saying, if I was your friend, as in confidant. [Confidant — a person with whom one shares a secret or private matter, trusting them not to repeat it to others.]

Bottomline. In 1988, ppl got caught up in the double entendre of the word “girlfriend”, and it freaked em out. When the actual gist of the story was, this was a guy telling his girl, “I want to experience you on a deeper level. I want to (as he says on “Adore”) “be … mo’ than yo mother. Mo than yo brotha … like no other.” With many women, there are things only their “best friends” know. And this was a guy that wanted to be more than just a “boyfriend”. He wanted a higher level closeness with his woman.

The lesson: “If eye was ur girlfriend” wasn’t the funkiest “gay” song of all times. It was a deeply intelligent, well crafted, funk nasty groovin’ master piece … written, produced, performed entirely by (all instruments) … a talent like this world will never ever EVER see again.

RIP. Prince.