If you are ever going to testify before congress, or testify before the United States senate, one thing, not the most important thing, but one sort of pofrt thing if youre going to do that is that you need to look the part. Right . You need to dress like youre going to address the United States senate. On that score, dee snyder from the band Twisted Sister has always been at the top of my list for how to make the best visual impression possible when testifying before the United States senate. That same day, 1985, that Senate Committee had heard already from frank zappa, who was hilarious in his testimony, but who also wore a very nice, conservative suit and a positively trumpesque red republican tie to give his hilarious testimony. That same committee had also heard from john denver that day, the great john denver, who was there to testify against censorship and against the sort of softform censorship that you start to ease into when you start putting official warning labels on different kinds of artistic expression. John denver was there to testify against that kind censorship. He was also there to make clear his song Rocky Mountain high was not about that kind of high. But then in comes dee snyder. God bless him. From Twisted Sister. Pride of long island. And no, dee insider not wear a suit and tie when he testified that day. Far from it. But boy was he prepared for that testimony. And fired up. And when he walk the in wearing that muscle shirt and slipped off his jean jacket vest with the arms ripped off and pulled out that piece of paper out of his pocket, i am quite sure this is not what the United States senate was expecting from his testimony. Thank you for having me here. I dont know if its morning or amp. Ill say both. Good morning and good afternoon my name is dee snyder. Snider. Im 30 years old. Im married. I have a 3yearold son. I was born and raised a christian and i still adhere to those principles. Believe it or not, i do not drink, i do not smoke, and i do not do drugs. I do play in and write the songs for a rock n roll band named Twisted Sister. I would like to use this occasion to speak on a more personal note and show just how unfair the whole concept of lyrical interpretation and judgment can be and how many times this can amount to little more than character assassination. Accusation number one. This attack was contained in an article written by tipper gore which was given the form of a full page in my hometown newspaper on long island. In this article, ms. Gore claimed that one of my songs under the blade had lyrics encouraging side dough masochism, bondage and rape. The lyrics she quoted have absolutely nothing to do with these topics. On the contrary. The words in question are about surgery and the fear that it instills in people. As the creator of under the blade i can say categorically that the only satisfied dough masochism, bondage and rape in this song is in the mind of ms. Gore. That was 1985. Dee snider and his band Twisted Sister had been put on a sort of hit list by a group called the Parents Music Resource Center which was founded in 1985 by, among others, thensenator al gores wife tipper gore, who you see on the left. Also susan baker, who was married to the treasury secretary at the time, james baker. They cofounded it along with a bunch of other wellconnected washington worthies who were very concerned about the filthi fying of americas pop culture of the too time. This was one of the great cultural freakouts of my lifetime, it is burned into my childhood memories. In the short run that fight led to those black and white warning labels you used to find on American Music back when American Music was a physical object that you bought at a store. The washington freakout that led to those labels started with this really specific hit list, a hit list of 15 songs, some of which were hits, some of which were not, 15 songs the Parents Music Resource Council singled out as being particularly troubling pieces of music. Pieces of muse that i can presumably they found particularly helpful in trying to convince the country that there was something deeply wrong in our culture that we needed to be protected from or at least warned about and these songs were it. Twisted sister had a huge hit song were not gonna take it, number seven on that list of 15 for its supposedly violent content. But number one on that hit list was, of course, a song by prince. It was the song darling nikki. Which is, in fact, a really dirty song. Darling nikki was the last song on side one of princes album purple rain which came out in 1984. Darling nikki thanks to the parents Resource Council became the poster child of what was so terribly wrong with American Culture and American Music specifically. And that came out in 1984 that record. By 1985 we had those black explicit content warning stickers on records. Even before the advent of those warning stickers in 1985, though, princes lyrics pushed the envelope so far, princes lyrics were so unapologetic and graphic about sex in particular, that even before we got those rectangular black and White National warning stickers in 1985, before that, Warner Brothers had started putting warning stickers on all of princes records. Princes records starting i think with his first record if 1978. They were all slapped with little custom stick theres said, contained language which may be unsuitable for some listeners. And boy were those warning stickers effective. As a child growing up in the 1980s, there was no more powerful attractant to me in a record store than those little stickers. Come on. Dont look at this its bad for you definitely dont pick this one up and take it home you know . So parents and even lawmakers were in this bind, right . Because prince was definitely their poster child for their own concerns about music that seemed way too sexy to be safe. But by making him their poster child for that concern, they ended up making a really fascinating and sexy poster. Which made him not just something you might discover at your local record store if it was an excellent record store. It made him something you might discover on the news. It made him something you might hear about even if you knew nothing about music. Yet we do this periodically as a country. Its almost like its on a timer, at least for music. The previous panic over Elvis Presleys hip gyrations had passed. Just enough time had passed and america was ready for our next national freakout crush panic fascination with an obscenely talented, genrebending musician and perform history scrambled our fairly rigid ideas about not only race but specifically what male sexuality is supposed to look like. And so apparently we got over elvis enough that we needed a new one. By the 1980s it was princes turn. And the freakout and all the rest of it was unsubtle in every way. When his record dirty mind came out in 1980, robert criscow review it for the village and said, mick jagger should fold up his penis and go home. Im telling you, it wasnt subtle. Even if you werent bothered by it, even if you came to praise and not condemn, it was not subtle. Mick jagger and the Rolling Stones in fact asked prince to open up for them at a bunch of their shows right after dirty mind came out. But it turns out Rolling Stones fans can handle a lot from mick jagger, they could not handle it from prince. They could not deal with prince on stage. According to news reports at the time, Rolling Stones fans pelted prince with food and bottles and booed him off the stage at Rolling Stones concerts. So that arrangement did not last. Such is the mind of america. Sticky fingers, sure. Dirty mind . No. In 1981, the New York Times sent Steven Holden to review prince at a live show he did in new york city while he was touring in support of dirty mind. Holden called him a wunderkind, said he was electrifying, called him a renegade in the manner of such black rock artists as sly stone and jimi hendrix. But then the culmination of his review was this. And i said that the freakout over prince and princes frankness and glorification of six was an unsubtle thing. It was very, very unsubtle. Even in the pages of the old gray lady, the New York Times. Just check this out. Ill quote directly from Steven Holdens review of that prince show in 1981. Ready . Prince sings exclusively in a falsetto which he pushes at times to an eerie cater wahling intensity. This style is ideally suited to the theatrical lasciviousness that is tral to princes act. On stage prince displays an unbridled street ear rot simple wearing black bikini briefs, fringed high heel boots, thick thigh high stockings. Hi is sexual license incarnate. I dont even know how Steven Holden got home from that show that night. If that was the experience that he had in that club. Youre sure you can still walk, sir . But actually the way he ends that review is just as important. This is the end of the review. Prince is such a charismatic performer, though, that his stylized salaciousness does not offend. With his sassy grace and precocious musicality, he is heir to the defiant rock n roll traditions of elvis presley, mick jagger, and jimi hendrix. So that was the spring of 1981. After dirty mind came out. But by that fall, prince would have another incredible record out called fittingly controversy. Key lyrics in the title track, am i black or white, am i straight or gay, do i believe in god, do i believe in me . Thats the song that features him reciting the whole lords prayer beginning to end. Our father who art in heaven. He says the whole prayer. Followed shortly thereafter by saying, people call me rude, i wish we all were nude. The pace at which prince came out with these unbelievably good, seminal records, and i mean that in both senses, the pace at which he worked was incredible. Remember that song 80 want to be your lover . That was on his selftitled record that came out in 1979. So for you, his first record 1978, prince 1979, dirty mind 1980, controversy 1981, 1989 came out in 1982. 1999 had that hulgts title hit, party like its 1999, little corvette, and delirious. Then only two years after that in 1984 he came out with purple rain which is one of the alltime greatest records ever made by an American Musician. The title track purple rain, lets go crazy, take me with i dont, when doves cry, i will die for you, all those hits on that one regard. Not to mention darling nikki which curled tip per gores hair and brought us dee snider in the United States senate, looking amazing, sticking up for christian values of long island, and sparking interesting conversation about the fear of surgery in his lyrics. And all of these years later, all of these albums later, all of these remarkably eclectic hits later, after changing his name to an unpronounceable symbol after the one album he released that you see here which was called love sexy with the adorable naked picture of himself on the cover, that was the record he insisted all nine songs of the album be released as a single track on the cd. So you could not skip between them. You had to listen to them all at once even though they were nine different songs no matter what. After all his eccentric brilliance, epic fights with his record company, after one of the greatest super bowl halftime performs of alltime, after all of this, there may be an american somewhere who still sees prince as a news story, who still sees him as a scandal or as a risk to the nation somehow. My guess is if you still believe that, you probably also believe that Twisted Sister is violent and threatening as well. But for all the ways that he was used politically for all the resistance and fear he engendered, 4 all the radio stations that wouldnt touch time for years, he still stands apart from almost every other musician and artist who found themselves vilified by politicians or objectified as some sign of cultural addretura racy. He stands apart, at least in the modern music world, for one reason. Which is that basically, in his generation of musicians, no one was as good. No one was in his league. Prince was not like anyone among the other musicians of his time. Part of that you could tell from the small print on his records. Flip over one of his records, open up the insert that comes with the record, and there it is on all of them. Produced, arranged, composed and performed by prince. Look up a the credits for purple rain alone, just for that one astonishing record. In the Washington Post obituary for him today they quote the all music credits for purple rain, basically an index listing in this case who did what on that record. All the credits are done in alphabetical order. For purple rain, with all of those hit singles on it, for purple rain alphabet tree the arranger was prince. The bass was prince. The composer was prince. The guitar was prince. The keyboards were prince. The primary artist was prince. The producer was prince. The vocals were prince. The background vocals were prince. He was his own studio band. He produced all of his own records starting when he was a teenager. He wrote everything he ever did. In addition to writing everything he ever did, including some of the best pop songs of alltime, he wrote some of the other best pop songs of the 1980s that were recorded by other people. 80 feel for you by chaka khan, that was prince. Manic monday by the bengals, that was prince. Nothing compares to you by sinead oconnor, that was prince. In terms of his live performeds alone, there are fans of Bruce Springsteen who will wax as rhapsodic about the experiences of seeing a live springsteen show, but other than that im not sure there is any comparison in his era. From the previous generation, the best comparison ever made for him as a performer was james brown which of course then leads to the famous tape of james brown in 1983 inviting prince up on stage with him at a concert in los angeles whereupon prince, standing next to james brown, promptly steals the show. Gets on stage with james brown, grabs somebody elses random guitar from some member of the band who was previous playing on stage, prince grabs the other guys guitar, wanders around looking for a pick, gets the guy to give him a pick, settles the guitar on his hip having never touched that instrument before, takes over and absolutely shreds. James brown looks on in disbelief. So that was his marching order. James brown, the giants of previous generations. And we all only get to live in one period of time called a lifetime. And over the course of all of our lifetimes there will not be that many cultural geniuses and cultural giants who we live among. There are only a few in every generation. And as you can tell, i am no good about talking about culture. But it is almost impossible to believe that prince Rogers Nelson was found dead today in his home just house minneapolis at the age of 57. We dont yet know the cause of death. The local Sheriffs Office and medical examiner say they are investigating. They say he was unresponsive when they were called to his home, they were not able to revive him, he never came back. He was pronounced dead before they got him to the hospital before noon eastern time today. He had recently canceled some appearances because of illness. Hed had to have an Emergency Landing on a flight home from a concert on friday. He was briefly hospitalized after he landed for what they said at the time was flu or dehydration. That was friday night. Then on saturday night, he was well enough to invite fans to come to his house for a dance party where he made an appearance and local press in minneapolis reported that he basically wanted to assure everybody that his health was fine and thats why he threw the party. So he died this morning. We dont yet know the cause of death. We dont yet know what was going on with him healthwise. He was only 57 years old when he died today. There will certainly be other American Musicians who will scandalize us, who will freak us out and upset our parents and make our politicians embarrass themselves in public. But there will never be anybody else like him. Joining us now is gail mitchell, Senior Editor at billboard magazine, shes written extensively about prince and his place in the culture. Its really nice to have you here tonight, thank you so much for making time. Thank you for having me. I experienced prince just as a fan. And im not great at putting words on cultural phenomena, cultural experiences. How do you put anymore in the pantheon of the artists of our time, how big a deal is he to the American World of music . I think theres the word diva, then you have the word that people say is overused, the word icon. Which people kind of throw around a lot. But i think theres a very small universe of icons who stand out and are going to stand out over time. So were talking like a michael jackson, were talking a stevie wonder, were talking the beatles and jagger and the stones. But certainly prince. Just listening to your commentary opening up this segment, it just took me down memory lane to really its just amazing, everything that he accomplished. Pushing the envelope. Multiinstructionalist. He was doing diy before all the indie artists today were doing diy. He just opened the door to a lot of Different Things and a lot of the different influences on his generation and certainly the generation thats emerging now. The upset that he caused, particularly thinking back to the beginning of his career in