Another day, another contest, but this one’s about music, so yay! Ross Murray is holding a contest wherein we have to discuss a song whose meaning/importance/profundity/humor was completely lost on us at first.

Like all children, I was a stupid child. I didn’t understand most of the music I listened to in my pre-teen years at all, because I only had several years life experience and none of them included sex, politics or sexual politics. The 1980s, when I was a pre-teen, were a confusing time if you had no life experience, I tell you what. Actually, pre-teen years are always confusing, but the 80s were especially so. Trust me.

Anyway, the first thing that popped into my mind when I read about the contest was Prince. The movie Purple Rain came out in 1984 (which makes it 30 years old. Can you believe it?) and it instantly became a favorite.

It featured Prince, Apollonia and Morris Day and The Time, and I don’t care what you say, that movie is just full of awesome, even now. Stop arguing. It’s awesome. Prince won an Academy Award for best original soundtrack for it. So there.

Go grab your Bic lighter and sing it with me:

There are some very confusing songs on the Purple Rain soundtrack for a pre-teen, like Apollonia 6’s Sex Shooter. Right away, I knew this song was naughty because “sex” (tee hee) was there in the title.

I need you to get me off
I’m your bomb getting ready to explode
I need you to get me off
Be your slave do anything I’m told

I’m a sex shooter
Shootin’ love in your direction
I’m a sex shooter
Come on, play with my affections
Come on, kiss the gun

I need you to pull my trigger, baby
I can’t do it alone
I need you to be my main thing
Play thing pillar of stone

I’m a sex shooter
Shootin’ love in your direction
I’m a sex shooter
Come on, play with my affections
Come on, kiss the gun

Listen boys
No girl’s body can compete with mine
No girl’s rap can top my lines
No girl’s kiss can ring your chimes
Come on boy, let’s make some time

Come on, kiss the gun, guaranteed for fun
Sex shooter, sex shooter, sex shooter, sex shooter
Blow me away, come on kiss the gun

Apollonia, guns aren’t toys. You need to read the handgun safety book. It will tell you never to kiss a gun. Well, maybe it doesn’t explicitly say that, but it should. “DO NOT KISS GUNS.” At the very least, if you’re going to kiss a gun, make sure it’s unloaded first and always point your sex gun in a safe direction.

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Probably the most confusing song on the Purple Rain soundtrack though was Darling Nikki. These are the lyrics:

I knew a girl named Nikki
I guess u could say she was a sex fiend
I met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine
She said how’d u like 2 waste some time
And I could not resist when I saw little Nikki grind

She took me 2 her castle
And I just couldn’t believe my eyes
She had so many devices
Everything that money could buy
She said sign your name on the dotted line
The lights went out
And Nikki started 2 grind

The castle started spinning
Or maybe it was my brain
I can’t tell u what she did 2 me
But my body will never be the same
Her lovin will kick your behind
Oh, she’ll show u no mercy
But she’ll shonuff shonuff show u how 2 grind

Woke up the next morning
Nikki wasn’t there
I looked all over and all I found
Was a phone number on the stairs
It said thank u 4 a funky time
Call me up whenever u want 2 grind

Like Sex Shooter, I knew Darling Nikki was naughty because it had the word “sex” (tee hee) in it. I wasn’t that dumb. I knew a song that mentioned sex was probably about sex, but this grinding business made no sense. “She had so many devices.” OK, maybe at her castle, she has many sorts of grinding implements, like this one:

Or perhaps, it’s more of a kitchen thing, like grinding coffee:

Or maybe Nikki makes her own sausages:

Maybe she made Prince a grinder sandwich, because who doesn’t like sandwiches?

So, Nikki and Prince are making sandwiches in her castle:

You could certainly store a lot of grinding devices in a castle like that. Sigh.

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Even though Little Red Corvette isn’t on the Purple Rain soundtrack, I feel the need to embarrass myself further by disclosing that I thought the lines “‘Cause you had a pocket full of horses” and “When you drove me to the place where your horses run free” was literally about horses:

Thanks for such a confusing adolescence, Prince.