Fabulous Friday: "When Doves Cry"

I heard this song on the radio as I was walking through Penn Station the other day and every time I hear it I love it more. It's hard to believe that it was nine years ago that Prince died - - even harder to believe that he was MY AGE, 57!

People would not shut up about the song "Purple Rain" when he died, and yes, I suppose that it was his signature song. It helps that it was also the title of his movie. But I think "When Doves Cry" is a far superior song.

I read about the song on Wikipedia - - it was written for the movie Purple Rain and was Prince's first Billboard number 1 single. It stayed at number 1 for five weeks and according to Billboard it was the biggest-selling single of 1984. It was back on the charts after Prince's death, it got up to number 8.

Rolling Stone magazine made a list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and put this song at 37. Greatest Songs Of All Time - - do you think Schubert's "Nacht und Träume" is on there? Or even Dinah Shore singing "I'll Be Seeing You"? This is a rhetorical question.

Back to "When Doves Cry." The beat is tight, the vocal arrangement is brilliant, and in a feat of indescribable musical alchemy, the tune has only THREE NOTES. Allow me to demonstrate. This is the second half of the chorus:

"Maybe you're just like my mother" - - all on an A, until the second syllable of "mother," which moves down to a G

"She's never satisfied" - - on a G until the second syllable of "satisfied," which moves back up to the A

"Why do we scream at each other?" - - on an A until the second syllable of "other," which moves to the G

"This is what it sounds like" - - G

"When" - - E - - "doves" - - G - - "cry" - - A

The whole song it like that, just those three notes, and the E for only a moment. It's amazing.