By Simon Gonzalez
Prince Rogers Nelson died last week. That’s not exactly a news flash. It’s been leading news on the broadcast networks, the cable news channels, the print media and the Internet. You couldn’t turn on the television or go online without seeing something about Prince.
There is no doubt that Prince was incredibly gifted. He was a brilliant musician, who played all the instruments on several of his albums. His singles topped the charts. Music critics consider his seminal album, “Purple Rain,” a masterpiece. He wrote songs for other artists.
He was an innovator and a boundary pusher. He was controversial. For years he eschewed a name in favor of a symbol that was supposed to represent both male and female. He wrote songs with explicit lyrics; one of the cuts on “Purple Rain” prompted Tipper Gore’s campaign for “Parental Advisory” labels on albums.
Couple his pop-icon status with an unexpected death at the relatively young age of 57, and the coverage is understandable.
What is harder to understand is the outpouring of personal grief from fans that knew the man only through his music and movies.
An early news report after his death included a woman weeping and exclaiming that she can’t believe he’s gone. Paisley Park, Prince’s Minnesota estate, was turned into an impromptu shrine. There were vigils outside his home, and in Los Angeles and Brooklyn. Tributes were all over social media. CNN Money reports 239,000 Prince albums were sold the day of his death, and an additional 399,000 the following weekend.
It’s not a new phenomenon. We’ve seen it before, when public figures like Princess Diana or other icons die. Fans create makeshift shrines out of flowers, candles and stuffed animals, and post heartfelt tributes on social media.
Psychologists call it the paradox of the intimate stranger. We’ve never met our celebrity heroes, but we feel like we know them through their lives, music, movies or books. They can inspire us, and challenge us.
We tend to form bonds with musicians in particular. Their music becomes the soundtrack of our lives. We experience feelings of nostalgia through our memories of where we were and what we were doing when we first heard their songs.
It’s happened in recent months with David Bowie, Merle Haggard, Alan Rickman and Maurice White. In 2009, more than 1.5 million people entered a lottery to win one of 17,500 tickets to Michael Jackson’s public memorial. Graceland, Elvis Presley’s Memphis home, still draws about 500,000 visitors each year.
Deborah Carr, a professor of sociology at Rutgers University, wrote in “Psychology Today” that feeling a sense of loss when someone famous dies can be good for us because it “heightens our sense of empathy and understanding for those who are suffering.”
Collective mourning, even through virtual mediums like social media, can heighten our sense of community.
Still, I can’t help but feel that much of it is over the top. A mega church in Atlanta opened its service on Sunday with “Purple Rain.” It’s hard to judge knowing the context, and what the pastor said in his message. But really?
Perhaps I’m just unfeeling, but personally it’s hard to comprehend that level of grief for someone I’ve never met. I owned a couple of Prince’s albums back in the ‘80s and saw “Purple Rain” when it came out. I respected him as an artist and musician. But when I heard the news, my initial reaction was “Oh, that’s too bad.” Certainly no tears or Facebook posts.
Stevie Wonder is at the top of my personal list of music heroes. “Music of My Mind” was one of the first albums I ever owned. My wife and I drove to Nashville to see him in concert last year. I tried to imagine how I’d feel if he dies before I do. Sad, definitely. I’d probably listen to his music for days. But I don’t think I’d shed tears.
It’s certainly appropriate to mourn any death. “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven … a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.”
A well-publicized death of a fairly young celebrity can remind us of our own mortality. The famous old adage is that death and taxes are the only two certainties. Despite medical advances that are increasing lifespans, the mortality rate is still 100 percent. As the old song goes, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to die.
Prince left a legacy in his body of work, published and unpublished. Apparently, he was a decent person and extremely generous. But perhaps his real legacy can be to remind us while untimely death is an enemy, it doesn’t have to ultimately triumph.
Instead of mourning the loss of a celebrity, my prayer is that people will use this death to explore what it means to be among those who “don’t mourn like those without hope.”
