After releasing his masterpiece Purple Rain, Prince returned in 1985 with Around The World In A Day. Bold and defiant, the singer, later known as an unpronounceable symbol, refused to release a promotional single or video ahead of the release.
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To concentrate listeners on the album as a whole, singles wouldn’t arrive until after the album arrived in stores. A timeless single was eventually released. You might say, it entered “in through the out door.”
“Raspberry Beret” describes an infatuation while perfectly encapsulating Prince’s psychedelic follow-up to his blockbuster album and movie.
About “Raspberry Beret”
The song opens with Prince working a part-time job. His boss repeatedly says Prince’s unhurried ways aren’t welcome around the shop.
I was working part-time in a five-and-dime
My boss was Mr. McGee
He told me several times that he didn’t like my kind
’Cause I was a bit too leisurely.
However, as the singer busies himself with tasks, he sees a girl and suddenly falls in love or lust (or both) with her. The “in through the out door” line always reminded me of the name of Led Zeppelin’s 1979 album. But it may be the girl’s nonconformity adding intrigue to Prince’s obsession.
Seems that I was busy doing something close to nothing
But different than the day before
That’s when I saw her, ooh, I saw her
She walked in through the out door, out door.
Enlightenment
Backed by The Revolution, “Raspberry Beret” finds Prince expanding on the R&B and soul of Purple Rain. The track’s Middle Eastern string arrangement recalls The Beatles’ psychedelic period. Yet where the Fab Four searched for enlightenment—either spiritual or chemical—Prince, instead, describes another type of experience. Part purple haze, part sexual healing.
According to Prince, the girl mixes well with the clouds. Perhaps the type of person one might find in strawberry fields, wearing a beret. John Lennon once described “Strawberry Fields Forever” as “psychoanalysis set to music.”
Strawberry Fields was the name of a Salvation Army children’s residence near Lennon’s childhood home. Many thought the place was dingy, rundown. But Lennon remembered roaming the grounds with his friends. A kind of magical garden.
In his dreamland, Strawberry Fields was beautiful. Like the eccentric girl entering Prince’s boring day job. Gloomy among the gray skies, offset by the sugary perfumed cap on her head.
She wore a raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second-hand store
Raspberry beret
And if it was warm, she wouldn’t wear much more.
Raspberry beret
I think I love her.
Photo by Ross Marino/Getty Images
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