Do grand gestures really work? I ask myself this question as I relive the scene from purple rain where The Kid, played by Prince, sings “The Beautiful Ones” in front of Apollonia & Morris Day. The song, progressed by a forlorn and hallow bass, is sparse, and contemplative. Prince only wants to plead with Apollonia and convince her to love him, not the chump with the cheetah coat. Or in the very least get her to weigh her feelings honestly. He sings the song timidly from the center stage piano, alone in the spotlight and in his yearning.
And she takes the bate, because how can you deny a man willing to poor his soul out in front of a crowed of glammed out proto-hipsters but also emotively singing directly to you? She wants him because he can risk seeming foolish to curry her fancy. Sadly after a romantic tryst in a suburb basement, Apollonia finds out he’s a mixed bag of crazy and his emotional problems steam from his family’s destructive dysfunction and communicative issues. Not a good foundation to start a fledgling relationship off of. The consolation prize being she can watch her psycho lover connect to an audience in much the same way as his hand connected with her face.
Those things aside- how often do such things happen? If I were to hop on stage, and sing “The Beautiful Ones”, karaoke style, in front of a room full of potential future employers, while wearing a leotard and lace gloves, putting it all on the line, does that mean the unattainable object of my affection will crumble into a pile of glitter? Probably not. Will I just be laughed off the stage- out of the work force, and into psychosis? Damn right. This then raises the more significant question that I’ve been mulling over for some time in relation to romanticism; where is the archetype for this behavior? Did we ever have romance- or was it just an imaginative escape from our lack of sexual fulfillment?
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