#140, "Little Red Corvette," Prince (1983)

150 Favorite Songs: #140, "Little Red Corvette," Prince (1982)

Part of the curious dual nature of Prince's charm is the fact that he can be a brilliant, subtle lyricist some of the time, and be crass, tacky, and obvious in ways that aren't nearly as clever as his fans have convinced themselves he must be, at other times. (Bob Dylan has the same problem. I read an essay somewhere once that argued for the brilliance of the line, "You're an idiot, babe / it's a wonder that you still know how to breathe" from "Idiot Wind." You have to be pretty invested in your idea of someone's untouchable genius to lay that out in essay form.) Prince takes it up a notch, in that he can do it in the same song, sometimes even in the same verse.

The first time I listened to "Little Red Corvette" and actually, like, paid attention, I was probably 21 or 22. I must have been going through something with some-young-lady-or-other, because that opening line hit me in the gut. "I guess I should have known / by the way u parked your car sideways / that it wouldn't last." 

Funny, vivid, and sad all at once is how I like my writing, and he nailed every aspect of that sort of moment. When you know it's not going to be what you want, when you're already willing to accept what it is, and when you blame yourself for both of those things—in eighteen words with a punchline. Ignore the next one about the "pocket full of horses," because it's dumb, and just focus on how sharp a writer Prince can be when he wants to be. 

There's something that Prince captures in "Little Red Corvette" that I've always struggled to get at, and I find it fascinating that it's in this weird, pretty sexist song built around a girl-as-car metaphor, which is usually extremely tired and corny. But all of the conflicting emotions to this sort of relationship come out in Prince's yowl. Motley Crue wrote a half-dozen girl-as-car songs that never got there, because Vince Neil could never yowl like that.

Few people could, and it's where the real genius of a performer like Prince lives. His lyrics can be smart and dumb all in the same song, but what he's trying to get across goes way beyond the words. "You must be a limousine" is not a great line, but the way he sings it as an incoherent shriek gets across something about bravado and insecurity that goes beyond what the song looks like on the page. The collaboration between Prince-the-performer and Prince-the-songwriter on a song like "Little Red Corvette" is the sort of demonstration of an artist in full control of every aspect of his talent that it almost makes you feel bad about yourself to see it in action. But that is why he was Prince, and you and I are not.