the Prince "Come Together" bootleg

May 26, 2008 7:40 PM

the Prince "Come Together" bootleg... from Coachella 2008 that's popping up suddenly on many indie mp3 blogs now . ..Incidentally.. the Beatles wrote this as an unofficial Presidential campaign song for Timothy Leary (incarcerated at the time) . A progressively intense audience engagning performance ... if they ever do a career spanning Prince box set they'll put this on.
posted by celerystick (37 comments total)

Bill ... Shatner, is that ... you?
posted by 5MeoCMP at 7:42 PM on May 26, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

PRINCE IS GOD
posted by yhbc at 8:08 PM on May 26, 2008

PRINCE IS GOD

Quoted for truth.

the Beatles wrote this as an unofficial Presidential campaign song for Timothy Leary

I think it was for his gubernatorial campaign. He ran against Ronald Reagan in California.
posted by amyms at 8:17 PM on May 26, 2008

Soundgarden covered this as well.
posted by Tube at 8:31 PM on May 26, 2008

Guess you had to be there? This performance doesn't really live up to the hype, and this post is frankly just not very good.
posted by dhammond at 8:42 PM on May 26, 2008

I think it was for his gubernatorial campaign.

And technically, it was something Lennon did on his own, and then later reused as a Beatles song, but that's splitting hairs.

You're damn right Prince is God. He's a legitimate musical genius. Every time someone makes a crack about the symbol or whatever, I want to strap them down A Clockwork Orange style and blast "Sign O' The Times" until they get it.
posted by DecemberBoy at 8:46 PM on May 26, 2008

I remember my first beer.
posted by Joseph Gurl at 9:01 PM on May 26, 2008

Uh, I'm all on board with the Prince is God thing, but I'll be damned if the original isn't funkier.
posted by fingers_of_fire at 9:19 PM on May 26, 2008

Duh, Prince isn't god.

CLAPTON IS GOD.

/arguement
posted by Sphinx at 9:30 PM on May 26, 2008

We're supposed to accept "CLAPTON IS GOD" arguments from someone who doesn't know how to spell argument!?

Okay, Clapton can be a Co-God. So can Bruce Springsteen.
posted by amyms at 9:36 PM on May 26, 2008

It sucks. It's hardly even Prince. It's Prince's backup singers covering two verses of "Come Together," with Prince chanting once in a while about peace. And leading one of those crappy "come on, audience, sing tunelessly for me."
posted by goatdog at 9:37 PM on May 26, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

*argument

/fatfingers
posted by Sphinx at 9:37 PM on May 26, 2008

This is not that great. Creep is still awesome, though.

Let me listen to that again.

FUCK.

YES.

There's a good take on that prince cover of creep here.


This is probably the best distillation of Prince's verbal seduction technique anyone's ever conjured. That Prince is awesome and desirable goes without saying. Prince's argument for why you should sleep with him takes that for granted. Of course you want to sleep with Prince; everybody wants to sleep with Prince. But it's also true that Prince probably wants to sleep with everyone, too. Prince desiring you is not news. Prince walks around desiring things. That's what he does.

...

So the fact that he changes that line then changes the line after it. When he yells "I'm a creep," it really seems like he meant to say "freak." He turns this chorus of self-loathing that even Thom Yorke was embarrassed about for a while into, well, a Prince song, a statement of sexual licentiousness. I'm a creep, I'm a weirdo, I get freaky baby, and you can get freaky with me. The weirdness that was a source of embarrassment for Yorke is, here, a source of pride. And when he changes "I don't belong here" into "we don't belong here," it turns self-consciousness into "this party is lame, let's go find something as fabulous as we are." Prince brings you in, includes you in this fantastic Prince world that he has constructed.
posted by empath at 9:49 PM on May 26, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

I think you had to be there.
posted by ssg at 9:50 PM on May 26, 2008

Duh, Prince isn't god.

CLAPTON IS GOD.

Prince is an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist, songwriter and producer who was not only hugely successful with music under his own name, but created other successful bands just as outlets for his leftovers. Eric Clapton is very good at playing pedantic, joyless, boring music on the guitar, most of which was appropriated from long-dead black bluesmen and subsequently made totally soulless, and is the most uncool "rock icon" this side of Joe Satriani. He is more like Satan to Prince's God.
posted by DecemberBoy at 9:53 PM on May 26, 2008 [11 favorites has favorites]

Also, Harmonix needs to get on the fucking ball and do a Prince DLC pack for Rock Band.
posted by empath at 9:55 PM on May 26, 2008

Eric Clapton is very good at playing pedantic, joyless, boring music on the guitar, most of which was appropriated from long-dead black bluesmen and subsequently made totally soulless, and is the most uncool "rock icon" this side of Joe Satriani. He is more like Satan to Prince's God.

Clapton's music is hardly pedantic.
posted by goatdog at 9:57 PM on May 26, 2008

I wonder if Prince is now also going to be cursed by people yelling at him to "PLAY CREEP!!!" for the next five years.
posted by empath at 9:58 PM on May 26, 2008

IF PRINCE IS GOD

THEN Sungha Jung is the Messiah.
posted by The White Hat at 10:17 PM on May 26, 2008

"Then Sungha Jung is the Messiah."
Holy Toldeo !
Ok
posted by celerystick at 10:29 PM on May 26, 2008

I was there.
While Prince in whole was fucking epic that night in ways that make you forget how overused the word "epic" is these days, this part in particular was pretty limp.
Still, its nice to relive that awesome weekend.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:44 PM on May 26, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

"There is no right way to clap your hands. Not tonight. But everybody gotta do somethin' right now."

What the fuck is he talking about? And what the hell does the phrase "War No More" have to do with "Come Together?" John Lennon did other songs against war. I don't think "Come Together" was one of them. It doesn't make any sense? This isn't a cover. It's a filler. They were just dorking around on the stage. Improvising. And not very well.

Prince is okay, but he's no god. Maybe he's a king of something. If Presley was king of rock and Jackson was king of pop, maybe Prince can be a king of something, but he's no god. Not by a long shot. I'm not in the 'prince is god' cult. I'm not in the 'clapton is god' cult. I'm certainly not in the 'springsteen is god' cult. I'm in the ROBIN WILLIAMS IS GOD cult! * Yeah baby! Sing it Bobby!

* terrible video but it's the only copy of the song I could find online.
posted by ZachsMind at 11:22 PM on May 26, 2008

I remember... when I used to think... three periods made me look sophisticated; now I use semicolons.
posted by pwb503 at 11:39 PM on May 26, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Obviously it's impossible to tell without having been present, but having seen Prince a dozen times, and having a preposterously huge collection of live Prince bootlegs, this gig does seem pretty so-so by his standards.

Still, it's giving me Prince withdrawal symptoms. It's been nearly a year since I saw him last: too long! Fingers crossed the rumours of another London residency are true.
posted by jack_mo at 3:18 AM on May 27, 2008

Prince is so batshit I can't listen to the dude without thinking about how batshit he is, wondering if he's hankering for a camel right now. Considering how many musicians are or were batshit, that's probably an accomplishment.
posted by TheOnlyCoolTim at 3:19 AM on May 27, 2008

While gazing at Prince during his unbelievably-great Super Bowl half-time performance a couple of years ago, I came to the following visual realization: Jimi Hendrix + John Waters = Prince.
posted by ericbop at 8:23 AM on May 27, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Knowing what Prince can do, it's too bad this version is so conventional.
posted by pantufla at 8:24 AM on May 27, 2008

I wonder if Prince is now also going to be cursed by people yelling at him to "PLAY CREEP!!!" for the next five years.

God, I so fervently hope so.
posted by blucevalo at 10:02 AM on May 27, 2008

Great memories of that show - standing in the crowd before Prince started, overhearing a conversation from other concertgoers waiting around:

A: "I didn't know you liked Prince."
B: "I don't, I can't stand him... but I'm going to watch the show because, you know, it's Prince."

The show was pretty fantastical, and it was trumped easily by Gogol Bordello the next day. THAT was a hell of a thing.
posted by FatherDagon at 1:05 PM on May 27, 2008

Unimpressed by the Prince tracks, but that Sungha Jung kid. Wow. His Canon in D just blew me away.
posted by JaredSeth at 1:32 PM on May 27, 2008

PRINCE IS GOD

Prince would take issue with that.
posted by gauchodaspampas at 1:53 PM on May 27, 2008

That version of 'Come Together' that Aerosmith did for the Bee Gees' Sergeant Pepper's movie is surprisingly not-terrible.
posted by box at 2:31 PM on May 27, 2008

The Come Together cover is alright, but the Creep cover is absolutely jaw-dropping. The fact that Prince even knows who Radiohead are would be surprising enough, but... wow. I wonder if there's any chance of a high-quality recording of it making it onto a future Coachella DVD.

(And yes, Prince is indeed God)
posted by kryptondog at 2:47 PM on May 27, 2008

High holy moley! That "Creep" version is excellent live Prince. Glad to have that!
posted by humannaire at 6:34 PM on May 27, 2008

I just have to plug this album so more people will hear it... If I Was Prince, a compilation of Prince covers that was released a few years ago.

He was always a great musician, his facade was just a bit off for a while there.

"I'll tell you a funny story about Prince. I was in this studio and I heard Prince was coming in. There was a time I thought he was awesome, but what a fucking creep! The rules were, you were never to say the word 'Prince', you had to write down that symbol. You were never to look at him, or talk to him unless he approached you first, shit like that. So he shows up in a limo, wearing a fluorescent pink jumpsuit, giant hair, a cane, huge heels and a lollipop."
posted by sleslie at 8:38 PM on May 27, 2008

I don't get the Prince version of creep at all. Without the snarky 'so fucking special' line, the song is just another wistful love song. The original felt much braver to me, in the sense that it was angry and revealed the protagonist's lack of control. Prince's version seems watered down conceptually. Although, as a performer, he's arguably better.
posted by BrotherCaine at 1:16 AM on May 30, 2008

Radiohead To Prince: Quit Being A ‘Creep!’

Radiohead would prefer that Prince not direct YouTube to remove video clips of songs they originally wrote and performed.

"Yorke added: "Well, tell him to unblock it. It's our ... song."

No comment from YT or Google yet. Will we hear from Paul and Ringo soon, too?

The digital divide lives on.
posted by Exchequer at 12:25 PM on May 30, 2008