Sometimes It Snows In April

April snow in upstate NY

Home and relaxing, sorry for the lack of updates... still feeling weird over the lost computer data (aka life knowledge) and trying to meet the needs of family and friends trying to get their hands on some Beaumont time.

Of course, the falling white flakes make me and half of the rest of America born pre-85 think of Prince's masterschmaltz classic "Sometimes It Snows In April", the closing number of 1985's Parade (my somewhat less traditional choice of favorite Prince album).

Best/worst life moment related to this song: driving in a car on the way home from a fake date with an already-boyfriended crush, I put on Prince to demonstrate some musical diversity beyond my expected übercrackerdom tastes. I started with "Kiss", the sparse funk classic widely regarded as Prince's best, if not most well-known, single. Being the tenth track on Parade, we soon made it to the end of the album... at which point I busted out the falsetto and begin singing along to this arresting and way melodramatic song about love and loss and death. To this day I cannot imagine what overcame me to convince myself it would be a good idea to do that, and I would only be more shocked had it not been the second time I'd done such a thing for a girl who I hardly knew (diff songs). I didn't ask at the time, but I'm fairly sure that both women were at least mildly horrified; though, incidentally, both moments were the beginning of long relationships...

Anyway, here's a version of a French group (unknown to me) called Native performing it. Despite the fact that I would likely hate most of Native's output, this song, which already pushes Prince's cheesefactor to its absolute max, seems almost perfect in the hands of such schlockmeisters. My mom says: "Umm, it sounds kinda like religious music... I don't know why you're listening to it." I say: "I am strangely unable to stop listening."


French group NATIVE covering Prince's "Sometimes it Snows in April"

Here is the actual mp3 which, yes, is unquestionably superior:
Prince - "Sometimes It Snows In April"

And here's an 8 minute MTV Unplugged clip of Prince riffing around, making his way to a brief bit of the song at 6:34.

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Finally, on last weirdsoul music-related topic, here's a video of the lead single from Jamie Lidell's new album Jim, which dropped in stores and on the Bleep.com mp3 store yesterday. The song is called "Little Bit of Feel Good" and it continues in the nouveau vibe. I love this strange, beautiful man. Enjoy:



Hoping that when I get home tomorrow night it is sunny and 71 degrees in New York.