A lot of people knew Prince for sensuality and androgyny in his music. However, an underrated part of his catalog is how much he draws from the religious and the spiritual. “I Would Die 4 U” might as well be a gospel song, given how its lyrics allude to and represent Jesus. Moreover, later in his life, he became a Jehovah’s Witness for a spell. But even before he chose organized religion, at the peak of his powers, he tied his sense of self to the spiritual.
During a conversation with Ebony Magazine in 1986, Prince opened up about his religious inclinations. There, he expresses how God was his one true outlet. When things failed to make sense, and the world was tumultuous, he gained a deeper understanding through spirituality. Moreover, when the woes of the world grow deep, the “Purple Rain” singer had someone and somewhere to go. Prince’s biggest advice at the time was to just talk to God.
Prince Reflects on His Religious and Spiritual Beliefs
“When one finds himself, one finds God, and vice versa. You find God, and you find yourself. I think God is inside everybody. There’s a good feeling, a goodness in everybody, and it’s just as easy to be good as it is to be bad. Once I found that I had somebody to talk to, it made things a lot easier. I was looking for an answer. To find release,” Prince said in 1986.
“When one is alone, one should try talking to God. It worked for me. It’s not going to make your problems go away, but it just makes it easier to cope with. It makes you feel that there is some place to go. The pain becomes less. The hurt becomes less. Loneliness becomes less. And everything, all your problems, becomes so small.”
Prince quipped that vices like caffeine from coffee just doesn’t quite fulfill in the same way. That release is a temporary one. But through Godliness, there’s a constant that’s inside all of us. Whether you choose religion or not is a different thing. But he firmly believed that there is God in all of us.
“Everyone’s situation is different. Everyone has to try to find himself. God is inside of us. You’ve got to find out who you are and what you stand for, and learn the difference between right and wrong, and be able to weigh things out. I’m going to do a film, hopefully one day, about someone’s struggle through that,” Prince said. “It’s really a heavy thing. I don’t really like talking about it that much, because everyone is so different, and it always sounds like I’m preaching.”
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