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Mayte & Prince

Day 20: “A song that has many meanings to you”

“All seven and we'll watch them fall

They stand in the way of love

And we will smoke them all

With an intellect and a savoir faire

No one in the whole universe

Will ever compare

I am yours now and you are mine

And together we'll love through

All space and time, so don't cry

One day all seven will die”

I still vividly recall the time I first got my hands (and ears) on to Prince & The New Power Generation’s infamous “Love Symbol” album back in 1992.

I loved pretty much every song on that album (as I did with pretty much all of Prince’s albums, tbh). Like everyone else back then, I was over the moon about the other four singles off it: “Sexy MF”, “My Name Is Prince”, “Damn U” (which we previously covered in this 30 Day Song Challenge) and “The Morning Papers”.

But the track that I eventually became deeply fascinated with was the album’s third (and most commercially succesful) single of the album; a catchy yet mysterious ditty entitled “7”. 🤔

To begin with, “7” musically marked a huge departure for Prince.

We previously discussed (on my Day 16 post about “When Doves Cry”) how Prince was initilly not supportive of the Hip Hop tradition of sampling existing songs to create new ones...

But, in a complete about face on this issue, this entire song (“7”) was built on a sample from the classic 1967 Otis Redding and Carla Thomas duet, “Tramp”! 😱

Many folks my age will probably remember “Tramp” from its second most popular incarnation - a hit 1985 Hip Hop cover by iconic female Rap group Salt-N-Pepa. 💁🏾‍♂️

If you’re a real Hip Hop head, you’ll probably also remember the “Tramp” sample from its prominent use on countless other well known Rap songs like EPMD’s “Rampage (featuring LL Cool J)”, De La Soul’s “Let, Let Me In”, Stetsasonic’s “No B.S. Allowed”, Wu Tang Clan’s “Protect Ya Neck”, Young Black Teenagers’ “Tap The Bottle”, the comedic ”Sweat Of My Balls” from the CB4 movie soundtrack and [my personal fave use of this iconic sample] Heavy D & The Boyz’ “Don’t Curse (feat. Kool G Rap, Grand Puba, CL Smooth, Big Daddy Kane, Pete Rock & Q-Tip).

It’s entirely possible that the sample’s heavy use in Hop Hop (and thus familiarity to mainstream Pop fans at the time) was the reason Prince chose to sample “Tramp”, but alas, Prince never gave a definitive answer to that question, so we’ll probably never know the real reason. 🤷🏾‍♂️

Anyway, “7” went on to become the most successful single from the “Love Symbol” album in the U.S., reaching Number 3 on on Top 40 Pop/Mainstream charts and peaking (ironically) at Number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100...

... and ever since, Prince aficionados have been debating its true meaning. 🤔

Over the years, experts have basically whittled the countless ideas and thoughts on the subject into three distinct (and competing) theories... 👇🏾

Theory 1: The song was only created/recorded simply for its literal use in the film “3 Chains o’ Gold”, which Prince intended to go hand in hand with the “Love Symbol” album.

“3 Chains o’ Gold” was a direct-to-video film produced and directed by Prince and starring Prince and The New Power Generation.

The plot centered around the assassination of an Egyptian Princess’s father by (you guessed it) seven unknown assailants. The Princess (played by NPG dancer and Prince’s wife at the time, Mayte) believed that the assassins were after her kingdom’s sacred “3 Chains of Gold" and sets out to meet up with Prince, believing his character is the only one who can protect the chains from the seven assassins.

A romance follows between Prince and Mayte’s characters, with Prince organizing the assassination of the aforementioned seven assailants - a sequence in the film which is accompanied by the song "7". 💁🏾‍♂️

Fun Fact: Local (Minnesotan) TV news anchors Randy Meier and Lauren Green were featured in the film, sitting at an anchor desk and Hollywood star Kirstie Alley played their collegue, reporting in from the field.

The problem with verifying this theory about the meaning of “7” was that The Purple One (deliberately?!) never said whether the film was a visual manifestation of the music (like Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” for instance) or if the film idea actually came first and the music was solely a result of the film’s plot (as happened with Prince’s song “When Doves Cry” from the “Purple Rain” movie). 🤷🏾‍♂️

Theory 2: The song is all about religious/spiritual iconography.

We know that Prince was intensely spritual, eventually converting and dedicating his life to the Jehovah Witness faith, and even beforr that he was raised in a strict Seventh Day Adventist home.

This could explain alot tbh. In Biblical lore there are Seven Deadly Sins (Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy and Pride). Later on in the Book of Revelations, the bible tells how the end of the world as we know would be triggered by the Seven Seals of God being broken, and then trumpets being sounded by seven angels as the Rapture nears, etc. In the teachings of Judaism and Islam there are reference to the existence of seven Heavens. In Numerology the number seven often is said to be “the spiritual number”... you get the picture.

Is this what Prince intended the song to represent? 🤷🏾‍♂️

Theory 3: “7” is actually Prince’s veiled rant about his disdain for the mainstream music industry.

At the time of the “Love Symbol” album’s creation Prince was in the beginning stages of what turned out to be a heated war with his label at the time (Warner Bros. Records) and by extension, the entire mainstream music industry.

Long story short, Prince had been signed to the giant major label since his teen years and by the 90’s he yearned not only to be creativrly free of the label (with whom he often bicked about creative choices vs marketing/business covnetion at the time)... he also made it clear that he also wanted (upon his exit from Warner Bros.) to own all the masters of his audio recordings which (as tradition and contracts back then dictated) belonged solely to the label.

So much so in fact that, following that album, he infamously changed his actual legal name to the unpronounceable symbol on the album’s cover and wished only to be referred to as “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince”.

Under the unpronounceable symbol’s name he released several albums along woth his band, the New Power Generation, but because of contractual obligations he was forced to continue to allow the label to release “Prince” albums and singles, which he provided to them through his vault of hundreds of songs.

Also, infamously, Prince initially didn’t wish to make any more music videos under that name for thr label, and when forced to do so because of contracts he signed, he appeared in said videos with the world “SLAVE” carved into his facial hair for the video shoots. 🤦🏾‍♂️

For his “symbol” music videos, he opted to wear a mask, so that the label couldn’t legally say he was breaking his contract wherein Warner Bros. not only owned his born name, but also claimed to own his “image and likeness” meaning he could not show his actual face in videos to promote music that wasn’t approved by the label lol.

So it should he no surprised that longtime friend and collaborator (as well as a household name in Twin Cities’ music and theatre) JD Steele was asked about the meaning of “7”, he told the story of being there when Prince was listening to the song, and asking Prince what it meant, claiming that Prince told Steele “there are seven major record labels and one day we’re gonna see them all fall”.

For reference, back in 1992 (when the song was released), there were indeed seven “majors”: Sony, Unversal, Warner Bros., Polygram, MCA, BMG and EMI.

Since then through a series of mergers, axquisitions, and general upheaval of the music industry in the post-Napster era, there are now only three “majors” left (Sony BMG, Universal and Warner) - and none of the three majors is doing the kind of numbers it did in Prince’s heyday, now that actual record sales are mininal due to to the popularity of streaming (and before that widespread piracy due to the popularity of file sharing on the internet via tools like Napster and Limewire).

So, as Steele likes to point out, you could say that Prince’s prediction “came true”... or “is coming to pass slowly”. 🧐

The bottom line is we’ll probably never really know if one or all of these theories holds true...

But isn’t it fun to think about? 💁🏾‍♂️

In closing, here’s a dope video that I found over on Youtube, discussing at length the theories I mentioned here. 👇🏾

And in case you’ve never been blessed by the iconic live performance of “7” before (including the signature intro where Mayte gracefully belly dances while balancing a freaking sword on her damn head)... here’s Prince’s band The New Power Generation back in 2018, doing a performance of “7” in tribute to The Purple One.

Lastly, here’s Prince performing a brilliant mashup of “7” and (the Beatles’ classic song) “Come Together” at Coachella 2008! 👇🏾

Feel free to hit me in the comments or through my inbox with any cool theories you have that I didn’t mention here.

Be well, and be blessed! 🙌🏾