The comical backstory of ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ epitomises the way Prince approached music
“Don’t point those at me,” Prince tells Zooey Deschanel’s Jessica Day during his cameo on New Girl. “They might go off”. Day had been demonstrating what the term ‘finger guns’ meant when his response sparkled with Prince-specific playfulness, only to be confirmed when Jake Johnson’s Nick Miller found himself amused enough to comment the obvious: “That is so your flavour of humour”.
Prince’s flavour of humour was quirky, playful, and often subtly cheeky, and his ability to blend wit with charm, irony with self-awareness, and the unexpected with the surreal meant that you never really knew what you were going to be faced with. Prince was unpredictable only because he knew what it meant to be obvious, and often, he would take the simplest of jokes and make them stand out, much like his overall artistic persona.
However, what made this particularly acquired flavour so endearing is that it was often intelligently executed, rife with multiple meanings, and discoverable only by those who understood or shared his vision. As he once described to Mojo: “I am a giver by nature. I like people, but I test people in many ways so that the time we share is quality time”.
Much of what Prince had to offer was in his presentation, in how he would glamorously yet nonchalantly hold himself while commenting on some of the industry’s most pressing issues with an overtly calm and dignified demeanour. Sitting on the bench after meeting our two New Girl stars merely scratched the surface of the musician’s ability to blend lightheartedness with depth; the rest lies in his music.
Prince was unequivocally the best when it came to tapping into any emotion at any time and place, regardless of his surroundings or whether he felt connected to the tapestry of feeling he emulated with artistic ability. ‘Purple Rain’, for instance, on the one hand, is one of the greatest love ballads ever written in the history of music, but it also showcases Prince’s simplicities and complexities alongside the value he placed on self-awareness.
The heart might view ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ as a timeless, pain-infused affair, especially after Sinéad O’Connor’s rendition, which details a lost love and the ensuing grief. “It’s been seven hours and 15 days,” she sings, “since you took your love away”.
Beyond becoming one of the late musician’s defining ballads, this song stands out as one of the most complex pieces in Prince’s discography, widely accepted as a pinnacle of heartache, laid raw and bare, leaving little room for dispute.
However, it also represents the nucleus of Prince’s persona and musicality—the place where irony, satire, and depth of meaning swirl together, and his ability to take creative shortcuts allows him to reach profound insights into the human condition. Prince might have been inspired by something as trivial as the absence of his housekeeper when writing the song, using it to poke fun at how much he needed her. Yet, the song itself is far from shallow, especially when viewed through the lens of Prince’s broader artistic approach.
Prince was a known fan of theatricality, not just in the physical sense but in the subtle ways his songs played on expectations and meaning. Many of them are filled with playful language that adds a layer of humour, the satire that lurks beneath making his serious points more palatable and engaging. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ was written about him missing the one person who kept his house in check, narrated through the very real, albeit very pretentious, veil of grieving a romantic love.
“Since you been gone, I can do whatever I want / I can see whom ever I choose / I can eat my dinner in a fancy restaurant / But nothin’, I said nothin’ can take away these blues,” Prince sings, the innocuousness of his muse demonstrating nothing more than his unparalleled understanding of music and ability to conjure the most heartfelt compositions even when his heart itself doesn’t weigh as heavy.
“He was a young man writing about domesticity,” Susan Rogers told The Guardian. “The line ‘all the flowers that you planted in my back yard went out and died’… it would have been Sandy who planted those flowers. ‘And I know that living with me, baby, is sometimes hard, but I’m willing to give it another try…’ There was no romantic relationship with Sandy. It’s not a pained ‘Help me, baby’ track. It’s: ‘You’re gone, and I miss you,’ which is probably why he felt comfortable giving the song away.”
Prince famously hated people covering his songs, and many of his tiffs were rooted in the fact that musicians frequently and deliberately disobeyed his wishes regarding holding on to original versions. However, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ wasn’t intended to be specific to him, yet it typified his entire outlook and approach to music.
Prince didn’t view musical creativity as something to ridicule or humiliate. Instead, he could utilise it as a conduit for his own persona, a necessary avenue of exploration inspired by fleeting experiences or ideas but transformed into timeless sounds and lyrics. ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ might have emerged from a minor domestic inconvenience, but what became of it was a love ballad that transcended the ages.
