What Prince song is based on true crime?
Peter Buck, the lead guitarist of REM, once dubbed Prince “one of the weirdest musicians in the top ten”. It certainly wasn’t a derogatory comment.
For years, Prince operated as one of the most unusual members of the chart-topping pop elite. Does that speak to how homogenised pop music is now in the 21st century? Certainly, but it doesn’t detract from just how unique Prince was.
Forever pioneering new sounds and styles, Prince stayed on the cutting edge of music. Daring to do something a little different, in the 1980s, he was also willing to say what others wouldn’t dare to dream of. He wasn’t afraid to step over the lines of perceived acceptability in pursuit of what he believed was the next step forward for his work.
On his 1981 album Controversy, the musician did just that. Across the record, Prince deals with the topics of race, sexuality, gender and religion. On the opening track alone, he doesn’t shy away from big questions as he asks, “Am I Black or white? Am I straight or gay?… Do I believe in God? Do I believe in me?”
In subject matter and in sound, Prince was out to ruffle feathers Controversy. Sonically, his music was becoming increasingly experimental through the use of technology, drum machines, and electronically generated instruments. Throughout the album, almost all of the instruments are played by Prince as his perfectionism took a tight hold on the record, determined to create his vision down to the exact details.
From the funk of ‘Controversy’ to the blues-infused ballad of ‘Do Me, Baby’ or the energetic pop of ‘Sexuality’, the album let Prince’s weirder side run wild. It was a strange time in society, a time when America began a new march towards towering commercialisation, but was still bedraggled by the decadence of the 1970s.
Prince kept himself on the tippy toes of these shifts in cultural paradigms, and used his music to highlight the blind spots of a country. But it was never more so apparent than on ‘Annie Christian’, a veritable true crime tour of goings on in the late 1970s.
Across three verses and three choruses, the musician refers to a whole host of grim, real-life occurrences. Considering the darkest corners of human nature and the potential for people to become truly evil, the song is a treasure trove of historical events.
The title is also something of an easter egg, connecting to the themes of the album and the song. ‘Annie Christian’ is a stand-in for “Anti-Christ”. On the album cover, a headline reads “Annie Christian Sentenced to Die!” alongside other lines imagining a world with gun control laws, commands to love thy neighbour and questions about God. With Prince seemingly imagining a perfect world, the track ‘Annie Christian’ is a purge of sorts, highlighting the evil to expel it.
So, what true crimes are referenced in ‘Annie Christian’?
First Verse:
“Annie Christian wanted to be a big star / So she moved to Atlanta and she bought a blue car”
Between 1979 and 1981, a series of murders gripped Atlanta. Over the two years, 28 people were killed, mostly teenagers and children. All of the victims were Black, as referenced by Prince in the lyric, “She killed Black children”. While the singer attributes the murders to the Anti-Christ, 23-year-old Wayne Williams was convicted for several of the crimes, with 24 victims in total being attributed to him. However, there has been long-held suspicion about the role the Ku Klux Klan may have played in the murders.
Second Verse:
“She killed John Lennon, shot him down cold”
In December 1980, The Beatles founding member John Lennon was shot and killed. After signing an autograph for Mark David Chapman, the deranged fan shot him twice in the back. The day after, Prince played a show in New York, just down the road from where Lennon was shot.
“She tried to kill Reagan, everybody say gun control”
Lennon’s killer, Mark David Chapman, had also contemplated killing other figures, including David Bowie, Elizabeth Taylor and President Ronald Reagan. Then, in 1981, someone else made an attempt on the figure, as John Hinckley shot and wounded Reagan. Back in 1967, Reagan signed an act to prohibit the carrying of firearms, as the politician advocated for gun control.
Third verse:
“Put your head on the block, somebody say, ‘Abscam’“
In the late 1970s and early ‘80s, an FBI sting operation blew the cover on a major case of congressional corruption. The initial investigation was meant to target the trafficking of stolen property and corrupt businessmen. But as it went on, more and more politicians ended up being caught out, as the FBI recorded them accepting bribes in return for political favours. In the end, seven members of Congress were convicted, but more than 30 figures were investigated.
