Prince's 1999 album was released in 1982.In contrast to Tommy, my brother Mike was a huge fan of Prince. Don't get me wrong, everyone at the time loved Prince, but Mike was fanatic. He had the Purple Rain Poster on his wall, and had most all of his records. The year 1999 seemed like so far away when this album was written... almost as if it would never come. At least I couldn't imagine it. That's a little funny considering this is being written eleven years after 1999. I must say that how we pictured 1999 as a society in 1982 is vastly different than what it actually was. We never got our hovercrafts or George Jettson-like technologies. Did someone fail, or was the future over-projected? Popular Mechanics Magazine was one of the biggest offenders of this future projection. My dad got a subscription of it, and it really raised my standards of what I thought the future would be like. I also never did the math as a child that I'd be a college student in 1999.
FAST FOWARD... TO 1999
The song 1999 did have more relevance when I went to college. My freshman year spanned the Fall of 1998 through the Spring of 1999. I was single the entire time - which was rare for me. That New Year's Eve I went down to Milwaukee to party in a hotel room with my best friend from college, Matt. We became close during my freshman year at St. Norbert College playing football. Since he was a second year quarterback and I was a first year wide receiver, there was lots for me to learn about the offensive system. Our college playbook was like a phonebook, and I couldn't understand the lingo fast enough to have it ready for practice the next day. Matt really helped me out with getting the schemes down; and even helped me recognize who the QB looks at first on pass plays, how to read defenses, etc. We hit it off from there and are still good friends to this day. So when New Years came, he invited me to party with his friends in Milwaukee.
It was the first New Years holiday since early high-school I could remember not having a girlfriend. Matt had a tight-knit group from high school, and I thought it'd be cool to celebrate the new year in "the big city." We went to this fancy Italian family style restrauant called Bucca de Beppos. They knew someone who worked there, and they totally hooked us up. I was introduced at the time to deep fried calamari. Everything was on huge plates you just passed around. It was really good food, and fun to experience a place like that.
After dinner, we went back to a hotel near Matt's parents' house. There might have been two rooms. The one I stayed in seemed to be the party room. Friends came and left almost as fast as I was introduced. It was loads of fun. I ended up crashing in one of the two beds in that room, coincidentally in between two girls that were close to Matt's girlfriend at the time. After being single for months, waking up in between two cuddly girls was a great way to start a new year; even if nothing "happened." When you're 19 and a freshman in college, it's still a big confidence booster. I continued a friendship with one of them throughout college. New Years was the best day to party like it's 1999, because it WAS 1999.
I think Dick Clark's New Years program on TV featured Prince performing his song live. The song "1999" was all over the place. Meanwhile, Prince was, and still is today, one of the most underrated guitarists. This guy can really shred. I'd take the "Pepsi Challenge" with almost any other guitar player in terms of note definition, speed and clarity. Combine that with top notch song writing and I don't even care how weird the guy is...it's golden.
"I was dreaming when I wrote this." So sue me if it went astray.
