Just what kind of raspberry beret was it?

(unfortunately, i have no answer to soothe the mad puffin's curious soul.)

in order for a beret (whether raspberry or not) to end up in a second-hand store, it must have been purchased new at some point. unless it was part of a lot of dead-stock, in which case it would be more likely to be found in a "vintage shop" rather than a lowly second-hand store.

therefore prince, in a masterful show of lyrical concision may be indicating "the kind of raspberry beret that was purchased new several years ago, and is now well worn in, though not too ragged to be resold"

we can also surmise that whatever kind of raspberry berets are sold in second-hand stores, they are very well insulated, as "when it was warm, she wouldn't wear much more".....

therefore prince, in a masterful show of lyrical concision may be indicating "the kind of raspberry beret that was purchased new several years ago, and is now well worn in, though not too ragged to be resold"

That is a good gloss.

Though I still think "the kind of raspberry beret" is problematic. How many kinds are there?

Can someone provide a typology of raspberry berets--cashmere, wool, synthetic, adjustable, non-adjustable, with or without a black band, with or without a little tufty thing on top, stiff or floppy? Preferably, with an indication of how likely they are to be found in a secondhand store.

Put roughly, what kind of raspberry beret would one not find in a secondhand store?

xpost: I liked ailsa's and o.nate's posts as well.

While perhaps not telling of the various types of berets at large, this line indicates that the beret in question sports some kind of chin strap, or at the very least a band with some degree of elasticity:

"So look here, I put her on the back of my bike and, uh, we went ridin'...down by Old Man Johnson's farm."

Also, later in the song, we are led to believe that this particular beret is able to withstand and repel the elements one might encounter while having sexual relations in a barn. Therefore, we may assume the beret was preapred with Scotchguard or a comparable fabric treatment.

All in all, a fascinating topic.

Consider another dogg:

http://www.villagehatshop.com/media/dog-beret.jpg

And a vote for the "beret made from a raspberry" theory:

http://www.pinktink3.250x.com/heehee/raspberry_files/image004.jpg

I would like to focus on thrifting and its chief delight, the find, and also on the paradox inherent in the homonyms kind and find, which invoke that particularly postmodern binary, the universal and the particular. I will number my observations on these themes from 1-10, at the risk of suggesting a systematic relationship between them which is not there.

1. Thrifting, a cheap and original form of shopping, has affinities with two things close to Prince's heart:

a) recycling and recontextualising old musical forms, like James Brown brass stabs or Beatles chord sequences.

b) going out to look around for pretty girls.

2. The girl's hat was a find for the girl, and the girl herself is a find for the song's narrator. The fact that both the hat and the girl have been "pre-worn" doesn't put him off at all, in fact he finds this adds to the appeal.

3. It is the 1980s, and postmodernism is at high tide. Postmodernism is all about the entire past being made simultaneously available to the present as something you can shop for. The idea of the "classic" and the "retro" are central to this idea of the simultaneity and availability of the past. Prince uses retro music purloined from the "secondhand store" of musical history. It is enhanced by its patina, and attractive because of its availability, like the girl.

4. Secondhand stores are rather random accretions of objects. We go there, oftentimes, not knowing what we will find in the lucky dip. There is no generic "kind of thing we find" during our purposeless drifting thrifting, although we know well that something will always catch our eye.

5. The notions of "the kind" and "the find" are at odds: the idea of "kind" suggests generics and universals, the idea of "find" suggests idiosyncracies and particularities. A thrift store is a place where a disordered system of categorisation and display allows things to be found in a magical way, and prized more highly as a consequence.

6. Raspberry is fruit. We "pick" fruit, in other words we choose it. "Picking" denotes the physical act of pulling the fruit off the bush and into our posession, but also the mental act of choosing which berry to pick. The girl has "picked" the fruit-like hat, and we are encouraged to think of the song's narrator "picking" the girl in the same way.

7. Since we know that the song's narrator is himself "working in a 5 and dime", the fact that the girl is wearing a secondhand beret instantly establishes a bond between them. He is subordinate, working for Mr McGee, but she knows the hidden value of soiled, secondhand and subordinate things, things in cheap stores, because she is a thrifter.

8. It's obvious, but "berry" and "beret" are semantically and sonically linked, just as "kind" and "find" are. Less obvious is that these nested, nestling words denote the compatibility of the couple.

9. Later, the status imbalance is levelled, and the narrator gets the upper hand. The girl is on the back of the bike, he notices she "ain't 2 bright", he fucks her in a farmyard, she becomes even more "secondhand".

10. "They say the first time ain't the greatest... but if I had a chance 2 do it all again I wouldn't change a stroke" brings the secondhand theme full circle. New isn't as good as experienced, virgin isn't as good as whore. The first time isn't as good as the second, and the third fully matches the second. The "but" is mystifying until you realise that what makes the first time great is its replicability, its (in Nietzschean terms) eternal return. The nostalgic line "Where have all the raspberry girls gone?" is just the cream on the beret.

what kind of mentalist discards all clothing BUT their hat
Randy Newman (or Joe Cocker) to thread!

(x-post: i'm not sure prince ever "got away" with these lines because he's prince. he got away with 'em because they're fucking genius pop songs!)

1. Nate Jewish name.

2. Nate and "nativity" linked.

3. Boy child, Christ child.

4. End times, return of Christ.

5. Final trump, James Brown brass stab to end all James Brown brass stabs.

6. We will know the end times by "signs".

7. Book of Revelations.

8. Poignancy of casual planning of life creation in a time of destruction.

9. Relationship of "intimations of mortality" to marriage and reproduction.

10. In sexual congress, the sighs of the woman are birth pangs, the sighs of the man death rattles.

First, does the "this" that was written while dreaming include the line "I was dreaming when I wrote this"? If so, then it is a paradox. For surely if you were dreaming while writing, you wouldn't write "I was dreaming," you would write "I am dreaming as I write this." And generally you don't know you're dreaming as you dream, so inscribing into the song a future consciousness is quite a feat of mental gymnastics. Compare with that Pulp song that goes, "I wrote this song two hours before we met."

(But I'm still stuck on "Raspberry Beret." Can we just get at least this one thing settled--is it the kind of beret you find in a secondhand store, which happens to be raspberry-colored... or is it the kind of raspberry beret you find in a secondhand store?)

neither, i would guess. it's the kind of thing you'd find in a secondhand store. it's something you'd find in a secondhand store. but neither of those scan properly. "kind you find" is the scannable if not directly translatable shorthand.

Long time pa-a-ssing...

I've always found that part awesome, but that's just me. If we're looking for shit lines, we may as well toss in the entirety of "Ronnie Talk to Russia."

The Mad Puffin paradox can be unravelled in a number of ways.

(i) I was dreaming when I wrote this: "Forgive me if I go too fast";

(ii) I was dreaming when I wrote "this";

(iii) variations of the above

The Pulp paradox, "I wrote this song two hours before we met", is a little trickier. It can be answered however, by assuming that the 'this' is not reflexive, ie, that the singer is referring to another song that he and the woman in question are currently attending to. For example, they may be listening to another song on 'This Is Hardcore'; and that listening sessions is celebrated in the song which we now have before us.

Fact checking cuz is sensible but a party pooper.

guilty as charged. i'll work on improving this obvious shortcoming in my personality in the future.

xpost:
C'mon that's like asking Alex in NYC to give up the Joke. Don't do it!

damn.

One would imagine that such an evil hat would have legislation enacted against its production, thus restricting availability to car boot sales, thrift shops, and indeed 2nd hand stores.

Although this does leave me perplexed as to why Prince did not clarify the song's real meaning by the judicious use of a simple sound effect.

The animals on Old Man Johnson's farm must come in for a fair bit of trauma, too.

Not me. Prince claims that McGee "told me several times that he didn't like my kind/'Cause I was a bit too leisurely." "My kind?" I think we know what Prince is saying here - Mr. McGee was a bigot, and Prince was subtly fighting the power by letting customers in the wrong way, etc.

I can tell you this was a really stale joke around the Creation offices in the late 80s... people would break into Raspberry Beret at the drop of a, well, a hat.

Given the popularity of the song, I would imagine you'd find more raspberry berets in secondhand stores after the song hit than before. I think it was all a clever plan on Prince's part: 1.) Apollonia wants a raspberry beret, but they are too expensive. 2.) Prince writes "Raspberry Beret." 3.) A Prince-crazed America goes mad for raspberry berets. 4.) Six months later, a flood of berets show up in Goodwill clothing drop-boxes. 5.) Apollonia gets her beret. She looks ridiculous. Prince drops her for Sheila E.

Perhaps the beret is "raspberry" sonically...

Aren't whoopee cushions sort of raspberry colored? Maybe our heroine is actually a crazed bag lady with a pig's bladder on her head. It would certainly explain why she shopped at secondhand stores.

It was Rerun's beret from What's Happening?

Fred Berry Beret?

She mixed with the clouds? No, man. What? Why would anyone mix with clouds? I mean I realize he's really crazy about this girl, but...what would the weather have anything to do with it? He could have talked about how red her lips were, or some other detail about her, but no, she "mixed with the clouds"??

Now THAT made me smile.