General Discussion

...Prince, whose worldview changed dramatically over the years. Like Dylan, Prince was often not terribly subtle in the ways that worldview influenced his art. Even at the peak of his career (Purple Rain, Sign 'o the Times), you could see the internal struggles. One influential music history prof of mine mentioned the similarity between Little Richard and Prince--"they were either singing about religion or about carnal pleasures, and usually both to an equal degree".

For a while, Prince dabbled in Islam, and then converted to the Jehovah's Witnesses. By the end of his career, he was bowdlerizing the rather...earthy...lyrics of his early work, or simply not performing that material at all. He sometimes gave interviews that read more like sermons, at least on his part.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expurgation ( aka "bowdlerization" )

I guess the lesson here is a bit like the old saying, "you really don't want to meet your heroes". Except in this case, it's more like, "the more you know about your heroes, the greater the likelihood they won't be your heroes anymore". The conclusion I eventually drew is that no one is a hero, and everything needs to be viewed critically. That's a painful lesson, however, when it comes to the art and artists that influenced one's youth.