Ballad of Anna Stesia
In the song Anna Stesia, Prince delves into the murkiness of the human journey. His calling for Anna Stesia (read: anesthesia) throughout the confusion of the song (which I take to be a metaphor for life) highlights people’s desire for numbness along their way: to make it to and through without the sensations of cuts and bruises acquired in the messiness of life.
The dust settles with Prince’s literal come-to-Jesus moment: “Save me, Jesus, I've been a fool”. The pain that comes with falling along the trek is in part what helps to make going this way worthwhile.
Duh, Prince (read: Porsalin)!
He ends with a chant I have partially tattooed on my right arm: “Love is God; God is Love. Girls and boys love God above”. Bypassing the religious undertone, the culmination of this song presents a confirmation to me: that arm in arm with the falls, cuts, and scrapes I have and will experience in this life is the promise that there is hope for light at the end of this tunnel.
This is my song. Welcome to the Ballad of Anna Stesia.