# Prince Dead at 57 **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** celebrity-death\ **Created:** [April 21, 2016, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828 "2016-04-21T16:54:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Periwinkle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Periwinkle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Periwinkle)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2016, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/121 "2016-04-24T19:34:43Z")
I have been thinking about Prince a lot this weekend, and listening to his music. I was so shocked when I heard he had died, I guess I must of thought of him as much as a “force of nature”, as human. But as “force of nature” as his performances could be, those little flashes of joy when he couldn’t keep back the smile were very endearing. I appreciate all the memories/thoughts/analysis/links that people have posted here and in other threads. I felt a need to pay my respects to the passing of this stunningly gifted artist who touched me emotionally so many times, and spending time here helped me to do that. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 24, 2016, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/122 "2016-04-24T23:14:26Z")
I agree with all that. ---
**Author:** ![tenacious\_j](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/439d5e/32.png) [@tenacious\_j](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tenacious_j)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/123 "2016-04-25T02:30:06Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > Bruce Springsteen — [http://youtu.be/KkOxeKA2WNE](http://youtu.be/KkOxeKA2WNE) Damn. That song already makes me cry half the time I hear it. I am not a musician but I think the guys did a great job on it. A fitting last song for my Prince-centric weekend. ---
**Author:** ![Nema98](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/d2c977/32.png) [@Nema98](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nema98)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/124 "2016-04-25T05:55:58Z")
It’s sad that we lost him, also that now that he is dead his songs are available on YouTube and other channels, where as it was hard to find. Prince would not allow his songs to be readily available. I hope it stays permanently on so fans and people who only recently discovered him, can listen to his msuic. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 25, 2016, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/125 "2016-04-25T16:43:31Z")
Has anyone started a Cause-of-Death Pool yet? ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/126 "2016-04-26T19:45:50Z")
The latest news is that Prince died without a will. [http://www.startribune.com/read-tyka-nelson-s-court-filing-about-prince-s-will-and-estate/377140131/](http://www.startribune.com/read-tyka-nelson-s-court-filing-about-prince-s-will-and-estate/377140131/) I found this surprising. ---
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/127 "2016-04-26T19:54:13Z")
The _Daily Mail_ is a disreputable gossip paper, right? Mr. brown likes to to read it, and he keeps distressing me by reading me articles in which a supposed drug dealer details his sales of opioids to Prince over the years, etc., starting in the 1980s. I don’t want to start a fight with Mr. brown over his choice of newspapers, but I want to think that this is all just made-up bullshit. It is, isn’t it? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/128 "2016-04-26T20:03:01Z")
Every time a musician dies someone is eager to step up and claim drug abuse. According to those who knew him, Prince was not a drug user or abuser (outside of legitimate prescriptions). The only angle that seems even remotely plausible to me would be an accidental overdose of legally prescribed painkillers - which still does not mean he was an addict or an abuser because you can accidentally overdose and/or have a bad reaction to drugs given for legitimate reasons. In such a case, the pharmaceuticals would be dispensed by a legal pharmacist, not a drug dealer. Keep in mind, drug dealers are unsavory criminals and that you probably shouldn’t trust what they save without evidence to back it up, and that such a person has much to gain from lying, such as free publicity. ---
**Author:** ![SaharaTea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SaharaTea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SaharaTea)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/129 "2016-04-26T20:07:57Z")
I am astonished that he may have died without a will. This is a person who fought very hard to protect his music. ---
**Author:** ![PastTense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pasttense/32/14550_2.png) [@PastTense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PastTense)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/130 "2016-04-26T20:11:55Z")
“accidental”? What does that mean? If you take your pills and forgot you took them and take them again that is accidental. But Prince could well have been taking the drugs day in and day out at two or three times or more times the rate the doctor prescribed them. Is that still an accident? ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [April 26, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/131 "2016-04-26T20:13:20Z")
As opposed to suicide. The intention wasn’t to cause death. That’s the accident- that it caused death. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/132 "2016-04-27T21:45:22Z")
[_The National Enquirer_ is blaming AIDS.](http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/prince-diagnosed-aids-weeks-before-7847295) (Wouldn’t we all be more surprised if it didn’t?) ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 27, 2016, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/133 "2016-04-27T23:30:20Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#): > > The _Daily Mail_ is a disreputable gossip paper, right? Mr. brown likes to to read it, and he keeps distressing me by reading me articles in which a supposed drug dealer details his sales of opioids to Prince over the years, etc., starting in the 1980s. I don’t want to start a fight with Mr. brown over his choice of newspapers, but I want to think that this is all just made-up bullshit. It is, isn’t it? The Daily Mail is toilet paper. It has zero credibility. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/134 "2016-04-28T00:14:13Z")
> [@PastTense](#): > > “accidental”? What does that mean? If you take your pills and forgot you took them and take them again that is accidental. But Prince could well have been taking the drugs day in and day out at two or three times or more times the rate the doctor prescribed them. Is that still an accident? He COULD have but we don’t KNOW that. We don’t even know for sure he was on any sort of pain medication at this point. That’s the stupidity about the whole rumor - yes, it’s _possible_ but there is exactly zero proof at this time, just rumors and unnamed sources. As for “taking more than he should” - over a hundred people a year in the US die from an overdose of _Tylenol_, a perfectly legal, over the counter drug that it is appallingly easy to overdose on. Not all of those deaths are suicides, some are people taking OTC drugs they don’t realize all contain acetaminophen and winding up taking too much. It’s been the nation’s leading cause of acute liver failure for years. So yes, people can and do take more than they should of a variety of medications and some of them wind up dead from it. In other words, it doesn’t have to be opiates and it doesn’t even have to be prescribed by a doctor to kill you if you take too much. But, to say it again, _we don’t know_ if Prince even took anything. Is it too much to ask people to wait a couple weeks for an actual tox report? Or is it more fun to speculate on what killed a man and repeated unsubstantiated rumors about a man who by all accounts was a decent human being? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 1:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/135 "2016-04-28T01:40:59Z")
The Current (Prince’s local public radio station) has put out a multi-part podcast with short interviews with people who worked personally with Prince. They all revere him as a prodigiously talented musician and express very little criticism of his personality. They say that he could be difficult to work with when he was stressed, but they never say that he was cruel or abusive. — [Prince Remembered: A podcast about his music, life and legacy](http://www.thecurrent.org/feature/2016/04/22/prince-remembered-podcast) ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/136 "2016-04-28T02:16:08Z")
> [@Broomstick](#): > > Is it too much to ask people to wait a couple weeks for an actual tox report? Yes, probably. The SDMB is one of many groups of humans with a less than stellar record of restraint in such matters. (One example was speculation here that the Boston Marathon attack was the work of tax protesters, based on the fact that it took place on April 15.) ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/137 "2016-04-28T12:02:32Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > That’s why I thought that maybe he was just trying to adjust the strap or how he was holding the guitar. Little bit first…nope the strap is still snagged on my collar, try lifting it all the way up. Something like that. > > But [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJDuGjMwsow) you can see him do it around 1:19, again after that as he’s walking away from the camera and again at 1:55. There may be more, those are just the couple that I saw. By the way, I can answer the question about Prince’s habit of reaching down and lifting his guitar a bit. That’s a groove-related nervous tic - that’s the technical term ;). When you play a groove you have to work hard on NOT playing on the correct beats, too. When you are working out a groove, your hands develop the equivalent of “um’s” and “ah’s” - non-moves that keep your hands busy so you are not playing on that beat. I have an upstroke pause that looks like an idiotic flourish because it was the only way I could keep my damn hand from doing the next downstroke. When you have your own tic vocabulary, you can pick it out in others. On the same topic, Prince has the most intuitive connection to his guitar - especially his favorite Hohner Tele-knock-off. It’s a part of his body. ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/138 "2016-04-28T12:03:33Z")
Just hearing about the presence of Percocet on the scene. Shit. ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/139 "2016-04-28T12:19:56Z")
> [@WordMan](#): > > By the way, I can answer the question about Prince’s habit of reaching down and lifting his guitar a bit. That’s a groove-related nervous tic - that’s the technical term ;). Cool! Thanks for the insight! ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2016, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828/140 "2016-04-28T12:31:59Z")
To be specific, I originally suspected he was doing it to somehow affect the resonance. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/prince-dead-at-57/752828.md?page=8)