Hello one in all, 2023 Kirk here welcoming you to another classic episode of Strong

Songs, a 2020 episode that I still regularly get messages about.

It's my analysis of Prince's 1986 hit song Kiss.

As I'm sure you probably know I'm currently on break, I'm working on some creative projects,

charting out the exciting next steps for Strong Songs, planning some new endeavors and

really just fighting off the old self-employed creator burnout, which the longer I do this

show the more I come to understand that that is a real thing.

It's been cool re-running these old episodes from the past few years, it's helped me realize

that there are actually a lot of you out there who haven't heard every episode of the show,

which of course is true, but it's easy to forget that when you're next deep in producing

the show every week, like I've heard every episode of the show multiple times, but of course

I have kind of a unique perspective on Strong Songs.

So I'm actually excited to go back to this episode on Prince's Kiss, since I know now

that a lot of you haven't heard it.

That song was revolutionary for its dark simplicity and for its embrace of the blues,

one of the oldest American song forms, and I find myself referencing the explanation

of the blues in this episode quite a bit as I make this show just on an ongoing basis

because the blues comes up so often it's nice to know what it is, and I think I explained

it pretty well in this episode.

So the episode is as it was when it ran three years ago, which means there will be some

things like email addresses, etc. that are outdated now.

I also talked at the beginning of the episode about how it's been practicing guitar, and

...