There were earthquakes, you know, the psychological kind in his life in the world.

Shut up already! Damn! Damn. This is Prince, the story of Sign of the Times,

brought to you by The Current in collaboration

with the Prince Estate, Paisley Park, and Warner Records.

But if you earn a hip through a round, ho squag.

Shut up, already.

Damn, hoququake.

Hello and welcome to the third episode of Story of Sign of the Times.

I'm Andrea Swenson. And if you're just joining us I'm an

author and a radio post at The Current in Minneapolis and I'm also one of the

writers who contributed liner notes to the expanded reissue of Sign of the Times.

This episode tells the story of an earthquake, an actual earthquake, not just a house

quake, and the composition of the song Sign of the Times.

It kind of blew my mind to learn about this,

and it's given me a whole new appreciation for a song that already felt so evocative to me with lyrics that

capture the tone and the tenor of 1986 when it was written and that also feels

so resident in this moment in American history.

We spent the first two episodes taking a really intimate look at what was going on in Prince's

life in 1986, both in terms of his relationship to his ban, the revolution, in episode we're going to start to zoom out a little bit and talk about the world around

Prince in this era and some of the exterior forces that shaped his work on an album

that would become an iconic signpost of a turbulent era in American life.

We'll pick up the story with the release of Prince's second film under the Cherry Moon,

...