(Credits: Far Out / Alamy)
Tue 9 December 2025 1:00, UK
By 1984, Prince was ready to conquer the world.
He was already big. Forged in the disco era before even turning 20, a string of bold, utterly distinctive pop records pushed the Minneapolis maestro to one of the leading forces of the MTV explosion, eager for characters with an arresting visual identity. This was not an area Prince was lacking. Five albums in, he and his Revolution band were spinning numbers like 1982’s ‘1999’ amid a glittering whirlwind of glam provocation, brocade flamboyance, and oodles of gender ambiguity, all adding to Prince’s pop mystique.
It was 1999’s follow-up that changed everything, however. Serving as a soundtrack to the film of the same name, Purple Rain cemented the arrival of a true visionary, conjuring a potent little universe amid its mere nine-track arc and deftly orchestrating a suitably cinematic atmosphere of transportive drama.
Sonically, Prince had ushered in a new realm, too, coating his funk R&B with a thick wash of dreamy synth textures and an expanded, full band flourish to translate Prince’s narrative weave. A monster had been unleashed, Purple Rain standing as his commercial peak with over 25 million copies sold.
While fans were lost in Purple Rain’s lush popcraft and rousing balladry, equal fascination was held with the record’s alluring lyricism. Some, such as the title track, were electric unveils of grand, swirling romance with a spike of end times urgency, others were what Prince does best, chiefly eager, unabashed indulgences in sex at its most flagrantly button-pushing. ‘Darling Nikki’s dirty vignette of the titular “sex fiend” proved so knicker-twisting to the moral gatekeepers and prurient stiffs that Purple Rain was one of the first albums to be slapped with the ‘Parental Advisory’ sticker, only further fuelling its forbidden beckon.
One source of lyrical intrigue sits mid-way through Purple Rain’s storming opener. In the middle of the euphoric ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, Prince spits the immortal line, “Look for the purple banana / ‘Til they put us in the truck, let’s go”, a curious slice of lyrical surrealism triggering much speculation for the last 40-odd years as to what exactly Prince is going on about.
So, what did Prince mean?
There’s nothing concrete on ‘Let’s Go Crazy’s colourful line, but clues can be pieced together to where Prince was likely gunning for.
Purple is an obvious theme for the record. Touching on a mystical plane of spiritual apocalypse, the tinctured heavens mixing doom-harbingering blood red with the blue sky creates a fantastical purple, elemental force of nature that demanded one’s faith in their lover, or higher power, pursued with fiercer resolve.
So what of purple bananas and our collective being dumped in a truck? While the São Tomé species of banana is indeed purple, such vivacious fruit likely serves as an analogy to his personal Christian faith. In his own artful way, the purple banana is best guessed among hardcore Prince devotees as an elixir encouraging destiny and the path toward realising our idiosyncratic selves and fashioning the unique paths we need to forge our ultimate goal, as unique as that may be.
The truck is thought to be a dumpster truck, the bins and garbage units of life that conforming society tries to banish any eccentricity or personal flair, misunderstood by the masses. Such sage advice worked more than well for Prince. If stuck in a personal crisis or private rut, follow the Revolution leader’s advice and keep looking out for them purple bananas.
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