What preachy, pontifical, pompous, pretentious, presumptuous prattle Prince purveyed on the pure, passive public with this performance, primped and purple.
And we prefer it. We perpetuate it.
Where does he get off unloading a speech like that in the song's opening? Church organ and all, goodness. What fills some people with the assurance, the surety, that their words will be welcomed in by ears needy to hear them? It's one of the great phenomena of the human will, what enables some to declaim to many. There will always be the needs of the many to be shepherded along by the words and hype of the hyper few.
Of course, every cult leader needs to have the dazzle to make the minds go along. For Prince, he followed up that speech with dizzying display of guitar talent, building to a soloing climax that seals the status of the Purple One as a figure to be revered and believed. In older times, prophets had to perform other kinds of miracles. Even today, your extreme fitness instructor has to have a messianic, life-changing character before you welcome the self-flagellation they command of you. It helps to have a common group to strive and believe along with you in a way that "nobody" else understands. That starts to answer why there are always many followers compared to the ones giving orders.
Prince himself maybe came to believe his own words more devoutly than any of his most devoted superfans. I think his self-made success convinced him of his infallibility, and he became a person so confident in himself that he could accept no conflicting information. Stories of his obliviousness to criticism or even basic warnings have become legendary. After all, in the American paradigm of success, there is no challenge that cannot be defeated with the proper positive thinking. Failure is a matter of will. Compromise - weakness. (And that's not even considering the "positive" influence of antidepressants and other de-inhibitors.)
And so Prince rode the wave of the massive crescendo of this brilliant song down through the years, high above sea level on his self-assurance, until it dashed him upon the rocks.
Of course, he died in an elevator, fitting perfectly with the lyrics of this song, a haunting coincidence. Even in the moment that should have been his ultimate unmasking, he performed one more "miracle" that made his failure seem prescient. This is the hall of mirrors that is the mind. Crazy.