Of course Prince passed away in April, leaving us his most raw and haunting ballad “Sometimes It Snows in April,” the closing track on Parade, as his own, perfect eulogy.
That’s exactly what I thought last Thursday morning when I turned on KEXP to hear it playing and immediately began crying. It’s what I thought on Saturday morning, when I pulled out my Prince records and played them for my daughter, whose aimless, innocent swaying to the song also brought me to tears.
Death leaves no room for uncertainty, and neither did D’Angelo’s performance of “Sometimes It Snows in April” on last night’s Tonight Show. Even before D’Angelo began singing, his beleaguered face betrayed his sadness. When he sailed into his chilling falsetto to sing, “I used to cry for Tracy because I wanted to see him again,” you could feel so much restless movement in the spirit world.
It was not a flawless performance. Five minutes into the song, after changing one of its lines to “I often dream of heaven, and I know that Prince is there,” D’Angelo was so overcome with emotion that he missed the next line. (Princess, the Prince cover group comprised of Maya Rudolph and Gretchen Lieberum, were singing backup and sang it for him.) But the performance, like grief, was real and inescapable and powerful, forcing you to hang on for dear life.
