‘Animal Kingdom,’ Prince’s Animal Rights Anthem
‘What about the clams on the shore? Souls in progress — here comes the fisherman — souls no more.’
When regarding the late musician Prince, subjective statements find themselves turning objective. It is simply and undeniably factual that he was a guitar virtuoso, a musical visionary, fearless, pioneering, and massively influential. Also undeniable is how prolific Prince was, with an astonishing thirty-nine studio albums, to say nothing of compilations, live recordings, albums recorded with his bands, and posthumous releases. You might conclude that statistically anyone who creates thirty-nine albums worth of material would surely end up with a song about the plight of animals, because eventually, what else would there be to write about? Prince, of course, had no need for such a theorem: he was a proud animal rights activist and wrote about the subject very much on purpose, for example, in the song “Animal Kingdom” from his 1998 album The Truth — which was, for those counting, merely his twenty first studio album.
“To eat a tomato and then replant it for your nutrition as opposed to killing a cow or a pig for your meal is reducing the amount of suffering in the world. Besides…
