Tag: Hindu Love Gods

I first found this band because of this song. This is my favorite Prince song by a long shot. They do a super cover of it with the rawness I like. They weren’t a band in the traditional sense, no tours, just a one-off gathering of talented artists who happened to be in the right studio at the right time.

The beginning of Hindu Love Gods started in the mid-1980s Athens scene, where REM were quickly rising. Michael Stipe, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Bill Berry often participated in jam sessions with other local players. One of those orbiting figures was Warren Zevon. With REM, he found collaborators.

The name Hindu Love Gods first surfaced around 1984 when members Buck, Berry, and Mills backed up a local singer named Bryan Cook. That version fizzled, but the name stuck. When Zevon began working with REM’s rhythm section in the late ’80s, the name resurfaced, this time attached to something much more intriguing.

This song was written by Prince, and his version was released the year I graduated in 1985. This version came out in 1990 on the self-titled album. This song peaked at #23 on Billboard’s Modern Rock Tracks. The album peaked at #168 on the Billboard 100. 

Warren Zevon on Letterman

Raspberry Beret

I was workin’ part-time in a 5-and-dime
The boss was Mr. McGee
He told me several times that he didn’t like my kind
‘Cause I was a bit too leisurely
I always was busy doin’ somethin’ close to nothin’
But different than the day before
That’s when I saw her, oh, I saw her
Walk in through the out door, out door

She wore a raspberry beret
The kind you’d find in a second-hand store
Raspberry beret
When it was warm, she didn’t wear much more
Raspberry beret, I think I love her, love

I’m built the way she was, she had the nerve to ask me
If I meant to do her any harm
So I put her on the back of my bike and
We went riding down by Old Man Johnson’s farm
Now rainy days never turned me on
But something ’bout the way the clouds and her mixed
She wasn’t too bright, but you know the way she kissed me
I knew she knew how to get her kicks, yeah

She wore a raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second-hand store
Raspberry beret
And when it was warm, she didn’t wear much more
Raspberry beret, I think I love her, yeah!

Raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second-hand store
Raspberry beret
And when it was warm, she didn’t wear much more
Raspberry beret, I think I love her
A raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second-hand store
Raspberry beret
And when it was warm, she didn’t wear much more
Raspberry beret, I think I love her
A raspberry beret
The kind you find in a second-hand store
Raspberry beret

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