A remarkably innocent song from the man who gave us lascivious tunes like "Dirty Mind" and "Soft and Wet," "Raspberry Beret" tells the story of a young man captivated by a lady who comes into the store where he is a lowly employee with a rocky relationship with his boss. This girl is a little crazy - she goes in through the out door - very fashionable, and just a touch rebellious.
A "beret" is a European style of hat that basically looks like a canvas sack held to the head by a tight band. It shares origins between France and Spain, and is the kind of headgear favored by artists, beatniks, hipsters, and intellectual eccentrics the world over. But it's also the headgear of choice for revolutionary militants; Che Guevara sports one in the most famous T-shirt stencil in the world. The reference to being "the kind you find in a secondhand store" invokes the kind of vintage-clothing place hipsters like to shop at, not your neighborhood Goodwill.
Prince originally recorded "Raspberry Beret" in 1982, but re-worked it with his newly re-formed Revolution backing band, which had just crystalized into what would become the fan favorite lineup: Brown Mark on bass, Bobby Z on drums, Wendy Melvoin, Lisa Coleman and Doctor Fink on keyboard, backing guitar, and backing vocals. If you blinked in the mid-'80s, you missed it, because this incarnation of the Revolution broke up by 1986, with Prince firing everybody but Doctor Fink.
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