“Sometimes It Snows In April” Serves as a Haunting Reminder After Prince’s Death

On April 21, 2016, Prince was found dead near his home in  Minneapolis. He was just 57 years old. The legendary singer and multi-instrumentalist left behind a massive catalog of songs, but by far one of the most haunting, and timely, is his 1986 track “Sometimes it Snows in April.”

The song was part of the soundtrack for Prince’s directorial debut, “Under the Cherry Moon,” in which Prince played the starring role as a man named Christopher Tracy. Although the movie was lambasted by critics, who called it one of the worst films of all time, the soundtrack, “Parade,” received countless accolades for its mix of high-energy dance tracks and soulful ballads. To this day, it’s considered one of Prince’s finest works.

“Sometimes it Snows in April” depicts the death of the character Christopher Tracy, yet in the wake of Prince’s own death this spring, it’s difficult not to connect the lyrics to the author himself. This is even more apparent when you remember that Prince played the character he sings about in the song.

When Prince sings about Tracy, he talks about his courage in the face of death. He sings,

“He used 2 say so strong unafraid to die
Unafraid of the death that left me hypnotized
No, staring at his picture I realized
No one could cry the way my Tracy cried”

The chorus is an ode to those who leave us far too soon. He compares the feeling of loss to frigid snow in April, taking away all of the sunshine and warmth from the world for a moment. Prince sings,

“Sometimes it snows in April
Sometimes I feel so bad, so bad
Sometimes I wish life was never ending,
and all good things, they say, never last”

Prince’s own death this April sparked dozens of tributes to this song in particular, which seemed to perfectly mirror the emotions his fans felt following the news. Prince ends the song with a reminder that captures the bittersweet heartache that comes with loss in the line, “All good things that say, never last. And love, it isn’t love until it’s past.” At the moment of death, we learn how much we truly loved the people in our lives.

Read the full lyrics for “Sometimes it Snows in April” here, or listen to the song below: