Happy The Golden Prince

One of the first of the short story songs, I've never really warmed to it the same way I have to "The Can Opener" or the extended intro to "One Long Pair Of Eyes". It was added to the Black Snake Diamond Role album when that first appeared on cd in 85.

It appears to be a metaphorical tale of burgeoning adolescense; Happy is a purple-headed fellow with big pink feet, who oozes white tears from the slot in his neck. Pursuing a pale female he spies outside his father's castle, he finds her "Crouched in the corner of a clearing, her eyes bleeding light into his, wearing a leopard-skin leotard, clutching an antenna to her brow, and muttering "mm-gah" through a megaphone at him." The earth then opens, he falls into the hole head first, and then:

He quivered uncontrollably, aching with every inch of his soul to scratch something, but where he could not tell. His feet were ringing like telephone bells, and his head felt ready to burst. His cloak flapped open over his head like a bat's, and he became aware that the well was growing hotter and more muscular. It seemed strangely enough to be shrinking about him like a skin around a fine pork sausage, yet he didn't mind. His whole life at the castle lay behind him now, sterile and eventless.
He thought only how he would love to sneeze, and felt nothing but relief when the cool arms of the woman vigorously unscrewed his head, and the toothpaste flowed out, as if it were gushing from a broken dam, into the very womb of the earth.

Okay, its a sex dream.

I think that if the last minute was the core of the song, where Robyn sings the title over and over, gradually rising in volume, I'd like it more. Or maybe if it was a capella; the backing track, with crashing cymbals and the minor key guitar figures, makes it hard to focus on the words. Of course, that is the point, isn't it? It's not a recitation but a performance. Just not one I listen to often.