This is Andrea Swenson in the studio right now with Susanna Melvoyn. Hello, Susanna. Hi. I'm so excited to have you here today.
Thanks for having me. Thank you for coming in. So you are in town. You've been doing these appearances at the Electric Fetus.
I have. You have some t-shirts, a whole line really of Starfish and Coffee Merchandise. We're going to talk about that song specifically, but I want to know more about you as a musician. And I was reading a little bit about you, and I didn't realize something that you have in common with Prince's that you both had jazz piano playing fathers.
Oh, yeah. So you grew up in a musical home. Tell me about that. I grew up in a musical home.
My father was a jazz piano player and composer and session player. My father was part of the wrecking crew, but his passion and what he did best was play jazz piano. Bebop. Cool.
My mother was a self-trained bass player. Nice. I know. It was crazy.
Late 70s, mid 70s, parties at my house was exciting to say the least. So, yeah, there were just musicians that had always came to the house. You know, I was either Jimmy Gordon coming and playing drums. My sister playing...
My sister had a party one night and it was my father playing piano, Leon Russell playing piano, Jim Gordon on drums. And I can't remember. There was three other people in the band, but it was a big party that my mom had hosted and all these players came. And my sister was eight.
I think she was eight, maybe seven, and picked up the bass and started playing with the band. And everyone stopped. They thought, well, what is this kid? And I, you know, as her twin sister, I was so excited.
Like, what is it? My sister playing? That's incredible. I mean, just a baby.
But she had just, you know, blessed to have our lives filled with music. Everything about our life growing up was all based around art, schools, music, playing instruments, you know, hanging with my family's friends, all musicians. This was all I ever knew. All I know.
And my father and Lisa Coleman's father. So it was Mike Melvoin and Gary Coleman. They were session players in Los Angeles. They played on everything.
The discography is just nuts. It goes forever. But it was the Coleman's and the Melvoin's. I had no idea that your relationship with Lisa, that you knew each other as children.
Oh, yeah. We were in diapers. And she was four, five years older than us. But so she remembers us in diapers running around.
Oh, yeah. But we've family friends, but me and sisters for our entire lives, we've come through a lot together. Yes, we have. We've lost both of our brothers who were best friends from the same tragic way of passing.
And just really deep, deep transitions. But we'd still do music together. Yeah. Still, everything is based around our musical lives.
Wow. Right. Yeah. You guys were just all at First Avenue for those incredible revolution shows.
Yeah, I was there just to support really. I forced myself on stage. I think everyone is very, very happy to see you. Well, I was in my own world.
But yes, I, yeah, that was healing and really amazingly fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, those nights were very cathartic, very unneeded.
So tell me, do you remember the first time that you met Prince? Yes. Funny enough, I was just telling somebody about this. And they had no idea either, but ended up being quite a moment.
I, when I got out of high school, I got a job working for David Geffen. And Geffen Records, I was the receptionist, 17 years old. Oh, wow. And there was the Christmas party coming and everybody had to go, right?
It was a Warner brother because Warner's was distributing Geffen. Okay. Sure. So it was the big Warner party.
And now Lisa had already gotten the job already. She was playing keyboard. So I knew Lisa was there and my sister was with Lisa and girlfriends forever. And so they were always together.
And so, but I had never met him. And so I walk into this party, which by the way, as a 17 year old, almost 18, it was just utter terror for me, terror because, you know, I had to get dressed up. I didn't know what to wear. I had this ridiculous dress that I bought.
And I got to this party. I had to sit at this big table and be grown up and very uncomfortable. But as I'm getting up to go to the restroom, I think it was, I'm walking through the hallway and in the foyer is Prince and vanity. You know, I'm like, should I go say, hi, I mean, he doesn't know my sister.
And you know it. Well, at least I mean, she's my sister. Should I say anything? I don't know what I'm going to go.
I feel so ridiculous. Look at my dress. Couldn't be worse. I feel so bad.
I was like, I'm so uncomfortable. I can't believe I have to meet him tonight. So I got the nerve and I was like, hi, you probably recognize me, right? I you see my face right?
I look like Wendy, right? I'm her twin sister. And he's just staring at me and vanity leans over. She grabs my cheeks.
Oh, you so cute. Look at those cheeks. Thanks. I'm going to go now.
I just sort of were squirmed off. Was that like the best shade anyone has ever given another girl or was that like, was she just like, you really have fat cheeks and I've just got to squeeze them? I didn't know what it was, but I got a little smile out of him and he sort of kind of giggled and that was it. That was my first meeting and I got on the phone with Wendy and Lisa.
You believe which is so cool. No, that was my first meeting. And then I knew eventually we were going to be spending more time together because I'm always with Wendy and Lisa. Right.
So it was just inevitable that we'd bump into each other. I really liked that your first memory of him is him laughing because I thought he had such a wicked sense of humor. And that was something that I always really appreciated about him. Can you tell me more about just kind of getting to know him as a person?
When I first met him, there was a remoteness. I mean, there was no like, what is, you know, he gave me a sweet smile and but he was with me very weird and disconnected and I was just sort of like, where am I in the weird reality. But you know, I think it was probably within the year of meeting him, I got the sense. And because my sister and Lisa, we were always, I was always with them and hearing their experiences with him.
Somehow what I discovered about him is that he was incredibly tender. Yeah. And he had, I suppose it would depend on who he was with, but I saw it with him and when he was with me and Wendy and Lisa. I use the word tender.
I don't want to say vulnerable because he wasn't. But he was, he was relaxed in a way that seemed more familial. Like he just felt, I mean, I just sensed that when he was with Wendy and Lisa, there was no awkwardness. There was no dead error.
There was no, what do I do now? We was going to talk now. There was no, we know like self-consciousness. There was nothing self-conscious about it.
Right? So he presented himself much more tender than I think that most people have ever known him to be. Very tender man. Right.
And I, that's the part I, we know really well. That's the part I know really well. I mean, you know, we all are layered and complicated. I mean, there was many moments where it was not tender, but right.
It's still like overcoated. It's done. But for the most part, really authentic. He had many, many moments where I felt that he was as authentic as he could be.
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know if that answers the question. It does.
It's kind of a complicated question. Like when do you finally find out who somebody is? It's just, and you know, asking me that question, I'm just hyper analytical about everything. It's kind of a big pain in the rear because I overthink everything.
But for the most part, to keep it really simple, he was mostly a really tender man. Yeah. Yeah. I appreciate that.
And I know it's an impossible question to ask somebody, but I think I've been thinking a lot about how he was so intensely private. And I think that allowed him to be that tender in his moments when he really wanted to open up to somebody. I've been thinking about how that applies to life and living as a human in this world that you want to be sensitive, but you also have to have boundaries. And I think he was kind of a master at that.
Yes. He was a master at that. He spent most of his time alone. And, you know, I don't know about his the later period of his life.
But I know that there were some of us that during this period of time that I was very much involved, that he was discovering who he was going to become. And so my experience of him was seeing a man realizing his own potential, what his power was, or, you know, power or lack thereof, and how one uses power. And also to see him around what Susan Rogers, his engineer, had said something really interesting. She said that, you know, like the machine behind the man, you know, the revolution, these group of people that were with him during this particular time that he became what he presented out in the world for the first time, like in its real form, right?
Right. Right. But, you know, it takes, you know, the wheels need to turn. The machine needs to work.
It's a well-oiled machine. And, you know, the, you know, the mad professor also has this tinker on that machine for a lot of time, right? In their tinkering away. So there was a lot of time with him.
And he could be really private even in the same spaces. You know, you know, you had to be involved in his work ethic because he spent so much time alone. He was so private, but that at the same time, he would demand that you become part of that privacy. But you're not allowed to be the expresser.
He is. So if there's anything to be said about the work or about space and time, just, you know, here we are together, it was on his terms, right? You know, and I think everybody respected that. I mean, everybody, but you, but we got to see that all kind of play itself out.
Right. You know, right. Sometimes it ran really smoothly and sometimes it had a lot of bumps, but he wasn't communicative about his inner life with you. He just wasn't that man.
He wasn't, he's not going to talk to you about stuff and things, things and stuff. But he, like, when I talked about that tender moments with him, when you were with him and creating or you were having personal moments, that tender part of him, even when he was quiet, you knew that he was being very giving and authentic. Didn't have to have a lot of words. Right.
You have written very beautifully about the song Starfish and Coffee, which you have a co-writing credit on. And we've decided that you're going to read this essay that you've written because it just really gets to the heart of how the sun came to be. So, I did, I wrote this essay and it was before Prince passed away. And there was a lot of response and really positive response, but Prince really liked it.
It's amazing felt to you. He'd said, not many people know how to write about me. So, I remember Fall in Minneapolis vividly. The air smells like water and earth and the lakes.
They spread throughout the city and become deserted of people. They now walk around the lakes, under love, and what's the last fall jacket one can get away with wearing. I loved it and I loved what was to become the extremely beautiful time in my life. And instead of a long drawn version, I'll narrow it down to one particular day in the fall of 86.
It could have been maybe 87. And that was the day that I wrote Starfish and Coffee with Prince. Sitting around the kitchen table was Prince, his engineer Susan Rogers, and myself. It was a time Susan and myself spent every day with him recording or keeping each other company.
Prince and I spent many, many hours together, either in the studio working or driving around Minneapolis, talking to each other, listening to music. We talked about our histories and our secrets. But on a couple of occasions, I told him stories of a 12-year-old girl named Cynthia Rose. My sister, Wendy, and I knew Cynthia intimately because we shared six years in a classroom, plus a bus ride to school with her.
And it was the bus rides that I got to know Cynthia. Cynthia never had much interest outside of her own personal space, so watching her was an unedited version of what was going on in her head. I think Cynthia was dropped off from another planet, another world filled with extraordinary images and images only Cynthia knew the meanings behind. Her favorite number for many years was the number 12.
I knew this because she'd rock back and forth in her seat asking you if you knew what her favorite number was for the day. I'd say I think it's 12, right, Cynthia? She was totally amazed and joyous that you guessed it right. Who would you guess it?
Again, I'd watch how she would ecstatically experience the world. Cynthia would tell you over and over again how amazing and meaningful the number 12 was. I asked why? The answer never changed.
It was always because it makes me happy. And that was while she was etching with her finger on a damp foggy school bus window, a huge, happy face. Much of those bus rides Cynthia sat rocking in her seat, gently repeating her favorite number. Cynthia would also tell me what she had for breakfast.
And every day it was starfish and pee-pee. I never understood the combo meal. Never. And frankly, nobody else could.
This seemed like the deal breaker for most of the other kids. I thought it was tender and funny and listened to her tell me everything and anything she wanted to say whether it was firmly planted on Earth or from her planet of tender hearted people who loved numbers and draws my life faces. Sixth grade was the last year our class was to be together. It was the first bus ride that year that something was different about Cynthia.
She sat quietly in her seat staring out of the window. And when we arrived at school and as the bus pulled into the lot Cynthia turned my way, looked me in the eyes and asked to know something special. I couldn't wait. We stepped outside the bus, walked a couple of feet when she leaned into me and said, do you want to know what my favorite number is?
I said it's 12 right Cynthia? Cynthia's answer, it's 20. Then in her beautiful Martian like way she smiled into her hands and said, because it makes me really happy. And then she running off in her grudge-o-marks and kind of way, repeating that number 20.
That year turned out to be really funny for Cynthia and myself. On two occasions I happened to leave class for a ladies' room visit. I'm about to walk out of the bathroom when I hear water splashing and some giggling in one of the stalls. I somehow had a feeling it was Cynthia Rose.
The giggles sounded unattached to a real person. It sounded naive and desperate, almost like the sound of crying into a jacket, muffled and hysterical. So I knocked on the stall door and I asked if it was Cynthia. More giggles, more giggles, no answer.
I looked under the stall and saw Cynthia's shoes. I asked what was she doing in there and she threw the door wide open with a big red apple between her teeth, soaking wet hair on her face, took a bite of the apple and said, I was bobbing for apples! I was bobbing for apples in the toilet! It was so much fun!
I was totally horrified by what she was doing. Cynthia looked at me for what was the last time we would have eye contact. She became long-faced and reflective, something I'd never seen her experience. Cynthia took my hand while I grabbed as many paper towels as I could gather to dry her off.
Cynthia looking at my hands, drawing hers without a peep from her. This is the story about the exceptional Cynthia Rose, who was just one of 25 kids named Kevin, Christopher, Wendy and Susanna, just to name a few, who spent every day together for six years. Moreover, for those six years, every day we started off greeting Miss Kathleen outside her classroom door. We'd all be in line outside the classroom, she'd open the door one by one we would greet and shake her hand, walking to our seats for just another day at school, and all of us were ordinary, except for Cynthia Rose.
This is a true story I would tell Prince every so often when he would ask about it. We both agreed that she was worth writing about. Cynthia being so tender. We both wondered if Cynthia Rose was still living and numbers drunk, because it made her happy.
It was this fall afternoon in Minnesota at our kitchen table when Prince came up the stairs from his studio, sat next to me and asked if I would tell him the whole story of Cynthia Rose. A few hours later, he asked if I'd write it down for him. Prince requested I'd not go downstairs until he was finished with the track. But just before he went downstairs, he sat down at the table next to me and he said, the peepees got to go.
Then asked if coffee was doable instead. And I said, of course, of course it's, yes, 10 hours later, Susan came upstairs to get me. I walked into the studio. Prince was standing at the console with a tired, gentle smile on his face and he said, here it is.
And the rest is history. Thank you so much for sharing that. What a beautiful story. She was a really beautiful kid.
I don't know if she's around anymore. There were some other kids that we grew up with that are from that story that are still around. But I'm not sure. Back in that back in the mid 70s, maybe her parents may have known, but none of us knew that there was spectrum disorder or autism or being into the spectrum.
She was so unusual. I don't think I've I've the only this is a funny thing. The only person who I've ever seen, and it was a depiction of a spectrum kid is in what's eating Gilbert, right? She's kind of like Arnie.
Okay. She was a little just when I talk about Prince being tender, I think he recognizes there's that tender part in people. It's a vulnerable, but it's not vulnerable. Like I'm I'm at effect of the power of the world and I'm going to be squashed.
It was a an openness that made him so tender, right? And I think he recognized that in Cynthia. And I did. And so that was what that's the part of him that felt so compelled to write the story, you know, right?
And I have, you know, for a very long time known that he, you know, he supported spectrum disorders and he would, you know, he performed for concerts, autism society, and he would raise money for charities. And when he passed after I had written, this was already written the essay, but you know, I felt it was really a moment where I could hold the light for him in his passing. This allowed sort of like he's such a beacon of light and hope for children, even grownups. I mean, I'll get received letters from grownups who have who are in the spectrum, who have said, you know, hearing the song and knowing that Cynthia was in the spectrum and knowing that Prince wrote this, you know, to make people not, you know, not, don't be afraid of them.
There's, you know, people, you know, there are really wonderful cooks out there, creative cooks, cookie cooks, funny cooks, weird cooks, mean cooks, but like, we're all cooks and he was a cook. And I'm not out there making, you know, a living off of t-shirts. That is not what's happening here under any circumstance. But, you know, starfishing coffee, maple syrup, and jam.
I want, my goal here is to keep his, his own legacy alive of keeping an awareness, autism awareness, right? So, I'm in the middle of, hopefully by January I'll have a first rough draft of a children's book, Starfish and Coffee. And my daughter, India, is the illustrator, but Cynthia's our hero, and it is Starfish and Coffee, and it'll be the story of Cynthia. And then I'm hoping to gather lots of stories from fans of extraordinary stories, people who have been affected by the song, and Cynthia and moms and children, and they'll bet that'll be the story in the book, and I will have, references to the spectrum disorders and whatnot.
But, you know, it's, it's my way of saying, no one's gonna forget this, Prince, no one is gonna forget this, and we're gonna keep her and this working. That's amazing. That's what I'm doing. So, you know, I, you know, some people are like, you know, she's trying to make a living off of like, it's like, what?
Hardly making a living off of, you know, this, but I'm making a life out of it. Right. Well, I have a t-shirt. I love it.
I do. As soon as you, as soon as your website went up, I ordered one. Oh my gosh, I can't wait to get my own coffee mug. I haven't gotten my coffee mug yet.
Either that's the one that's like 19 cups of coffee in one mug. It's my cup of coffee. That's awesome. Well, Susanna, thank you so much for attacking to me today.
Thank you for having me.