Crystal Ball (1998)
Prince wrote this song when he found himself apart from Mayte for the first time after their marriage and it starts calmly. A lullaby-esque piano refrain builds. Soothing and lulling. So far, so gentle. But then at 2:30 a single flare shoots up into the night sky, exploding in an empyreal Cloud Guitar solo accompanied by a meteor shower from the gods. Cosmic debris raining down, binding heaven and earth. The low ranking is an illusion. There are moments, played loud through headphones on still summer nights, where this song is top twenty. And others where it doesn’t connect at all. So let’s pick a random number and save it for a day when we need it to rain manna.