I Skip ‘Darling Nikki’ Just Like Tipper Gore

Of course, in Tipper Gore’s heyday skipping involved yanking a record needle or pressing fast forward on the tape deck as if it were a panic button. Me, I hit skip surreptitiously as soon as the first bursts of Prince’s straining guitar erupt in the car. My son will have to wait to hear about the titular woman masturbating in a magazine as “Darling Nikki” dissolves into desperate shrieks of “grind grind grind.”

I didn’t want to be that parent like the senator’s wife, lumping “Sugar Walls” and “Dress You Up” in with every record that, played backwards, would start heads spinning and spraying pea soup. I saw myself answering his questions about human sexuality with a maturity and calm that would instantly set him on a course of healthy male reproduction.

But like that harried ‘80s mom, I lunged to skip the song, figuring the day was too crammed already to explain what Nikki was doing in that hotel lobby.