Are you hungover with candy and cake and togetherness?

How about some guitar?

I love this clip of Prince tearing into “As My Guitar Gently Weeps” at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Concert in 2004. This was for George Harrison’s induction as a solo artist (posthumously), but Prince was also inducted that same year and—well, he showed the hell up.

I wrote about why I love it so much here, for my first book*. I’ve read a lot about this video since I wrote this, but the story I’ve heard is that during rehearsal, Prince didn’t get to do a solo, and he let it go, no problem. But at the performance, he stepped up for the second guitar solo in the song and he shut the place down. Who knows where that guitar landed?

I still love this video so much, and I love this quote attributed to Prince, too: “Genre is a cage. I smashed it. I wore purple as armor and music as identity. I didn’t belong anywhere—so I made a world where I belonged to everything.”

Smashed it indeed.

Genre is a cage.

*At the end of that post from 2014, my host says: “Lori is a fan of music, mysteries, and mutts.” Well, Wreck Your Heart was just me fulfilling that bio line, wasn’t it? Music, mystery, mutts.