Today would’ve been Prince’s 67th birthday. Maybe Neil Young is right: It’s better to burn out than to fade away. That’s what happened to this performer, and I miss him.

This is why he never made 67, in a performance of what might be my favorite Prince song, maybe because of its Freudian undertow.

Outlandish, isn’t it? His dancing—great leaps and diving sprawls—was electrifying, but the result was chronic hip and ankle injuries, and surgeries, that left him in constant, isolated pain in his final years. Fentanyl finished him.

But not before he’d gifted us all with music. It’s said he played 27 instruments. He was largely self-taught, beginning on drums, then piano. Here, at Paisley Park, in contrast to the video above, he understates. Still, he plays with the audience, but he never really looks at them. He’s inside the song. He’s enjoying himself.

Back in the MTV days, this might’ve been when I first met him. I’d never heard anything like this song before. I found out later that he was tiny, and the heels he wore—you can see them here— contributed to his stage injuries. That was in the future. In this “Official Music Video,” I found so many things that were compelling, including the way he slings his guitar behind his back, like a samurai and his killing sword. It’s cool. And then there’s it’s the beat, established so vividly by synthesizers and a drum machine, the faintly disturbing fascist/lesbian backup singers, Prince’s spins, and his oddly appealing —yes, I chose this adjective— androgyny. All of this was new, back in the Eighties. It was revelatory.

Twenty-seven instruments. That includes the guitar. This 2004 solo, in a George Harrison tribute, literally stole the show. Prince riffs while Dhani Harrison and Tom Petty look on. At first, I thought Petty, whom I love(d) as well, was miffed. Then, near the midpoint of the solo, you seem him surrender: it’s brief, but it’s big: a smile lights up Petty’s face.

Me, too. Prince’s music—its audacity, its wickedness, its energy, its originality–these things make me smile.