"Can I Play This Guitar?": Ten Years Ago, Prince Bathed the Super Bowl in Purple Rain

Little of this, of course, would make it into a history textbook, or even an NFL anthology. That's because, in 2007, the Super Bowl was all about Prince.

I was a fanatical, 11-year old Baltimore Ravens fan. My dad had scored nosebleeds to the big game, in which I had no vested interest, since the Colts had beaten the Ravens three weeks earlier. I unceremoniously burned my Peyton Manning jersey in the fireplace and decided to root for the Bears. It behooves me, now, to admit I had no sense of the magnitude of such an occasion, no understanding of Prince's legend, and little notion of the privilege it was to see him, or a Super Bowl game, live. I was just psyched to be there, bathing in the purple rain.

In our two seats in the upper deck of Miami's Hard Rock Stadium, a steel beam equipped with stadium lights hung directly above us, ensuring that with every wind gust a flume of rain unloaded on our heads, soaking the one-dollar yellow ponchos we bought in the parking lot. The Southeast Regional Climate Center estimated that, from start to finish, almost an inch fell that day, enough to prompt my dad to ask, just before halftime, if I wanted to watch the second half at a friend of a friend of a friend's house on Star Island, that sumptuous archipelago just west of South Beach. "No," I apparently told him, "I want to see the second half. And that guy Prince." I reckon the only song of his I knew was "Kiss," but I insisted anyway.

It can be hard to justify the existence of the Super Bowl halftime show, which so often turns out to be an underwhelming pilgrimage through the aged hits of some universally palatable rock band. From its inception, the NFL made concerted attempts to keep the halftime show as apolitical and inoffensive as possible, hiring University marching bands or local drill teams, Rockettes or chorales, guaranteeing it met FCC standards and kept all cohorts of its dissimilar American audience entertained.

In 1993, when Michael Jackson burst through the bespoke stage at the Rose Bowl and stood motionless for all of 90 seconds, the howls of more than 98,000 fans washing over him, the modern spectacle of the Halftime Show was invented. Thereafter everyone from Diana Ross, U2, the Stones, McCartney, Aerosmith, and NSYNC tried to match the earth-shattering showmanship of that 12-minute set, but it was Prince, in 2007, who shifted the paradigm, bringing the spectacle to its true apotheosis.

With the exception of Jackson's 1993 performance, the inherent potential of the show as a rare occurrence of collective American exultation had gone mostly unrealized—hundreds of millions watch, and yet year after year the extravaganza is less a cultural touchstone than an expensive, highly-produced clunker. One suspects Prince, who set out to create a "global, spiritual moment," shared in this belief.

Charles Coplin, the NFL's former Head of Programming, met with The Purple One in November of 2006, months before the show. In his account of the meeting for The Daily Beast, Coplin explained the gathering at the Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles, where Prince had prepared a track-by-track recording of the show to be presented to Coplin, agent Paul Gongaware, and Director Don Mischer through concert-sized speakers in the artist's suite. They listened for 12 minutes and Prince left them alone to bask in his vision. "Towards the end—when "Purple Rain" was playing—he wheeled back in carrying a box of tissues and, without a word or explanation, gave each of us one from the box," Coplin wrote. "He placed the tissue up to his eye and it appeared he was starting to cry. Just as things couldn't get more uncomfortable, he broke out in a very big smile and started to laugh. 'It brings a tear to your eye,' he said."

On paper, Prince and the Super Bowl were not a perfect match. The NFL had opted for innocuous arena-rock acts several years running, especially after Justin Timberlake and Janet Jackson's widely derided wardrobe malfunction. Prince—the chameleonic performer he was—represented exactly the risk the league had been wont to avoid, his sexuality pulsating, his performances unpredictable, his guitar licks anything but rank-and-file.

But something about 2007 was different; Lovie Smith of the Bears and Tony Dungy of the Colts, who shared a long-running personal relationship, would both become the first African-Americans to ever coach a Super Bowl team, and during Black History Month, no less. It was also the 60-year anniversary of Jackie Robinson breaking the color barrier. There really was no one but Prince, writhing around the stage in an aqua blue suit and tangerine shirt, with a set list as surprising and colorful as he was, to anchor the day's historic display of black excellence.

The show, replete with pyrotechnics, saw Prince take on a veritable tapestry of American hits, some his own and others not. He began with Queen, perhaps announcing the show as the spiritual heir to the band's landmark 1985 set at Live Aid. First came four tectonic stadium-sized blasts, and then the intro to "We Will Rock You," at which point the luminescent purple glyph at midfield appeared. Then, his first words. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life," he said, not loudly but smoothly, before launching into bacchanalian renditions of the classics "Let's Go Crazy" and "Baby I'm a Star." From there he truncated a random and thrilling triptych of classics: the aforementioned "Proud Mary," the Jimi Hendrix take on "All Along the Watchtower," and the Foo Fighters' "Best of You."

One great, overlooked part of the show came seconds into "Purple Rain," when Prince asked, "Can I play this guitar?" It was unclear if he was looking for permission or affirmation, though he knew he needed neither. He tossed his do-rag into the mosh pit and delivered that soulful chorus, the rain coming down harder, the guitar solo rising to an apex, where a giant phallic silhouette appeared behind a billowing sheet. It was the closest the Halftime Show had ever come to realizing its full potential, with 74,000 strong, and another 140 million on TV, singing backup as Prince took the lead. I'd later find out it played better on television than it did in the monsoon, but that's no matter.

It wasn't one of those moments that needed time to reveal itself in full; everyone knew, music critics and football fans alike, that Prince had pulled off something special and rare, a titanic cultural moment borne not out of shock, like Janet's bare breast, and not out of oddity, like Katy Perry's viral left shark, but out of sheer, indisputable musicianship, the kind you can't fake. "One of the most thrilling halftime shows ever; certainly the most unpredictable, and perhaps the best," read the New York Times' review the next day. And still, ten years later, in Pitchfork's postmortem: "the greatest Super Bowl Halftime Show there ever was, and ever will be."

A lot has changed in a decade, including the very notion of the halftime show, which owes more to Prince than any of his predecessors. Tony Dungy is now retired, while Lovie Smith no longer coaches in the NFL. Peyton Manning has hung up his cleats and Prince, of course, is gone, just when we need him most. But that day lives on in infamy, not because there was a football game, but because Americans, now as divided as they've been in years, watched collectively, beguiled by Prince, a God amongst men, as he embraced Mother Nature's deluge and turned it into art. When the confetti fell and the teams dispersed, there was little question who won the day.

Jake Nevins is a writer based in New York. Follow him on Twitter.