{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}

Impenetrable fortress of leaves and flowers.

Walls of vines grown rigid and gnarled.

A cloud of bees readying their swords.

Bordered by trees and shrubs, a sun-lit section of secret garden opened up to the boy who didn’t belong there. Like Peter Rabbit, he’d gained his entrance without invitation, stumbling upon it while on a hide-and-seek mission with the neighborhood kids. It was so entrancing, so seductive with its leafy curtains begging further exploration, that he promptly forgot about anyone waiting for him to return. Already the garden cast its dangerous spell, and with the boy securely in its trance closed its gates around him.

A line of marigolds held golden goblets of fire in the air; a rough brush of their foliage and flowers released a less-than-desirable fragrance. (Being pretty and blessed with such fiery shades would have to be enough.) A patch of ferny-leaved cosmos winked and blushed, bobbing their pink faces in the breeze.

A bed of vegetables was neatly tended. Bare teepees of bamboo rods hosted climbing pole beans. Large umbrels of bright green shaded the protuberance of new zucchini fruit, the swollen phallic forms practically throbbing within their ribbed skin. A stand of blood red tomatoes looked a little worse for wear. The mutilated, disemboweled and partly-devoured carcasses of several fruits sat in a sad pile beneath those who had not yet fallen. The boy was not the only marauder who had trespassed here. Such is the inherent problem with excessive prettiness: everyone wants to look. And if you taste good enough on top of that, some will want to eat.

IN MY SECRET GARDEN, I’M LOOKING FOR THE PERFECT FLOWER

WAITING FOR MY FINEST HOUR

IN MY SECRET GARDEN, I STILL BELIEVE AFTER ALL

I STILL BELIEVE AND I FALL

YOU PLANT THE SEED AND I’LL WATCH IT GROW

I WONDER WHEN I’LL START TO SHOW

I WONDER IF I’LL EVER KNOW

WHERE MY PLACE IS

WHERE MY FACE IS

I KNOW IT’S IN HERE SOMEWHERE

I JUST WISH I KNEW THE COLOR OF MY HAIR

I KNOW THE ANSWER’S HIDING SOMEWHERE

IN MY SECRET GARDEN…

A garden where sex and death were as much a part of life as air and water. Sin and salvation intertwined like a pair of vines, and you could not gain a seed without the death of a flower. The act of copulation was at its inception an act of violence: an act of breaking and entering – a holy act of destruction. The garden was cruel in those ways and others. It bestowed beauty and charm while insidiously offering poisoned fruits and thorny barbs. It was the exquisite opening scene of ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ before everything went all bloody and murderous. A garden is not a thing with which to trifle, and a secret garden carries even more defenses.

THERE’S A PETAL THAT ISN’T TORN

A HEART THAT WILL NOT HARDEN

A PLACE THAT I CAN BE BORN, IN MY SECRET GARDEN

A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN, A LOVER WITHOUT SCORN

Psychedelic and trippy, this song closed the gorgeously-prickly ‘Erotica’ album with an artful flourish, and it remains one of Madonna’s most seductive and challenging works. A colorful prism of self-reflection and perpetual seeking, it finds Madonna both reflective and hopeful. The song doesn’t want to end – the piano is tickled incessantly like some giddy post-coital lover and the ‘Erotica’ album doesn’t so much end as fade eternally into a searing, sexy sunset.

We are nearing the final section of songs for the Madonna Timeline (I’d say this is the last quarter, the winter of our several-years-long journey), and while it has by no means been a comprehensive and complete examination of her immense catalog, it hits the majority of efforts from her main albums.  I’m glad this song waited until the end to appear, as it is a nifty (not neat, never neat – anybody who says the show is neat has to go) close-out of the ‘Erotica’ period. It was a fertile portion of her infamous career, perhaps her most provocative, and with it came some of her best music. The title track to the album is an ode to a largely-vanished New York sex scene (God how I miss the Gaiety), while singles ‘Deeper and Deeper’, ‘Bad Girl‘, and ‘Rain‘ round out the proceedings with wildly-disparate themes and videos. The deep cuts were just as brilliant, with ‘Words‘ and ‘Thief of Hearts‘ easily vying for single-status. Things got sultry with ‘Fever‘ and ‘Waiting’ and ‘Where Life Begins’, then subdued and somber with ‘Why’s It So Hard’ and ‘In This Life’ before kissing someone cheekily off in ‘Bye Bye Baby’. For the CD (this was back when we still had cassette tapes too, kids) the bonus track ‘Did You Do It?’ was a ridiculous waste of time and space but every album needs a dud; I suppose we should be grateful she made it the bonus track instead of the final song. That final song is here, and it encapsulates the heady time of her life that was ‘Erotica’ and ‘Sex’ and the firestorm of controversy that accompanied both.

IF I WAIT FOR THE RAIN TO KISS ME AND UNDRESS ME

WILL I LOOK LIKE A FOOL, WET AND A MESS?

WILL I STILL BE THIRSTY? WILL I PASS THE TEST?

AND IF I LOOK FOR THE RAINBOW, WILL I SEE IT?

OR WILL IT PASS RIGHT BY?

CAUSE I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO SEE, CAUSE THE BLIND ARE NEVER FREE

EVEN IN MY SECRET GARDEN

THERE’S A CHANCE THAT I COULD HARDEN

THAT’S WHY I’LL KEEP LOOKING FOR…

As for me, ‘Secret Garden’ was the gloriously trippy soundtrack to the rollercoaster of my sex life that was about to begin. Straddling the innocent and the profane, it brought a font of forbidden knowledge, the kind that gushed so guiltily in the garden of Adam and Eve. Tempted by such sweet fruit and called by the beauty dangling in front of me, I happily fell. I didn’t know then how sticky it could be, how wildly the heart could run when led by the cock. The scorn of lovers was not usually a character trait in the others; I would bring it out in them. And they in me. No great rose ever came without a few thorns.

A PETAL THAT ISN’T TORN

A HEART THAT WILL NOT HARDEN

A PLACE THAT I CAN BE BORN, IN MY SECRET GARDEN

A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN, A LOVER WITHOUT SCORN

I STILL BELIEVE, I STILL BELIEVE

CAUSE AFTER ALL IS SAID AND DONE, I’M STILL ALIVE

THE BOOTS HAVE COME AND TRAMPLED ON ME AND I’M STILL ALIVE

CAUSE THE SUN HAS KISSED ME AND CARESSED ME

AND I’M STRONG

AND THERE’S A CHANCE THAT I WILL GROW, THIS I KNOW

SO I’M STILL LOOKING FOR…

The long-ago summer of the boy’s visit to the secret garden passed. It would be one of the last games of hide-and-seek, one of the last times he would look upon a hidden garden and feel magic and delight. He was growing up, and fall was taking him back to the noisy and riotous world of people, to a world less dangerous in some ways and much more wicked in others. In the garden that was just going to sleep, a few lethargic bees buzzed, more out of habit than any pollen-gathering work-ethic. There were still days when the sun warmed the earth and the land gave up the scent of life, even if life meant decay and rot and impending winter slumber. If you looked beneath the oak leaves, you might find a pile of green put forth by a few stalwart fighters, hanging onto their freshness to the very end. They too would be gone soon enough, buried beneath the snow and brutalized by a cold that sunk into and below their roots. The secrets of the garden would not be fully revealed before it went into hiding for the winter.

A PETAL THAT ISN’T TORN

A HEART THAT WILL NOT HARDEN

A PLACE THAT I CAN BE BORN, IN MY SECRET GARDEN

A ROSE WITHOUT A THORN, A LOVER WITHOUT SCORN

SOMEWHERE IN FONTAINEBLEAU LIES MY SECRET GARDEN…

SONG #147: – ‘Secret Garden’ ~ Late fall 1992