In November of 2011, a pair of Madonna songs leaked prior to the next year’s release of her ‘MDNA’ album. The first was ‘Gimme All Your Luvin‘ and the second was ‘Masterpiece.’ As this is the last weekend I have free for literally the rest of the calendar year, I’m going to leave this short and sweet. Click on the links if you want to read more. Or stick around for an artistic post coming up… as soon as I write it.
Bonus: ‘Ghosttown.’
The release of any Madonna album carries great import, but in 1992 it meant something even more, as her first book ‘Sex’ was released at the same time (actually, a day in advance). It was a heady moment in Madonna history, and it imprinted itself on my memory for a number of reasons. The cover stories of ‘Vanity Fair’ and ‘Vogue’ had primed my anticipation (with two of her best features in each, and scorching photo shoots by Steven Meisel to accompany them) and the entire world had heard about the ‘Sex’ book. All I really cared about was the music, and the ‘Erotica’ album more than delivered on the aural satisfaction front.
The scratching of a record needle opened the main event, then the dark bassline – sinister and seductive – lured the listener into a delicious dungeon of sexual threats and erotic promises. Her throaty whispers and the convincing assimilation of the Dita persona ushered in a new level of sexual boundary-pushing, while the gritty house music was interlaced with the sampled horns of ‘Jungle Boogie’. The song rode to number 3 on the Billboard charts, thanks less to its own merits and more to the outrageous hype that surrounded its release.
My own sexual awakening was on the verge of happening, and the ‘Erotica’ album would accompany it in ways I’m not quite ready to divulge. The male supporting cast of ‘Sex’ fueled more fantasies than all of Madonna’s naughty bits, but I wasn’t prepared to admit it. Instead I focused on her, on her naked body, trying to force myself into liking it because I thought that’s what I was supposed to like. In truth, it was less the nudity of her person that struck me, it was the poses of vulnerability that turned me on most. It was also the guys at the Gaiety – the former male strip-club that was once plopped right in the midst of Times Square, across the street from the Marriott Marquis, where I would pay a pittance for Ann and Suzie to join me in the audience to watch guys get into their birthday suits and dance a bit before heading backstage, fluffing up, and coming back out in blood-filled form. Ahh, the good old days of New York.
The best part of that experience was the waiting room/lobby area, where stills from ‘Sex’ were framed on the wall. Far more thrilling than hard naked cock in our faces was the idea that a year or two prior Madonna had stood in that very space, posing with those very naked strippers, and crafting the book that would stand in infamy forever after.
Yet for all the supposed seediness of the scene, there was something rather quaint about it. The whole thing was artifice. I could see that then, and appreciate it as such. There was no danger for me here. The simple word ‘No’ could accomplish a great deal, preventatively speaking. It would be much more terrifying, and harmful, to fall in love than to watch a guy get hard and naked on stage. The same proved true for my experience with ‘Sex’. I took the images for what they were – some artful, some trashy, some moving, some silly – and I understood that this was a presentation, inviting the viewer to conjure their own thoughts and fantasies, to pick out what moved us, and what didn’t, and perhaps wonder why our own sexual proclivities were such as they were. It didn’t lead me down any path into danger – my heart would do that on its own.
As for the ‘Erotica’ album, it fashioned its own journey along a spectacular soundscape filled with hooks and harmonies and choruses that underlined the fact that Madonna, almost a decade into her career at that point, was a pop music master who knew her way around a concept album. Sex may have been at the forefront of songs like ‘Erotica’ and ‘Where Life Begins’ but love was the driving force behind it all, as evidenced by the vast majority of cuts (‘Fever’, ‘Deeper and Deeper’, ‘Waiting’, ‘In This Life’, ‘Why’s It So Hard’, ‘Secret Garden’and ‘Rainâ’). The accusations of Madonna being vapid and vacuous in this period must have been made by those who hadn’t listened to the album in its entirety.
I listened to it non-stop that fall. As the leaves fell from the trees, and I shook off any vestiges of childhood from my body, the emergence of a young man gripped me physically, casting off innocence even if I hadn’t really done anything, even if knowledge was often misconstrued as guilt.
ONCE YOU PUT YOUR HAND IN THE FLAME, IT CAN NEVER BE THE SAME
THERE’S A CERTAIN SATISFACTION IN A LITTLE BIT OF PAIN.
I CAN SEE YOU UNDERSTAND ME…
In the last fifteen years of attending Madonna concerts, I’ve never had really great tickets. Seeing as how I’m not a cajillionaire, I don’t have the thousands (literally) of dollars it would require to see her up close and personal. (I also feel like I’m too short to enjoy floor (standing) seats anyway, so the first tier has been preferable anyway.) The closest I’ve gotten to her was a Reinvention Show in Worcester, where her catwalk extended closer to the back of the arena. That was a revelation, but the last few tours our seats have been far away. (In a disastrous viewing of the MDNA Tour in Boston, Andy and I were seated behind the stage. Really, we were actually BEHIND the stage. It was only made bearable by the behind-the-scenes action we could gawk at. Rocco chumming around with the back-up dancers!)
On her Rebel Heart Tour, I was expecting some back-of-beyond seats again but thanks to her extensive heart-shaped stage extension, we were closer than we’ve ever been. With two empty seats in front of us, Suzie and I were treated to unobstructed sight-lines, and Madonna close enough to clock her facial expressions. It was a dream come true, and made this quite possibly my second favorite Madonna concert ever (the first will always be the very favorite in my mind – the Drowned World Tour).
Due to such proximity, I was able to sneak a few of the better photos I’ve been able to take of her myself. That’s a luxury usually afforded to other lucky folks, and to be honest I didn’t take more because I was simply too engrossed in the gorgeous sound and spectacle of it all. (And clearly there are much finer ones out there than my mini-camera could capture.)
In one of the longest-promised posts to come, there will be a far-more studied review of the show at a later date. (It will arrive well before my full-frontal nudity reveal, so stay tuned.)
As for the closeness of my ultimate muse, the woman who has held my fascination for three decades and counting, it was a magical brush with greatness, and as she sang ‘Rebel Heart’ mere feet from us, my eyes filled with tears. Yes, I can be sentimental and sappy – but only when it comes to Madonna.
{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.}
Woke up this morning feeling good that you were gone
Hurt for a while, but I’m finally moving on
Said it, did it, hit it, quit it
Then you let it go
See you tryin’ to call me, but I blocked you on my phone
It took a minute, but now I’m feeling strong
It almost killed me, but I’m better off alone
Now you’re saying that you’re sorry, I don’t wanna know
Better face the fact you had to go
Saucy, sassy, brash, and brilliant, this is Madonna giving a grand fuck-off to those paramours who have done her wrong. With a reggae-inspired beat, it’s a departure from almost every other song she’s done. (Though a bit of the feel did make it into the ‘Erotica’ save-the-world anomaly ‘Why’s It So Hard’.)
This wasn’t a particular highlight of the ‘Rebel Heart‘ album for me, but to each their own. It has since grown on me after enjoying Madonna’s rendition of it on her current tour. As the penultimate song, it carries the weight of a finale, even if it falls a bit flat in the end.
I know you’d like it if I sat at home and cried
But that ain’t gonna happen, here’s the reason why
When we did it, I’ll admit it, wasn’t satisfied
When the gun was loaded you were never on the side
I’m popping bottles that you can’t even afford
I’m throwing parties and you won’t get in the door
Said it, get it, love it, hate it
I don’t care no more
Tell me how it feels to be ignored
For that performance, Madonna has been bringing up a special co-dancer for the last portion of it. She spanks them, kicks them in the ass, and presents them with a surprise gift (usually a banana). Guests so far have included Amy Schumer, Anderson Cooper, and, when I saw her in Boston, her ten-year-old son David who was celebrating a birthday that night. Some raised eyebrows at a kid being named the ‘Unapologetic Bitch’ but when Madonna’s your mother, well, it works.
The song itself carries a classic Madonna mantra: she’s not sorry, and she never will be. In this instance, such a stance seems justified, and the seething anger of the lyrics is tempered only by the ability of Madonna to move forward without giving her wrong-doer a second thought. Cold, brutal, and the best method of survival, it masks hidden hurt and regret, something much of Madonna’s work manages to convey. A complex notion from a complex woman, and all the more compelling because of it.
It might sound like I’m an unapologetic bitch
But sometimes you know I gotta call it like it is
It might sound like I’m an unapologetic bitch
But sometimes you know I gotta call it like it is
You know you never really knew how much you loved me, till you lost me
Did you?
You know you never knew how much your selfish bullshit cost me
Well, fuck you
SONG #115: ‘Unapologetic Bitch’ – Late Summer 2015
{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.}
It’s only fitting that the Madonna Timeline is shifting to songs from the current ‘Rebel Heart’ era, as Madonna is out and about on her ‘Rebel Heart’ tour. A thorough review of the show I saw in Boston is forthcoming, but for now a Madonna Timeline to whet the appetite.
Originally released at the tail end of 2014 in the midst of the disastrous leak that saw most of the ‘Rebel Heart’ album exposed well before its time, ‘Ghosttown’ received universal praise, a magnificently haunting video, but little promotion. In the tumultuous scramble for how best to salvage Madonna’s greatest album since ‘Ray of Light’ it seems the powers-that-be jetted from one song (‘Living For Love‘) to another (‘Ghosttown’) to another (‘Bitch I’m Madonna‘) hoping one would instantly ignite. Of course, without any sort of singular sustained or focused promo push on a single one, each made little impact. That’s a damn shame, as ‘Ghosttown’ is easily one of the most moving songs of her last three albums.
MAYBE IT WAS ALL TOO MUCH
TOO MUCH FOR A MAN TO TAKE
EVERYTHING’S BOUND TO BREAK
SOONER OR LATER, SOONER OR LATER
YOU’RE ALL THAT I CAN TRUST
FACING THE DARKEST DAYS
EVERYONE RAN AWAY
WE’RE GONNA STAY HERE, WE’RE GONNA STAY HERE
I KNOW YOU’RE SCARED TONIGHT
I’LL NEVER LEAVE YOUR SIDE
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
I’LL BE YOUR FIRE WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT
WHEN THERE’S NO ONE, NO ONE ELSE AROUND
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWN
WHEN THE WORLD GETS COLD, I’LL BE YOUR COVER
LET’S JUST HOLD ONTO EACH OTHER
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWN
A post-apocalyptic love song, it touched on a timely theme that the entire ‘˜Rebel Heart’ album expounded upon: the survival of the soul through the act of love. Having just made it through the god-awful winter of 2015, where snow covered and ravaged the Northeast for a good four months straight, many of us could relate to what it was like having to hold onto each other to get us through the dark times.
I would sit in the dim gray rooms of early morning, typing away on my lap-top, its glowing screen the only portal to light, and I remember feeling like that winter would never stop. Storm after snow-storm left us shut in, my regular trips to Boston canceled over and over again. It was the longest I’d been away from that favorite city in over a decade. I felt isolated, removed.
I listened to this song like a mantra. When tears threatened, it quelled them. When anger arose, it calmed me. Some songs were made for helping us get through things.
TELL ME HOW WE GOT THIS FAR
EVERY MAN FOR HIMSELF
EVERYTHING’S GONE TO HELL
WE GOTTA STAY STRONG, WE’RE GONNA HOLD ON
THIS WORLD HAS TURNED TO DUST
ALL WE’VE GOT LEFT IS LOVE
MIGHT AS WELL START WITH US
SINGING A NEW SONG, SOMETHING TO BUILD ON
I KNOW YOU’RE SCARED TONIGHT
I’LL NEVER LEAVE YOUR SIDE
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
I’LL BE YOUR FIRE WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT
WHEN THERE’S NO ONE, NO ONE ELSE AROUND
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWN
WHEN THE WORLD GETS COLD, I’LL BE YOUR COVER
LET’S JUST HOLD ONTO EACH OTHER
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWN
How did we get through it? Andy was here. And JoAnn made a visit. And even in the midst of snow, my work pal Ginny and I would brave the road to Starbucks for a mid-day escape of laughter and fun and vital escape. Pumping gas or shopping for groceries, I’d look into the eyes of strangers and feel a sympathetic understanding, some sense of ‘we’re-all-in-this-together’ that made things better. I’m not usually so attuned to others, so willing to let down my guard and shared in an experience, but sometimes it gets you through the day – and a terrible winter.
Madonna was reaching out too, in her music was a new warmth and vulnerability not quite there on her otherwise-scorching ‘MDNA’ album and its predecessor ‘Hard Candy’. The ‘Rebel Heart’ era was ushering in a red-hot yet heartfelt woman who seemed to feel rather keenly the need to connect again. We were all ready for it.
I KNOW WE’RE ALRIGHT
‘CAUSE WE’LL NEVER BE ALONE IN THIS MAD MAD, IN THIS MAD MAD WORLD
EVEN WITH NO LIGHT
WE’RE GONNA SHINE LIKE GOLD IN THIS MAD MAD, IN THIS MAD MAD WORLD
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
I’LL BE YOUR FIRE WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT
WHEN THERE’S NO ONE, NO ONE ELSE AROUND
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWN
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
I’LL BE YOUR FIRE WHEN THE LIGHTS GO OUT
WHEN THERE’S NO ONE, NO ONE ELSE AROUND
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWN
WHEN THE WORLD GETS COLD, I’LL BE YOUR COVER
LET’S JUST HOLD ONTO EACH OTHER
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWN
WHEN IT ALL FALLS, WHEN IT ALL FALLS DOWN
WE’LL BE TWO SOULS IN A GHOSTTOWNÂ
Though the song made the aforementioned lack of impact, it came with one of the most beautiful videos of Madonna’s career, featuring Terrence Howard and telling a hopeful story of being the last few people left standing, and coming together in the midst of a ruined world.
Madonna has made a life of rising from the ashes of any burnt-out shell of destruction – whether said doom was of her own making or someone else’s. She’s rebounded from all sorts of calamitous scandals, from caustic relationships, from failed marriages, and from personal and professional failures. That resiliency is at the core of ‘Ghosttown’ – it’s raw, it’s romantic, and it’s the only road to salvation she’s ever known.
SONG #114 – ‘Ghosttown’ ~ Late Winter/Early Spring 2015
The magic is in the air again. The lights are about to go down. And only one woman in the world can instill such a rapture in me and so many others, even three decades into her storied career. Madonna’s Rebel Heart Tour opened last night in Montreal, and in a few short weeks I’ll be seeing her in Boston. Suzie and I will return to the place where we saw her live for the very first time, some fourteen years ago, on her Drowned World Tour. It’s our tradition, and we’ll be celebrating our 40th birthdays again that weekend, which makes it doubly momentous.
This time around, I almost didn’t get caught up in the usual excitement and anticipation that precedes a Madonna tour. I’m not sure why – maybe tour fatigue (I’ve seen her nine times since she returned to regular touring in 2001) – or maybe just the natural maturation of fandom, whereby one is less obsessed but no less in love. Yet as per tradition, the electricity is arcing again, and as these video promos for the show will attest, something special is in the offing.
After the catastrophic leak of the ‘Rebel Heart’ album earlier in the year, Madonna has managed to keep pretty much every aspect of this tour under wraps. She’s teased song titles and set-list ideas, but the visuals, until now, have been impressively secret and unseen. A few costume sketches showed up in Women’s Wear Daily, and they looked lovely – but the real test will be how they appear in person. It will also be interesting to hear how many of her teased songs make it into the final set-list. (Whispers of ‘Who’s That Girl’ and ‘Rescue Me’ had most Madonna fans fainting with giddy nostalgia. Yes, the 90’s are nostalgic at this point – deal with it.)
As for whatever else this tour brings, the element of surprise, often an aspect of her greatest work, is back in effect – and I’m getting extremely excited.
{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.}
[On the eve of my 40th birthday, a most-fitting Madonna Timeline: the title track to her latest album (and current tour) ~ ‘Rebel Heart.’ The demo leaked early, and remains, in my humble opinion, the superior version, but I’ll include the more acoustic and stripped-down album version at the end, as that’s almost as good.]
When Madonna turned 40, or shortly before or after, she delved into yoga and put out her magnificent (and yet-to-be-topped) album ‘Ray of Light.’ According to a New York Times interview at the time, yoga had brought about a profound transformation in the once-material now-ethereal girl. At one yoga session she once found herself in a particularly strenuous pose and suddenly just started crying, letting out emotional baggage she’d been carrying for 40 years. I’ve always been struck by that image, and I’ve since wondered what will come of me when I hit 40. I guess we’re about to find out. Will the torrents of four decades of pain be released or relieved? Will I heave forth some cleansing expulsion of pent-up sadness or anger or fear? Will I rejoice in a new freedom? Somehow, I don’t think it will be as dramatic as all that. It’s just another day, and a Monday at that. Still, like it or not, the number means something, even if it’s been impressed upon us by a society hungry for drama and terrified of aging.
I LIVED MY LIFE LIKE A MASOCHIST
HEARING MY FATHER SAY, “TOLD YOU SO, TOLD YOU SO.
WHY CAN’T YOU BE LIKE THE OTHER GIRLS?”
I SAID, “OH NO, THAT’S NOT ME,
AND I DON’T THINK THAT IT’LL EVER BE.”
The steady stream of water falls hot from the shower head. I stand there in the wet, stilled suddenly by the woman who has never failed to thrill me, and thirty years into her storied career the words and music touch me like the very first time. As her new song sounds brilliantly against the tile of the bathroom, I stop in my scrubbing, look through watery eyes, and simply listen. So much of my shower and car music is Madonna, but most of the time it’s background noise. Far more intent on testing out a new Aveda body wash or jockeying the Ice Blue Show Queen out of a bottleneck situation, I hear her, but don’t always listen. On this night, I do. Standing there, naked and quiet, I listen to ‘Rebel Heart’ while water surrounds me. Forget a reinvention, this is a rebirth. Thirty-nine years into my life, it feels like a baptism.
Her voice reveals further shades of vulnerability, with an underlying resilience that has allowed her to survive, and thrive, this far into an entertainment career, unrivaled by almost everyone. In ‘Rebel Heart’ she was a little girl, a grown woman, and the very sensitive human who registered hurt and love in ways both wizened and misunderstood.
THOUGHT I BELONGED TO A DIFFERENT TRIBE
WALKING ALONE, NEVER SATISFIED, SATISFIED
TRIED TO FIT IN BUT IT WASN’T ME,
I SAID, “OH NO, I WANT MORE,
THAT’S NOT WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR.”
It is just another number, and tomorrow is just another day, yet there is an albatross of significance to the person turning forty years old. Society has largely assembled such an onus, creating a false notion of anxiety upon hitting the much-maligned milestone. Some, like Madonna, have pushed back against such limitations, railing in opposition to the notion of the prim, proper, and age-appropriate – subjective terms at best, ageist and elitist at worst.
In that respect, it is not the number that scares me. It’s the question of whether I’m where I want to be, four decades into this journey. That’s a question that has plagued me since I was first cognizant, and I hope it bothers me until the day I die.
SO I TOOK THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY AND I BARELY MADE IT OUT ALIVE
THROUGH THE DARKNESS SOMEHOW I SURVIVED
TOUGH LOVE – I KNEW IT FROM THE START, DEEP DOWN IN THE DEPTH OF MY REBEL HEART.
During my freshman year at Brandeis, I took an Introduction to Astronomy course. I thought it would be all stars and moons and romantic dreamy prose, so when it turned out to be mostly physics and difficult calculations, I was less than thrilled. The scope of it, however, was impressive, and on clear November nights, we’d ascend to the top of the science building and view the skies through telescopes and binoculars, and begin to feel just how large the universe was. Up until then I’d eyed my professor’s unruly and unkempt beard with disdain, judging his soiled jeans and dilapidated belt with profound displeasure. Now, I realized something. It wasn’t that he didn’t care. He simply knew it didn’t matter. Not when other worlds expanded ad infinitum, not when we were smaller than specks of dust in both time and distance.
Whenever these big-picture conundrums rear their weighty, philosophical heads, I panic a bit. There’s nothing reassuring about being nothing, and it’s frightening to think about how minute our place in this world is. To combat that, part of my existence has been dedicated to making myself seem larger-than-life. Maybe Madonna does that subconsciously too. It’s a fear of oblivion, a fear of not being known, a fear of not mattering. ‘Rebel Heart’ might be her way of reassuring us, and herself, that it’s ok. We did what we had to do to survive, to feel safe and secure and prominent when the reality of the universe was doing everything it could to make us feel small and insignificant. We acted out, we dressed outrageously, we thrashed our bodies and brains to excesses of emotion just to leave an effect, an impression. We loved ourselves because sometimes it felt like no one else in the world did, and even if we were faking it, there was truth and loneliness and hope in that.
I’VE SPENT SOME TIME AS A NARCISSIST,
HEARING THE OTHERS SAY,
“LOOK AT YOU, LOOK AT YOU!
I SAID, “OH YEAH, THAT WAS ME.
ALL THE THINGS I DID
JUST TO BE SEEN.”
At times of feeling unseen and small, when the universe expands in terrifyingly exponential form – unending and beyond the scope of my limited comprehension – I try to shrink the view, to narrow my focus on the most minute particle I can hold in my hand. There may be something to this theory of relativity after all. A ragged cube of salt, a jagged piece of sand, an oblong grain of rice, or a seed in a sea of thousands of seeds – there is comfort in carrying the whole of their existence in the wrinkled landscape of an upturned palm. I limit my gaze to a single coneflower, and follow the circles to its very center, or blow off all but a single parachute of a dandelion seed.
A drop of water joins another, collecting en masse, running into tiny rivulets, gaining in volume, rushing into small streams, raging into rivers, surging into seas, overflowing into oceans and finding their sunlit way into the sky again, in sunbeams transporting them back to the clouds, from which they will fall again. The push and pull, the rise and fall, the ebb and flow – it begins and ends and begins again.
OUTGROWN MY PAST AND I’VE SHED MY SKIN, LETTING IT GO AND I’LL START AGAIN, START AGAIN
NEVER LOOK BACK, IT’S A WASTE OF TIME
I SAID, ‘OH YEAH, THIS IS ME, AND I’M RIGHT HERE WHERE I WANNA BE.”
I SAID, ‘HELL YEAH! THIS IS ME, RIGHT WHERE I’M SUPPOSED TO BE.”
Above me, the shower spurts more hot water over my head. It runs down my body, this body that has grown around me for almost forty years, that has carried and cushioned me from a hard world. Here, a scar on my shoulder from when I scraped the rough bottom of my parents’ pool – there, above my knee, a recent red welt from where a bamboo stake pierced the skin in an over-zealous pruning expedition. I watch a drop of water travel down from my chest, pausing for some literal navel gazing around the spot where they cut me off from my mother, and follow it as it drips off the tip of my sex, landing on my toe and trickling away down the drain. I stare down at the glistening, damp patch of hair surrounding where I’d create life if ever I were to have a child. I know now, and I’ve known all my life, that I will never use it for that purpose. I won’t have children. Turning forty won’t change my thoughts on that, but it does cause pause, and wonder. It also brings up the prospect of mortality looming on a distant horizon. I’m probably about halfway there. What, if anything, will I leave behind?
SO I TOOK THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED BY
AND I BARELY MADE IT OUT ALIVE
THROUGH THE DARKNESS SOMEHOW I SURVIVED
TOUGH LOVE – I KNEW IT FROM THE START
DEEP DOWN IN MY REBEL HEART
I’ve tried different ways of leaving a legacy, desperate attempts at not being forgotten – attention-getting antics, doing something or wearing something or writing something that wants only to be remembered. I won’t have anyone who will tell my stories later on, just what exists here, in this virtual online realm, a ghost until my host stops receiving payments, and then a page that cannot be located. One day I may only be an Error – Not Found. Then will I truly be gone? I don’t know. I don’t know how dark that place may be.
Until that darkness arrives, however, I will be here. Even if it’s futile, I’ll go down fighting. I will do my best to display a galvanized compassion, to uphold a nobility that may not even count for much in this world. Even if it doesn’t matter to anyone else, it matters to me. Maybe these words will live on, maybe they won’t, but for now, for this day and night, I am here. You are here. We are here, and we are together.
The shower stops. The song ends. I wipe the water off of my face. Tomorrow I will be 40.
Madonna has said that ‘Rebel Heart’ is the embodiment of two sides of her personality – the rebellious controversial part, and the romantic softer side. It’s a fitting juxtaposition: a warrior is nothing without heart, and a heart cannot beat without some protection. It seems both strange and inevitable that thirty years into her game, and one day short of forty years into my life, she has become the woman warrior forging the way to the future – unstoppable, heroic, and brave.
SO I TOOK THE ROAD LESS TRAVELED BY AND I BARELY MADE IT OUT ALIVE
THROUGH THE DARKNESS SOMEHOW I SURVIVED
TOUGH LOVE – I KNEW IT FROM THE START, DEEP DOWN IN THE DEPTH OF MY REBEL HEART.
IN MY REBEL HEART… IN MY REBEL HEART.
SONG #113: ‘Rebel Heart’ – Right Now
It’s been a long stretch since the last Madonna Timeline, but today she returns in grand form with the title track from her latest album, ‘Rebel Heart’. It’s a rather special entry, coming on the eve of my 40th birthday – a perfectly-timed arrival for a milestone that often triggers some introspective reflection. I don’t quite intend to have a nervous breakdown over it, but you never know how such things will play out. In fact, in writing the new timeline, and my birthday post, there may have been a mini-drama-meltdown, but I’m still here so it didn’t end completely badly.
As for Madonna, she’s nearing the opening of her ‘Rebel Heart Tour’ and there is electric excitement in the air. For today, though, a little litany of some of the more meaningful timeline entries that have moved me the most over the years, starting with my favorite Madonna song, ‘Drowned World/Substitute for Love’.
One of the most beautiful and heartfelt songs she has ever written, and the one that turned me into a super-fan, is ‘Promise to Try’. I liked it so much I even toyed with the idea of using it as my yearbook quote: I fought to be so strong, I guess you knew I was afraid you’d go away too.
Even in her quieter songs, she still manages to make an impression, as heard in 1994’s ‘I’ll Remember‘ – a song that snuck up on me and captured a moment of brittleness.
Along those lines, and going back even further, ‘Crazy For You‘ made a distinct and memorable influence upon my boyhood, resonating with a longing that would last through the years as I tried so hard to control my heart.
I’ve been on the verge of disowning my behavior and countenance during the obsessive time that ‘You Must Love Me‘ came out, but it’s part of the history, part of the timeline, and part of the nonsense that made me into what I am today. Be careful of being too quick to alter the past. Everything has happened for a reason. ‘You’ll See’.
Even if you ‘Live to Tell’ there are times you may feel like you are ‘Falling Free‘ but that’s when you need to ‘Take A Bow‘ and realize that you, yes you, are indeed a ‘Masterpiece’.
Now, rouse your rebel heart and get ready to take the road less traveled… a new Madonna Timeline is coming up later today.
An August birthday shout-out to my main muse Madonna, who I’m guessing is currently too busy gearing up for her Rebel Heart Tour to pause much for celebrations. We are going to pause for a moment on this blog too (as I’m only returning from Cape Cod today), and set up a quick little collection to honor the woman of the hour – and the day – with a look back at some previous Madonna Timeline entries.
We’ll begin with some early ones, such as the very first: ‘Who’s That Girl.’ Whispers that this retired-too-soon jewel will be cropping up on the new tour has me all aglow like some senorita, mas fina. When that first Timeline was created, I had no idea what it would become, so it’s a very basic sketch of what went down in the summer of 1987. If I could do it all over again, I’d embellish a bit more, fleshing out the excitement of being a kid and connecting with your distant cousins at a family wedding while Madonna played in the background of every thrilling turn. But what’s done is done, and as the birthday girl doesn’t like to dwell on the past, neither should we.
Bouncing along with the more carefree singles of her past, this was ‘Cherish’ – another early timeline entry that could have done with some further explanation of the late summer/early fall of 1989. I remember Maine, and the way the sun slanted differently in the coming fall. A navy J. Crew sweater is part of my memory too, as is the cold sting of the ocean off Maine.
Perhaps her greatest attribute is her resilience, as proven by the mantra of ‘Over and Over‘ – a ‘Like A Virgin‘ deep-cut that personifies the 80’s, and the rise, and rise, and rise of Madonna herself. It doesn’t matter who you are, it’s what you do that takes you far.
Adolescent angst was at its height when I listened to ‘Supernatural‘ – a B-side to the far-superior (and peppier) ‘Cherish.’ It conjures memories known mostly only to myself and a few select friends. I’m afraid I didn’t do it justice, but some things are too dark to bring back to light.
Sassy-pants with attitude to spare, this was ‘She’s Not Me.‘ Let the haters hate, let the wanna-be’s be, and let them eat my dust.
It sounds silly and trite to say it, but Madonna has in many ways been the love of my life. When friends and family and lovers turned against me, there was always Madonna. She was the one person on whom I could always count – for support, for inspiration, for love. She taught me self-reliance. She taught me how to get back up again. She taught me that ‘Love Makes the World Go Round.’
Happy Birthday M!!
Madonna knows how to make an entrance. Each of her tours begins with a stunning opener, from the Metropolis mistress of 1990’s Blonde Ambition show to her most recent floating confessional crowned princess of the MDNA tour. I’ve only been going to her shows since 2001’s Drowned World Tour, and each time she opens a concert it’s a magical experience.
I think my favorite was the following beginning to the Confessions Tour, which was also the show at which I had the most fun. It was just a big dance party, as signaled by the brilliant opening of a disco ball.
A couple of years before, she struck a few elegant yoga poses for the reimagined ‘Vogue’ of the Reinvention Tour, rising from the floor like some otherworldly gorgeous creature.
As mentioned, her most recent MDNA tour began with a floating confessional, which she smashes into pieces before taking aim with a killer show.
I can’t wait to see how she makes her entrance for the Rebel Heart Tour.
This past weekend, an amazing archive of some lost footage from Madonna’s ‘Vogue‘ video hit the web, and it was a mesmerizing reminder of what made the woman such an icon for such a long time. Recently, this additional footage from her ‘Rain’ video was posted. Together, they are like a forgotten bag of jewels, brought to light and polished up for a new generation.
Who knows what other gems lurk in the archives of Madonna’s creative output? Surely there are riches beyond our wildest imagination, rare and unseen snippets of other classics. Little glimpses behind the curtain, a subtle lift of the veil. I live for this sort of thing.
Many summer memories were signified by Madonna, such as this one, which marked the very first Madonna Timeline entry: ‘Who’s That Girl.’Â On this hazy, lazy, sultry Friday in July, here are a few more memories inspired by Madonna, my ultimate muse.
Another early-entry on the timeline was this glimpse of the future, love.
Despite its October peak, ‘Cherish’ was a quintessential Madonna summer song for me, thanks to its beachy video and lighthearted feel.
Summer sometimes burns jealously, red-hot and heartrending, but she’s still not me.
Sing it, Shanti, sing it for the summer.
Waging a war between good and evil can be a bore.
You can just spank me.
Well the years they flew, and we never knew, we were foolish then.
Come join the party, cause anybody just won’t do.
Vivid of color, silly of purpose, and chock-full-of-stars (pop-and-otherwise), Madonna’s new video for ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ is a vibrant and fun romp through a party pastiche. Reminiscent of her look from 1985’s ‘Dress You Up’ moment (with a stunning pink studded jacket by Discount Universe – thanks for the info Kyle Brincefield!) it’s a bit of a throwback to the 80’s and its black-lit neon brilliance, but re-packaged for a completely of-the-moment freshness.
A lot of people, including some Madonna fans, have complained that this is her worst song and video in years. I’ll admit, initially it was not one of my favorite tracks from the otherwise-epic ‘Rebel Heart’ album, but like the savviest of entertainers, the video sells it in unexpected ways, and I’ve come around to it.
If you want serious, deep, high-minded art, look at ‘Ghosttown‘ – if you want a fun, light-hearted summer ditty, this is your jam. It’s always nice seeing Madonna let her hair down, especially when it’s pink. (And I seriously need that jacket.)
{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.}
Surrounded by a decorative circle of mosquito netting, I cradle the phone against the side of my head. In the dramatic tableau of my childhood bedroom, which has grown up along with me, I have created a world that is somewhere between Norma Desmond’s cocoon of a boudoir and the sumptuous candle-laden lair of the Phantom of the Opera. In the dim light of a fading winter’s night, I listen to a man’s voice but it doesn’t betray lust or love or even like, and I wonder if it’s all just a game. The January darkness has fallen quickly, and a thaw has left pools of fog across the hazy streetscape outside the window. At the tail-end of my winter break from Brandeis, I alternately dread and wish for the return to campus, and to Boston. My longing for connection supersedes any rational suspicion; my want for love overpowers any hesitation or concern. More than anything else, I’m in love with the idea of being in love, but I do not see that then. All I feel is longing, and so I stay on the line and listen and try to be funny and lovable and witty and enthralling. Nerves get the best of me, so there is mostly silence from my end.
A phantom vision, a gentleman rising from the fog, appearing in the light of a street lamp. Whispers, glances, furtive eyes and tentative touches – a wisp of an encounter, ephemeral and fleeting,
For someone who had such little actual experience in matters of love, who’d never had a love affair that went beyond a year or so, my heart felt battered and bruised. Mostly my love went unrequited, and there’s a different kind of heartbreak in that. Better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all… or was that not the case? What happens if there was nothing to lose because you never really had anything in the first place? Does that discount the hurt? I would not know enough to compare.
On the radio, Madonna was beginning her longest run at the #1 slot, as ‘Take A Bow’ shot to the top thanks in part to an American Music Awards appearance with Babyface, who co-wrote the song. It was sweet and beautiful, and went with the softer vibe of the ‘Bedtime Stories’ album. The song itself was saccharine but effective, and Babyface’s luscious melodies were candy for the ears. Still, it was imbued with enough sadness and regret to make it more than just a passing fancy. The best of her songs straddle that line.
The video for the single was a lavish piece of cinematic beauty and breadth, shot in Spain and documented for an MTV making-of special entitled, ‘No Bull!’ in which Kurt Loder interviewed the blonde diva, and the video would end up winning accolades and awards for its simple heartbreaking story of a woman’s love for a bullfighter. Something went wrong somewhere along the way, and she ended up alone, streaks of tear-stained mascara running down her face.
In the video, Madonna cradled a television, caressing it like a loved one ~ the notion of loneliness obvious and crushing. I sympathized with her lonely obsession, the tinges of want and desire, and the echoes of what once was coupled with the realization of what could never be.
We thrashed beneath the sheets, we cried out streams of anguish, and in the end we ended up right where we began – alone and unlucky and heartbroken.
After winter break, I returned to Boston by myself, the temporary thaw and fog-filled nights turned into memories, the veracity of which I could never be quite sure. I worked on creative projects that I’d send out to my friends – ‘Whimsy’ and ‘Preference’ – in a desperate attempt to stay close to people, to not give up. Yet increasingly I felt isolated and alone, trapped in a turret of Usen Castle, with Boston but a dim glow in the distance.
The sun filtered through the bare branches of an oak tree, falling in orange shafts and moving over walls of painted cinder blocks. I’d sit and stare at the digital red numbers of my alarm clock, before the light drained from the room. I thought of the first man I ever kissed. I thought of the last time I saw him, and of the cold winter that followed. I listened to Madonna and wondered how far my heartache was from hers.
Her paramour took a bow, then took his leave. Is this what men did? The only guy I’d been with had left before the snow came. He’d done worse things to me before that, but whether I was blinded by love or too young to know any better, I hadn’t wanted him to leave. He’d left a wake of regret over something in which I had no say, no control. The terrifying and forlorn barren desert of the heart. A literal no-man’s land.
Yet after every winter came the thaw. Not the tricky, brief ones of January or February, but the lasting, sustaining and final thaw that obliterated winter once and for all. It happened that year, as it did every other. Maybe it was messier than usual, maybe it took a little longer, but soon enough spring had arrived. Winter took its bow, and said its farewell.
In much the same way she re-entered the public’s consciousness following her tumultuous and ribald ‘Sex/Erotica‘ era with ‘Bedtime Stories,’ the Madonna Timeline returns in a quiet, unassuming manner, as befits these lighter days of summer. The particular song that’s up next is actually redolent of winter, but on the hotter days to come such a cold throwback will be welcome enough. Before that, however, a look back at some of her other ballads.
Let’s start with a quintessential summer song, that brings to mind ball games: This Used to Be My Playground. That song took me from Providence, Rhode Island to Helsinki, Finland, and quite a few places in-between.
A fall entry, ‘I Want You’ followed in the aftermath of ‘Bedtime Stories’ – an electronic ballad that primed the world for what was to come – the softer, gentler side of a woman often described as ‘steely.’
I’d never understood that. Even in the mist of her ‘Sex’ furor, she was versatile enough to release a gorgeously vulnerable jewel like ‘Rain.’
Or maybe the world had forgotten how powerful a songstress she could really be, such as the one behind the epic ‘Live to Tell’ – arguably her best ballad in a catalog of bests.
‘Sooner or Later’ she always gets what she wants, and in 1991 she showed that off at the Oscar telecast.
As recently as 2012, she proved she still knew her way around a ballad that builds, even if she used the f-word in ‘I Fucked Up.’
That year also saw ‘Falling Free’ from her under-rated and under-appreciated ‘MDNA’ opus.
She’s poised to continue the string of brilliance with a few selections from her latest ‘Rebel Heart’ album, but first she needs to Take A Bow…
