{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.}
Everybody knows the damn truthOur nation lied, we lost respectWhen we wake up, what can we do?Get the kids ready, take them to schoolEverybody knows they don’t have a chanceTo get a decent job, to have a normal lifeWhen they talk reforms, it makes me laughThey pretend to help, it makes me laughI think I understand why people get a gunI think I understand why we all give upEvery day they have a kind of victoryBlood of innocence, spread everywhereThey say that we need loveBut we need more than this…
One of the absolute highlights of Madonna’s somewhat-underappreciated (and some might say somewhat-underwhelming) ‘Madame X’ album is ‘God Control’ – a masterpiece of a sonic journey, complete with choir and tongue-in-cheek rapping, that comes with the last great video she’s given us. Give it another listen and viewing below:
We lost God controlWe lost God controlWe lost God controlWe lost God control
This song, and the entire thought-provoking ‘Madame X’ album, brings me back to the summer of 2019 – in so many ways a last summer of innocence, and a last summer before the world went bonkers. Maybe it’s just me getting old, and maybe people always say this as time moves on, but I do genuinely feel that things are different. Society – especially American society – has changed, and it doesn’t seem for the better.
This is your wake-up callI’m like your nightmareI’m here to start your dayThis is your wake-up callWe don’t have to fallA new democracyGod and pornographyA new democracy…
The rise of America’s gun culture, and the apparently unswaying way we are all letting people, including children, just succumb to something that could be so easily stopped is one more tell-tale sign of these changes. Madonna tackled the subject in this song and video, switching out ‘Gun Control’ for ‘God Control‘ because religion plays its part in where we have been, and where we are headed. A hypocritical religion, perhaps, but a religion nonetheless.
People think that I’m insaneThe only gun is in my brainEach new birth, it gives me hopeThat’s why I don’t smoke that dopeInsane people think I amBrain inside, my only friendHope it gives me birth each newThat dope I don’t smoke, it’s true…
Only Madonna could turn such a controversial topic into a video that is transfixing, enthralling, entertaining, disturbing, and impossible-not-to-watch. At four decades into an unprecedented career of entertainment domination, she’s mastered the art form of the video – hell, she practically invented it – and it remains one of the most vital methods of communicating her message. Images aligned with music, backed with meaning and significance, taking us on a journey of light and dark… this is what Madonna does best.
Everybody knows the damn truthEverybody knows the damn truth (wake up)We need to wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake upWake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake upWe need to make up, make up, make up, make upMake up, make up, make up, make up, make up, make upIt’s a hustle, yeahIt’s a hustleIt’s a conIt’s a hustleIt’s a weird kind of energyA bizarre thing that happens to beAn abnormal fraternityAnd I feel more than sympathy
A message that was depressingly resonant and needed in 2019 has become a message that rings with even greater loss and rage in 2023. Thoughts and prayers have done nothing over the past four years, and will continue to do nothing. Gun violence is the number one killer of children in America. So while you’re worried about drag queens reading books to your kids or an imaginary war on Christianity, ask yourself what Jesus might do when confronted with an epidemic like guns. Pretty sure he wouldn’t be arming himself with an AR-15.
A new democracy!
Everybody knows the damn truthOur nation lied, we’ve lost respectWhen we wake up, what can we do?Get the kids ready, take them to schoolEverybody knows they don’t have a chanceGet a decent job, have a normal lifeWhen they talk reform, it makes me laughThey pretend to help, it makes me laugh…
And so we laugh, and so we float along… In that summer of 2019, my niece and nephew join us for a swim in the pool. Laughing and splashing, the carefree memories of childhood encroach on the present moment, and I remember a time when kids weren’t getting shot in schools. The water is warm, the sun is strong, and, based on all outward appearances, who can tell a summer day by the pool today from a summer day by the pool forty years ago? A disco tune still spins in the background, the gleeful squeals of kids having fun punctuate the beat, and that funny juxtaposition of laughter and tears reminds me that the world has gone mad, and I no longer know how not to go mad along with it.
Song #173 – ‘God Control’ ~ Summer 2019
