Originally intended to convey a certain freshness or wonder at the world, Madonna’s ‘Like A Virgin’ has endured over the decades thanks to its multiple levels of meaning and widely-varied incarnations. My favorite rendition remains her entrancing and then-scandalous performance of the song during her Blonde Ambition Tour, in which she introduced the world to cone-bras on male dancers, and simulated self-pleasure on a velvet-topped scarlet bed. With Middle Eastern musical accents and a slow-burn take on her classic #1 hit, the ‘Like A Virgin‘ of 1990 was a wild reimagining that went far beyond a ‘freshness’ and into decidedly sultry territory – Madonna finally giving in and culminating in the sexual gratification that everyone (wrongfully) assumed the song was about from the beginning.
For me, this version embodies the glamorous and glorious spring of 1991, when ‘Truth or Dare’ was about to take the world by summer storm, kicked off by Madonna’s scene-stealing underwear show at the top of the stairs at the Cannes Film Festival. It was a legendary Madonna moment, and sowed the seeds of an era of sexy self-reflection that would later find full flowering in her ‘Erotica’/’Sex/ project. Back then, it seemed slightly salacious, but today it feels like a quaint little ripple compared to the tsunamis to come. And so ‘Like A Virgin’ was about a certain innocence after all, a fresh look at a fresh season starting all over again.
{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.}
You say that you need my love And you’re wanting my body, I don’t mind Baby all I’ve got is time And I’m waiting to make you mine
You say you wanna stay the night But you’ll leave me tomorrow, I don’t care All of your moves are right We can take it anywhere…
I have absolutely no recollection of this song from when it came out. It was early days for Madonna, before I was even aware of myself, much less the latest pop star about to take the world by storm. We were both in our infancies then. Of course I become aware of it later on, but by then other songs and career moves held my attention, and this one never took on classic status in my eyes. That’s ok – not every single Madonna song is destined for epic effect, and others seem to have embraced this one from the get-go so it doesn’t lack for fans. I’m just not one of them.
Maybe we were meant to be together Even though we never met before We got to move before the sun is rising And you’ll be walking slowly out the door Out the door
Physical attraction (physical attraction) It’s a chemical reaction, ooh It’s a physical attraction It’s a chemical reaction, yeah
All of these informed the days of Madonna’s ‘Like A Prayer’ album, and in that incense and patchouli-scented period of time, a classic pop moment was born. At the age of thirteen I was just awakening to the world around me, and my place in it. Such a heady time needed a dramatic soundtrack, and ‘Like A Prayer’ was it.
Through the ensuing years, the album has matured and endured, growing more resonant with the passing of time, ageless with its themes of family, love, empowerment, spirituality, and self-discovery. With Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, Madonna crafted one of the finest pop albums of the 1980’s, topping off the decade that she ruled and setting up the pinnacle of her pop culture reign. ‘Like A Prayer’ was the first time the world began to understand her legacy and place in musical history.
Sometimes, though, that albatross of the past, and all the controversies that would come, weighed heavily on the heart and mind. It’s been over three decades since ‘Like A Prayer’ was released, and trying to encapsulate an understanding or summary of such a stretch is a daunting endeavor. Sometimes I just want to put on the music and let it take me there…
There were works that came before and after which came close to perfection – ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor‘, ‘Erotica‘, and ‘Like A Prayer‘ are all solid entries in the Madonna canon – but ROL was a masterpiece form start to finish. Even her best albums have at least one clunker, while ROL has none. And so we hit play on the wondrously-whirling title track, which exuberantly reminds of all those moments when we feel like we just got home:
The ‘Ray of Light’ album taught me many things, and continues to do so. First and foremost was the idea of being present and living in the moment. For far too much of my life I’ve focused on planning and plotting and what was going to happen next. That makes for a well-organized existence, but zaps a lot of spontaneous enjoyment and fun out of each day, even if it was designed and planned to be enjoyable and fun. Some things in life cannot be planned, and if you’re a Virgo that’s always a little disappointing. Learning to appreciate the present moment was a key stepping stone on my road to becoming a little happier. The totality of the ROL album helped me to see that.
Twenty-five years have passed since this Madonna moment played out, and the work has stood the test of time. Its themes are universal and its lessons are continuously resonant. For all of its racing tracks, there is a Zen-like calm to its trajectory that makes ‘Ray of Light’ more like a musical meditation than a mere collection of songs. That journey is a trip worth making again and again.
I’m in the sky where I oughta be at, I’ve been watching you
Rocket ship takin’ off in that, now I’m onto you
Mouth closed, I don’t want your opinion, who you talkin’ to?
Stand out, no, I don’t wanna blend in, why you want me to?
Only with hindsight can we see how quaintly the world turned in the months before a deadly worldwide pandemic hit. That summer of 2019 in many ways feels like a last summer of innocence and carefree joy, which is strange, because at the time I don’t think that’s what most of us felt. Most of my tension and worry is bound in dwelling and ruminating about that which may or may not happen, and that depletes a lot of joy in what might otherwise be a wonderful time. Again, it’s something that only hindsight can truly teach, and since then I’ve been working on inhabiting the moment, and concerning myself only with what I can directly and currently control. The rest is not worth worrying about, for the most part, and that’s what this song has come to mean to me now.
They say be all I can be
And all I want is peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace
See the world, haven’t seen it all
I wanna see its, see its, see its, see its, see its dreams
That said, it’s nice to revisit a pre-pandemic world, and I’m all for a trip down the section of memory lane that correlates with a summer season. Back in 2019, we were sitting on the patio by the pool and listening to ‘Madame X’ – a Madonna album that heralded the arrival of summer, not unlike the magical moment when ‘True Blue’ embodied its own summer a number of decades ago. Madonna and summer have a way of going together that just feels right – and pop songs somehow hit more intensely in the sunny season. ‘Come Alive’ should have been one of those summer hits – alas, Madonna was way ahead of the game, and more concerned with edgier fare like ‘Dark Ballet‘ and ‘God Control‘ than this piece of pop music perfection. She seemed to sense something in the air.
Come alive, come alive
Come alive, come alive
Dream’s real, it’s alive
Come alive, come on
This song is all hope and exuberance and possibility – the very marks of what summer usually embodies, in its sun, its wonder, and its way of waking up the world to its own brilliance. Yet there is more at work here, in the drive and defiance that is a mark of all that Madonna herself has come to embody. A steely strength and determination pervades the message of ‘Come Alive’, a throwback to Madonna’s perennial message to ‘Express Yourself’ and a reminder that forty years into her historical career, Madonna still has to fight.
I can’t react how you thought I’d react, I would never for you
Front line, I won’t stand in the back, ’cause you want me to
Mouth closed, I don’t want your opinion, who you talkin’ to?
Stand out, no, I don’t wanna blend in, why you want me to?
Summer is tumultuous that way – from the calmest and clearest of sunny days, storms and darkness can appear and suddenly descend on our happiest moments. In the continuing aftermath of COVID, summers feel less jubilant than they once did, as so much else does, but there is still a way to find that joy, even if it revisiting a summer that came before. Memories can bring happiness into the present moment.
They say be all I can be
And all I want is peace, peace, peace, peace, peace, peace
See the world, haven’t seen it all
I wanna see its, see its, see its, see its, see its dreams
And so I return in my mind to that 2019 summer, when ‘Come Alive’ and ‘Crave‘ and ‘Crazy’ formed the only Vitamin C we needed. The world felt more carefree and innocent then, and perhaps it was – but it had its own issues, and were we to return to a more innocent time, we would also be returning to a more ignorant time. With knowledge comes heartbreak and hope, and a little thrill at still being alive.
Come alive, come alive
Come alive, come alive
Dream’s real, it’s alive
Come alive, come on
Come alive, come alive
Come alive, come alive
Come alive, come alive…
The night was dark and breezy, but not too unbearably frigid considering it was only the third day of March. A midnight album release was something for which only one woman could convince me to postpone my bedtime, and there was something special in the air that compelled me forward. Before the instantaneous nature of the internet took off, entertainment news was still being whispered mostly on television and in print, and I got most of my info from the bible of ‘Entertainment Weekly’ or the purple section of USA Today. Still, word had trickled through about Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ album, and on its opening release day (night) in America, I stood in a line snaking around the Tower Records that once stood on Newbury Street in Boston.
Her voice was booming thunderously on the sound system, and as we slowly advanced around the perimeter of the store, the title track came on and I understood that we were experiencing one of the greatest Madonna moments of all time. ‘Ray of Light’ turns 25 this year, and it still stands as her best album to date. While it’s incredibly risky to put a cap and definitive label on anything Madonna-related (she remains a transfixing and newsworthy woman, about to embark on her much-anticipated ‘Celebration Tour’ honoring four decades of music) it looks likely that ‘Ray of Light’ will remain her best album for a while. Its string of singles alone is legendary.
Lead track ‘Frozen’ had taken the world by mystical storm earlier that winter, an electronic ballad that heralded Madonna’s return to the pop throne she had helped craft in the 80’s, while pushing forward the boundaries of what pop music was, and what it might encompass. ‘Frozen’ was unlike anything Madonna had ever sung before, even if heartache and hope were mainstays of all her best music.
Title track ‘Ray of Light’ could barely be held back as it raced out as the second single. Pounding through the summer of 1998, it sounded a clarion call for pop glory throughout the world and is still one of Madonna’s most beloved bops. That primal squeal of joy at its conclusion is pure heaven.
The final official single in the United States was ‘Nothing Really Matters‘, a song that initially paled in comparison to the rest of the album, but has since advanced in my appreciation. At the time, it felt like a throwback to the earlier Madonna, a little light on message and meaning compared to something like the stunning album closer ‘Mer Girl’ but I’ve come to enjoy its pop magic in the ensuing years. Besides, Madonna is as much about celebration as she is about rumination – probably a bit more-so than the ‘Ray of Light’ album might lead one to believe.
While the album is celebrating its 25th anniversary, it’s worth noting that ‘Ray of Light’ came out about fifteen years after Madonna’s debut. That’s the mark of an artist who is far more than the one-hit… well, now fifty-hit, wonder that many wrote her off to be all those years ago. It’s the mark of an artist in constant evolution, one who is unafraid to try new things and move forward to discover new visions. Most of all, it’s the mark of an artist who has defied the notions of what pop music can be, and what our pop stars can accomplish, and ‘Ray of Light’ remains her most potent and enduring testament to that power.
Here’s a fun new twist that brings Madonna back into the sports arena, a place she last visited in 2012’s epic Super Bowl performance. It’s a basic bracket (or so I think – to be completely honest there’s a good chance I don’t even know what a bracket is) which will go through some of her songs to see which picks my Twitter polls advance. This will be a decidedly unscientific and high subjective process, because this is my blog. If you want to do it perfectly, or differently, start your own website.
Those turned out in mostly expected ways (though ‘Like A Virgin‘ getting knocked out this early in the proceedings may cause some consternation). The next round went like this:
That one surprised me a bit – I thought ‘Holiday’ stood a better chance – it’s been performed on many more tours than ‘Borderline’ and has always struck me as a classic song. Maybe the voters on my Titter account are of the age where they remember that brilliant Mary Lambert-directed video (the original release of ‘Holiday’ had no video at all, which is appalling, but I digress…) On to other appalling items, and bigger surprises, as ‘Borderline’ was pitted against my beloved ‘Material Girl’ and made for a heartbreaking final round.
Not to hate on ‘Borderline’, I just happen to like ‘Material Girl’ better, and it’s provided Madonna with an indelible nickname that has lasted four decades. And so it will be that ‘Borderline’ will advance to the semi-finals. The next bracket will be from the ‘True Blue’ period… so stay tuned…
“It was an honor for me to present Kim Petras and Sam Smith at the Grammys. I wanted to give away the final award which was album of the year, but I thought it was more important that I introduce the first transgender woman to perform at the Grammys – a history making moment!! And she won a Grammy too! Instead of focusing on what I said in my speech thanking artists like Sam and Kim for their fearlessness, many people chose to only talk about close-up photos of me taken with a long lens camera who would distort anyone’s face by a press photographer!! Once again I am caught in the vortex of ageism and misogyny that pervades the world we live in. A world that refuses to celebrate women who have hit 45 and feel the need to punish them if they remain strong, willing, hardworking, and adventurous. I’ve never apologized for any creative choices I’ve made or the way I dress or look and I won’t start. I’ve been degraded by the media since the beginning of my career, but I understand that it’s all a test and I’m happy to be pioneering in that field too so that all the women behind me have an easier future. As Beyonce would say you won’t break my soul I’m looking forward to many more years of subversive behaviors, pushing boundaries, facing the patriarchy and most of all, enjoying my life. Bow down my bitches!” ~ Madonna
A scorching new photo-shoot/video-project from Madonna, featured in an overseas version of ‘Vanity Fair’ and their ‘Icon Issue’, is forming my new inspiration for this flailing winter. Check out the video excerpts below, which use selections like ‘Justify My Love‘, ‘Like A Prayer‘, ‘Isaac‘, and ‘The Power of Good-bye‘ – all of which work splendidly in this religiously-rich romp through iconic images. They make an instant match with Madonna, a woman once perfectly-described as Our Lady of Perpetual Provocation.
This looks like a promising entry to ‘The Celebration Tour’ era – a way of reminding everyone of Madonna’s iconic stature and enduring power (as if the ticket prices and sales weren’t enough) while leading into what might be an absolutely bonkers live show if she pulls it off right. If history is any indication, we have no reason to doubt her now. At every crossroads in her career, Madonna has managed to find salvation on the stage (witness the glory of ‘The Girlie Show’ following the ‘Sex’ firestorm, or ‘The Reinvention Tour’ after the ‘American Life‘ brouhaha).
What ‘The Celebration Tour’ may usher in is anyone’s guess – though if it’s anything like her brief Pride set this past summer, it will be bawdy, colorful, and aptly named. In other words, classic iconic Madonna, served up with an attitude and absolutely no regrets. (Check out my dream set-list for the new tour here, and come join the party!)
Now Madonna has announced a new tour – The Celebration Tour – billed as a greatest hits concert culled from the past forty years of her history-making/shaking career. At first I balked at the price of tickets, then I balked at the emotional investment in the event that things get canceled or called off, and finally I balked at my hesitation: this is Madonna. Singing her hits. For what might be the very last time.
When my friend LeeMichael (no stranger to momentous theatrical events) told me he got tickets in the pre-sale and would be happy to go with me, I talked it over with Andy and accepted (Andy being thrilled not to deal with the stressful ticket-procurement process or the attached price tag). So come August I will hopefully be attending Madonna’s Celebration Tour. In anticipation of that, and in the spirit of such things, here is my dream set-list, as every proper fan is currently formulating one in their head. It’s a little ambitious, but Madonna on tour is Madonna at her most ambitious. (And do click on the links for the Madonna Timeline entries that have been written so far.)
No, this isn’t a post about 3M Scotch tape, which many of us are struggling to find now that it’s present-wrapping season. I always buy some ridiculous 96-pack of the stuff and still somehow never have a roll on hand when I really need it. Also, did Scotch tape originate in Scotland? Just another seasonal question to ponder while you’re wrapping a pair of fitted sheets and wondering how they came to be so perfectly-folded in their package, never to be again. So many digressions, I’ve almost forgotten the point of this post.
Ahh, yes: 3M. As in three ‘M’ words that form the memory core of this post. The first being Madonna. As illustrated in the accompanying pics, she is the main thrust of what we have here, and the last one below is from her ‘Sex’ book anniversary in Miami. Her hairstyle echoes the one she wore to the premiere party of that book way back in that heady autumn of 1992. We’ve all come a long way, baby. Another digression.
The second ‘M’ is her song ‘Masterpiece’, a shuffling little ballad from the days leading into the ‘MDNA’ period – Holiday 2011 or thereabouts. Aside from a questionable ‘Santa Baby’ cover in the mid-80’s, Madonna hasn’t really done a Christmas-themed song (and the decidedly-non-Christmas ‘Holiday’ is NOT a fucking Christmas song) but for me, ‘Masterpiece’ will always come the closest thanks to my incessant playing of it on a holiday weekend in New York.
The third and final ‘M’ for the moment is Messiah – a majestic ballad from her under-rated and under-appreciated ‘Rebel Heart’ album. That too came along in a winter, post-holiday, but Christmas is supposedly all about the big M himself, Jesus Christ, and so ‘Messiah’ took on a Christmas slant, and its dramatic and slightly-forlorn feel mirrored some similarly depressing holiday moments. It ain’t all angels and holly.
Both of these songs have come to embody the holidays for me, as incongruous as Prince’s ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ perhaps, but no less lovely in my twisted heart. It always seemed that Madonna just wanted Christmas to be over so she could go back to focusing on herself and her career, but who knows – maybe she secretly loves the holiday, and has since way before Mariah made it her own. I kind of doubt it though – Madonna has never been one for sentimentality – one of the reasons I loved her in the first place.
“You’re forgiven… Everything you don’t know I forgive you for. Now let mama get her makeup done.” ~ Madonna, ‘Truth or Dare’
Almost every dilemma in my life can be solved by some reference in Madonna’s ‘Truth or Dare’ documentary, and having memorized every line of dialogue in it, I bring these little snippets of questionable wisdom with me even when the rest of the world has no idea what I’m talking about. Often it’s better that way. And for all those issues that somehow escape the wisdom of ‘Truth or Dare’, there’s always a pop song to give guidance and solace.
The more I know, the less I understand, All the things I thought I knew, I’m learning again I’ve been tryin’ to get down To the heart of the matter But my will gets weak And my thoughts seem to scatter But I think it’s about forgiveness Forgiveness
In my youth, I’d look to the simplicity of a Madonna lyric to solve the riddles of life, thinking that if it was good enough for Madonna – who seemed to be making such a fabulous life for herself – it could be good enough for me. Oddly enough, much of the time those words sustained me, or at the very least kept me alive when the typical teenage angst threatened to extinguish my mere existence. That was a time of relative innocence, and such innocence has long been destroyed.
These times are so uncertain There’s a yearning undefined People filled with rage We all need a little tenderness How can love survive in such a graceless age? And the trust and self-assurance that lead to happiness They’re the very things we kill, I guess Pride and competition cannot fill these empty arms And the wall they put between us, you know it doesn’t keep me warm
Back then, it felt like a song could save a life, even if I now see that that’s not entirely true, even if a song can only help you to save yourself, because no one else is going to do it. A harsh truth bomb, more cutting or diabolical than any dare, it helped me to understand, even at such a young age, that there was no true safety for some of us, that when we really needed help or found ourselves in dire emotional straits, it would be better not to have to rely on anyone else. That was survival, especially for a gay kid. It used to bother me that it had to be so; lately I’ve come to appreciate it, even if I’ve only gone so far as to unsheath the sword. Soft walk, big stick, you know the rest.
There are people in your life who’ve come and gone They let you down You know they’ve hurt your pride You better put it all behind you baby ’cause life goes on You keep carryin’ that anger It’ll eat you up inside baby
I’ve been trying to get down to the heart of the matter But my will gets weak And my thoughts seem to scatter But I think it’s about forgiveness Forgiveness Even if, even if you don’t love me
This isn’t to blame anyone for not being there. It’s just a little stream of consciousness, and streams can be messy and meandering, winding their way in convoluted form, eating away at banks we thought would stand like bulwarks for our lifetime. No, there is no blame here, aside from the heaps I am placing on myself, and maybe that’s why there is the need for forgiveness. This fall has been filled with a strange sense of nostalgia, of looking back at my past and making better sense of it now that my thoughts feel clearer. It’s mostly been a good thing, and I’ve mostly done it alone, because I was the only one who was there. Besides, when it comes to the real shit, not the silly histrionic squawking in which I usually engage, but the real hardcore trouble that fucks people up, I’ve found the following passage from Alexandre Dumas to be most helpful: “I’ll bury my grief deep inside me and I’ll make it so secret and obscure that you won’t even have to take the trouble to sympathize with me.”
Revenge and redemption was at the heart of ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’, where that quote originated, but that’s not what I’m after either. The most hollow words a person can utter are “I told you so.” More often than not, being right is simply being lonely.
For all my self-imposed alone time, I rarely felt like I was lonely, but I’ve been rethinking that too. Looking back at that scared little boy, and the man he grew to become, I’m thinking about forgiveness… forgiveness…
I’ve been tryin’ to get down To the heart of the matter Because the flesh will get weak And the ashes will scatter So, I’m thinkin’ about forgiveness Forgiveness Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore
{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.}
How strangely beautiful that just as our weather turns foul, this summer bop comes along with sultry memories of heat and sun, and the restless infatuations that once made up a summer night. Sandwiched between Madonna’s brilliant ‘Ray of Light’ album and the soon-to-be-stomper of ‘Music’, this William Orbit soundtrack tune set the aural stage for her ‘American Pie‘ cover and found Madonna in-between projects just as I was in-between boyfriends.
A summer in Boston can be gorgeously disconcerting when one is between boyfriends, and shuffling along from crush to obsession to debilitating bewilderment is not made easier by the tricky heat and humidity of the season. Those dizzying days blur together now, somewhere between retail work at Structure and my first office job at John Hancock, somewhere in my early-to-mid-twenties, when everyone is allowed and expected to act the supreme fool with all the unjustified and false self-confidence of youth. Everything was stultifyingly serious and silly at once – as deadly as it was ridiculous – and Madonna decided to throw her fuckery into the ring with this song created for a goddamned Austin Powers movie (which I still have not seen).
I immediately put the swirling psychedelic opening onto my answering machine (because we had manual answering machines back then, and CD players) and used the title of the song as my screensaver. It was the 90’s for fuck’s sake – we were doing the best we knew to do, and more often than not failing miserably. As a die-another-day Madonna fan, I felt she could do no wrong, and I fell giddily under the spell of this song, just as I fell under the spells of all those beautiful boys who crossed my path at night.
Haven’t we met? You’re some kind of beautiful stranger You could be good for me I have a taste for the danger…
A Boston summer night, with all its mystery and sparkle, unfurled beyond the stretch of steps that led up to the condo. Watching the street below, I paused there as the street lamps glowed yellow, lighting the ways of workers winding along their paths home, or revelers just embarking on the start of a night out. All potential opportunities, all possible love stories – because isn’t that what every night was at that point in life? Even when we pretended it wasn’t, it always was. I knew it, and I knew my heart wouldn’t stop yearning just because I told it to stop.
If I’m smart then I’ll run away But I’m not so I guess I’ll stay Heaven forbid I’ll take my chance on a beautiful stranger
I looked into your eyes and my world came tumblin’ down You’re the devil in disguise that’s why I’m singin’ this song
To know you is to love you
He said his name was Freddy. At least, I think he did. He lived just a street or two away, near an incongruous mimosa tree that lent its perfume to that strange stretch of summer, and he seemed a little too magical to be true. He passed by only in the deep hours of night, and we smiled our smiles that bordered on snickers because we both had no idea what we were doing.
Those summer nights mixed with liquor in ways that were both wonderful and disconcerting, and on one particular late evening, we wound up on my couch, as young gents are often wont to do. It wasn’t like it usually was – rough and hungry and frantic, when two young men are so into each other they devour all in sight, driving tongues and appendages deeply and relentlessly into whatever is physically possible – this was almost like a moment of stilled time. No hurried pulling off of underwear, no rushed grabbing of backs or fronts, no quick tumble onto the bed while still joined desperately at the mouth. Instead, we sat silently. No one moved. The air felt still too. Even with the open windows everything had stopped, stilled like a movie moment out of ‘The Matrix’.
It was the strangest thing. He didn’t want a drink. I didn’t want another. We simply stayed sitting there, not even talking, and no one moved to break the spell. It was impossible to tell if this was weird for him too, but he remained silent, and so it became less weird for me. I already half-believed he wasn’t really there.
You’re everywhere I go And everybody knows To love you is to be part of you I pay for you with tears And swallow all my pride
The dim light of a lone lamp near the door was all that glowed in that moment. A little more came from the street outside, and the uppermost floors of what was then the John Hancock tower sparkled in the distance. Afraid to seek out his eyes and be seen in return, I slowly unbuttoned the top few buttons of his shirt and slid my hand across his chest. Was he even real? And if he was, what did he even want? I straddled him decisively then, to pin him down in case he was a ghost. He didn’t squirm or try to get away – instead our lips just barely touched, our noses only lightly grazing one another, and never before or since have I had a wisp of a kiss that left me wondering whether or not it had actually happened. Hovering over him, thighs upon thighs, I watched as he slowly unbuttoned the top few buttons of my shirt, and then leaned his head into my chest.
I pulled him closer into me, my chin resting on his soft hair as he breathed in the scent of my skin. We were impossibly young and saw no reason why it wouldn’t last.
He leaned back into the couch then, keeping his eyes down and his gaze averted. I wanted so badly to see him and to look into his eyes, but I followed his lead and didn’t pry, gently maneuvering off of his lap. Aside from our shirt buttons, our clothes were all still on, all still intact. We hadn’t even mussed our hair.
If I’m smart then I’ll run away But I’m not, so I guess I’ll stay Haven’t you heard? I fell in love with a beautiful stranger
I looked into your face My heart was dancin’ all over the place I’d like to change my point of view If I could just forget about you
To know you is to love you
In all the nights and years that came before and would later ensue, in the many men and people who would occupy my bed and my body, this would be one of the few times I felt so intensely attuned to someone that it was a spiritual moment of connection which transcended the physical world. It wasn’t because of who he was, it wasn’t because of who I was, it was simply because of some magical alchemy that brought two people into each other’s orbits for a night, when a mimosa tree sprinkled its ripe perfume onto two young men who couldn’t quite bear the idea of being alone at that hour, on that street, in that summer.
In the following weeks, I would watch for him, but never very seriously. I didn’t seek out where he lived, or haunt the general vicinity like I would do for others. Maybe our schedules were off-kilter, maybe his nights weren’t his alone anymore, maybe he never existed outside of the conjured longings of my overactive imagination. Whatever the case, I would never see him again, and I would never really look. My heart didn’t want to find him, and my head knew that to see him again would break such a perfect spell.
You’re everywhere I go And everybody knows
I looked into your eyes And my world came tumblin’ down You’re the devil in disguise That’s why I’m singin’ this song to you
To know you is to love you You’re everywhere I go And everybody knows I pay for you with tears And swallow all my pride
{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.}
I’m goin’ through it, yeah I know you see the tragic in it Just hold on to the little bit of magic in it I can’t break down now I can’t take that now Died a thousand times Managed to survive I can’t break down now I can’t take that (I can’t take that)
I rise, I rise I rise up above it, up above it I rise, I rise I rise up above it all
For all of her strengths and triumphs, Madonna has been remarkably hit-or-miss when it comes to putting the closing song of an album together. For every ‘Vogue‘ there is a ‘Gone’, for every ‘Mer Girl‘ there is an ‘Act of Contrition‘. Mostly they are filler, albeit decent-enough filler – as in ‘Easy Ride‘ or ‘Like It Or Not‘, but only in that first example did she hit it out of the park. This Madonna Timeline entry, ‘I Rise’, from 2019’s ‘Madame X’ effort, is another decent-enough closer, but there’s not much more to say about it. That sort of dovetails with my thoughts on Madonna at the moment.
Of course I still love her, she simply hasn’t done anything in a long time that has sparked my fandom or stoked the fires of that love. This song would probably be her shrugging off such doubt in her, even from one of her lifelong fans. I’m absolutely certain she will rise again, and I can’t wait to see it.
Freedom’s what you choose to do with what’s been done to you No one can hurt you now unless you want them to (Unless you want) No one can hurt you now unless you love ’em too (B.S.) Unless you love ’em too
‘Cause I’m going through it Yeah, I know you see the tragic in it Just hold on to the little bit of magic in it (Magic in it) I can’t break down now I can’t take that (I can’t take that)
I rise, I rise (Rise) I rise up above it, up above it (I rise) I rise, I rise (Rise) I rise up above it all
Yeah, we gonna rise up Yeah, we gonna rise up Yeah, we gonna get up Yeah, we gonna get up Yeah, we gonna get up Yes, we can, we can get it together We’ll rise up, we can get it together
Racing through the backroads of upstate New York on a rainy night, I can no longer tell the difference between my tears and the rain on the windshield. With visibility low even absent my crying, the salty water further muddles the obscured view I had. It feels only right since everything else in life feels so wrong. The car careens to the side of the road, rain still beating against the windshield, while the wipers do their best to stave off blindness. I do not mind in the least. Destruction is welcome here.
I am on a self-appointed date with death, driving on one last journey before I’d return home to end my life, while the remnants of some hurricane wreak their weakened havoc on inland New York. In a couple of days Madonna will release her ‘Erotica’ album – the album that formed the culmination and central-crisis of a career that has always defied the odds. So it was that as my heroine was bringing me along on a sexual journey, I was on a path toward self-annihilation. Sex and death were instantly and irrevocably intertwined at that moment, as if entering adolescence under the specter of AIDS hadn’t fucked enough of us burgeoning gay boys up. Determined to be in sole control over how it all ended, and despondent for any number of closeted reasons, I’d made the determination to end my life… immediately after I heard the new Madonna album.
The whole world knew it was coming. More than ‘Like A Virgin‘, more than its follow-up ‘True Blue‘ – even more than the ‘Like A Prayer‘ brouhaha – ‘Erotica’ was probably the most-hyped album of her career, coming as it did with the never-before-or-since-duplicated ‘Sex’ book. Madonna fans especially watched and waited with keen anticipation, and back then radio stations had early copies to play as they wished. The local station was playing it as I drove along on that rainy night – if I got to hear it all, there might not be anything left to wait for.
Maple leaves fluttered messily down as the wind and rain ripped them from their perches. The air was filled with debris and it felt like the whole world was bearing down on the car as I slowed and pulled off the road. Sitting there, I listened as the song ‘Rain’ came on, its calming harmonies and steady ticking momentarily quelling my tears.
Somehow, I survive the next week.
{Here I have to pause. That sentence contains more than you will ever know – more than I will truly remember – and leaving it there like that, or even less, is all I can muster.}
Somehow… I survive.
I don’t remember getting back on the road, or sneaking back into the house. I don’t even remember which Madonna song they ended on (they didn’t end up playing the whole album after all). I only know I made it back home, back into bed, back into the impossibly forlorn state that a teenage boy just barely 17 years old could uncomfortably inhabit. I couldn’t feel more out of place and alone – and somehow I understood that it was only the beginning. Maybe that’s why I wanted so badly to give up then and there. The totality of such a difficult journey presented itself in full. I didn’t know enough to take it one minute at a time, to focus on that present moment, to feel the joy, however hidden or obscure or absent. The only time I came close was when a Madonna song was playing.
But something kept me from going through with the planned execution process I’d marked in the book ‘Final Exit’ that week, and it was enough to see me through the night. And the next day. And the next. And when at last Tuesday, October 20th arrived, my friend Ann and her Mom drove me to Rotterdam Square Mall to pick up the ‘Erotica’ album and the ‘Sex’ book.
At that scary time in my life, my friends, and often their parents, indulged me in such nonsense. It was as if they could tell, sometimes more than I could tell at times, that I needed something to hang onto, to keep going, to not give it all up. If that came in the form of a new Madonna album, maybe it was enough to get me past the danger zone. The expanse of an entire life looming before a teenager is more daunting, taunting, and debilitating than most of us as adults ever seem to remember. But some do, and they held out a hand for me at key moments. By the time Ann and her Mom dropped me off at my house, half of the album had been played, and all of our laughter had helped.
Back home, in the safety of our unfurnished basement, beneath two brightly clinical bulbs of fluorescent light, I open up the ‘Sex’ book while the ‘Erotica’ single played in the background. This was Madonna’s grand project – the ultimate union of music and visuals – and as I unzipped the book from its mythical mylar encasement like some enormous condom, feeling the cold metallic covers in my hand, I was grateful for being alive in that month of October in the year 1992. I knew I almost wasn’t.
Linking sex with death isn’t the healthiest way of discovering your sexuality, but we don’t usually get to choose the way sex enters our lives, we just have to make the best of when it does. In this case, the detached artistic take on the subject was the safest way to get down and dirty in the age of AIDS, and exploring the topic with the vastly varying songs of the ‘Erotica’ album was a roller coaster that included life and death moments, such as on ‘In This Life’, a ballad dedicated to two friends Madonna had lost to AIDS.
Those two gay men, long gone by the time Madonna released ‘Erotica’, had taught her the power and importance of art and beauty, and their memories had stayed with her. The majesty and might of making a piece of art was suddenly understood as a way of survival, even in the face of death. The rest of the ‘Erotica album was soaked in further brilliance ~ the whirling escapism of its greatest single ‘Deeper and Deeper‘ or the cinematic masterpiece of ‘Bad Girl’ or the psychedelic melodrama of ‘Secret Garden‘ – it was all waiting there for further exploration. That kept me going for the next few weeks and months. With each new video and performance, I sat mesmerized and enthralled by what this pop icon goddess would do next, watching and waiting and finally finding something on which to grasp to make it through the rest of the wilderness.
Thirty years later, the scratch of a vinyl record still evokes that iconic opening of the ‘Erotica’ album, and then that insinuating bass-line brings it all crashing back – a baptism and rebirth and the very point ‘Where Life Begins’ – and the first furtive, fumbling motions to finding my own sexuality as I writhed through equal parts desire and destruction. Madonna led me down the rabbit’s hole, and I willingly followed, needing sexual fantasies to distract me from suicidal fantasies, and even if it was a profoundly fucked-up way of beating one set of demons, it worked and got me through that rough patch. To this day, I am grateful to Madonna for that, as silly as it sounds. You never know what little thing might serve such a pivotal role – in this case it was a woman breathily singing the word ‘erotic’.
There would be other attempts at self-destruction to ensue, even as I understood the stupidity of what I was doing, even as Madonna survived her own reckoning in the fall-out of the ‘Sex’ book and ‘Erotica’ album. She would help save me then too.
At that time, however, the only way to make it through some nights was by putting on a song like ‘Rain’, imagining what a future might look like, and letting Madonna lead me away from the sadness and loneliness I felt. Thirty years later, she still casts that spell.
