Category Archives: Music

24
January
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
2 comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #27 – ‘I’ll Remember’ – Spring 1994

{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.}

This would have been a perfect song a little later in the year, as it is so strongly associated with Spring for me- but the iPod will shuffle as it sees fit, so ‘I’ll Remember’ is up for discussion now. Some Madonna songs are filler – light throw-away moments that pass the time on car rides – but others are more distinctive sign-posts, framing and freezing a certain period of life that will remain tenaciously tied to a moment. This is one of the latter, and I can’t listen to it without thinking of the spring of 1994 at Brandeis and in Boston, the last girl I ever kissed, and the loss of any final vestiges of childhood.

Say goodbye to not knowing when
the truth in my whole life began.
Say goodbye to not knowing how to cry
You taught me that.
And I’ll remember the strength that you gave me
Now that I’m standing on my own
I’ll remember the way that you saved me…
I’ll remember.

This was the very last time I walked into Tower Records, or any record store for that matter, without being keenly aware of a Madonna release – the Internet was just in the process of revolutionizing information – but for now, for this one final moment of ignorant innocence, I was oblivious to what I was about to find.

Making a quick flip through the Madonna section, I saw something called ‘I’ll Remember’.For the date, the photo on the cassette (yes, cassette) was questionable – it being a reused one from the ‘Rain’ video, grainy and sub-par, but there was the Copyright of 1994. I quickly purchased it, popped it into my walkman, and as the opening Patrick Leonard-produced melody began, my heart leapt at this secret surprise.

Having just had my heart broken, by a girl no less – and no more – the song resonated more than Madonna songs usually resonate with me (which is a lot on their most unaffecting level), and the underlying melancholy and lost-love lyrics were another powerful link I felt to the artist.

Inside, I was a child,
That could not mend a broken wing.
Outside, I looked for a way
To teach my heart to sing,
And I’ll remember the love that you gave me
Now that I’m standing on my own.
I’ll remember the way that you changed me,
I’ll remember…

– – – – – – – – –

Back on campus, my Freshman year continued. The winter was relenting, the last of the most tenacious snow was finally melting in dirty patches. This was the time of heaves, when the earth buckled between moments of freezing and thawing, and the hearts of romantics followed tumultuous suit. Thoughts of suicide ravaged my head, and one night I found myself on the roof of the observatory building, looking over its edge and wondering. A couple of students burst into my silent reverie, giggling as their eyes adjusted to the dark, and still snickering even after they noticed another person standing there. I walked back to the staircase and descended.

– – – – – – – – –

I learned to let go
Of the illusion that we can possess
I learned to let go,
I travel in stillness,
And I’ll remember…
Happiness.

– – – – – – – – –

A couple of weeks later it was time to leave Brandeis. Somehow I had made it through a year of college, and I was returning home for the summer. At the end of April, or the very start of May, there was a solar eclipse. I remember watching the crescents of the sun filtered through the canopy of trees already in leaf outside my dormitory. Somewhere there are a few photos of those shadows, and that day. I was leaving Hassenfeld, my Freshman dorm, and my first year of college, and I was ready.

No I’ve never been afraid to cry,
Now I finally have a reason why…
No I’ve never been afraid to cry,
Now I finally have a reason why…

It strikes me as I write this – a rather late realization- that ‘ I’ll Remember’ was really the end of my supposed-straight life, and the very last remnants of my childhood. Try as I might, it was a losing battle, and that girl would prove to be the very last girl I ever kissed. We would have one more summer together, and then it would be the boys’ turn to break my heart.

Song #27: ‘I’ll Remember’ ~ Spring 1994
Continue reading ...
15
January
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #26 ~ ‘Music’ – September 2000

 {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.}

Hey Mr. DJ, put a record on,
I wanna dance with my baby…

In a vocoder-enhanced robotic voice of the future, the opening salvo of ‘Music’ found Madonna entering the new millennium ready to boogie-woogie. This song reminds me of my husband. Fun, funky, and instantly-classic. It came out just after I met him, and as such will always hold a special place in my heart.

It was September of 2000. I was traveling between Boston and Albany as Andy and I figured out what we were becoming. On a weekend alone, I heard this song on the radio for the first time. I sat there in the condo, ear up against the speaker, stunned and enraptured and slightly underwhelmed as I am the first time I hear any new Madonna song (it’s a good omen – see ‘Frozen’ and ‘Like A Prayer’). This was both a throw-back to her earliest R&B-dance roots, and an unflinching look to the future thanks to the computerized blips and stuttering booms of Mirwais. It was just before Internet leaks took over, and it was still possible to remain in the dark as to what a song sounded like until it premiered on the radio, and somehow I caught it at just the right moment. By the end of it, I was even dancing a little.

Do you like to Boogie Woogie?
Do you like my acid-rock?

Oh I more than liked it, I loved it. And I more than liked Andy. It was a time of celebration, a time of gleeful abandon, of giving it up to the beat, to the music, and to the prospect of loving and being loved.

And when the music starts, I never wanna stop,
It’s gonna drive me crazy…
Music…

Simple. Powerful. To the point. It was Madonna bringing it like only she could, staking another musical milestone with a memory that would burn brightly as one of the happiest in my life. As Summer ripened into Fall, and Andy and I felt our way into our relationship, Madonna was the soundtrack that formed the backdrop to all of the fun.

Music makes the people come together – yeah,
Music makes the bourgeoisie and a rebel…

That September marked our first trip together. We drove up to Ogunquit, Maine where Andy knew a few people, and it felt like we were a world away from everything else. In this fantastical place there was a beautiful ocean shore, a breathtaking seaside walk, a jewel-box of restaurants, and a couple of bars and dance clubs to fill the nights with adventure.

Don’t think of yesterday and I don’t look at the clock
I like to boogie-woogie.
It’s like riding on the wind and it never goes away
Touches everything I’m in, got to have it every day.

Andy’s friend Al ran MaineStreet at the time, and, while still relatively new, it had already established itself as a go-to spot for the good-time crowd. As the bar began to fill, and the lights flashed, the throbbing dance beat built to the first of many crescendos. Soon the dance floor was moving with the collective break-neck motions of the music-mad masses. It was then when I felt, more than heard, the opening strains of the Calderone Anthem Mix. Victor Calderone has a way with crafting a killer Madonna remix, steadily building and adding to his creation until it gives glorious way to the thundering pinnacle of its climax, and there it dangles for a delicious moment before its precipitous drop and heady whoosh to a racing conclusion.

I’ve got a bad-gay admission to make: I don’t go out to dance clubs a lot. I never have. I usually prefer the quiet atmosphere of a bar to the techno-deadened bass attack of a club any day. But once in a while I’ll have a night out when a club is exactly what I’m looking for, and if there’s a Madonna song on (as there more than likely will be) it makes it all the better, as if I’m meant to be exactly there, at that moment.

It’s happened a few times – a Calderone remix of ‘Frozen’ in the chilly Rochester winter, a transcendent bit of ‘Isaac’ and the exhilarating rush of ‘Vogue’ reborn in Chelsea, and Tracy Young’s whirling take on ‘Don’t Tell Me’ on a rare Saturday at Waterworks. This time it was ‘Music’ in Ogunquit, with a new boyfriend by my side, a new club in the midst of establishing itself, and a new Madonna album on the horizon. For that one moment, all was right with the world.

Music makes the people come together – yeah,
Music makes the bourgeoisie and a rebel…

On a technical side-note, ‘Music’ marked Madonna’s 12th Number One hit on the Billboard charts (and her last one, thus far). The album also debuted at #1 – her first number one album since 1989 (she’s been luckier in that of late, as every one of her studio albums since Music has managed to hit the top spot for at least a week: American Life, Confessions on a Dance Floor, and Hard Candy).

While spottier than its predecessor of perfection (the magnificent and yet-to-be-topped Ray of Light), Music was a more-fun companion-piece. I made my customary pilgrimage to Tower Records on Newbury Street (I think it was still Tower Records at that point – if not, then Virgin) for the midnight release, and got a free poster because I bought the Limited Edition special CD. The poster featured Madonna in high-cowgirl mode, a style that at first seemed jarring (she did once proclaim that she would never date a guy who wore cowboy boots) but ended up working better than even she probably anticipated. (Picture a smattering of pink cowboy hats at her ‘Drowned World Tour’ stops.)

As for the video, directed by Jonas Akerlund, Madonna also went back to old-school MTV fun, with a cheeky bit by Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G, girl support from Niki Haris and Debi Mazar, and a requisite animated sequence that found a cartoon Madonna super-heroine in a Metropolis-like world with buildings and signs featuring the names of past hits. At that stage in her career, she could already look back with a wink, confident that the release of a new Madonna album was still a momentous event.

There have been a number of memorable live performances of ‘Music’ – most notably its limo-centric free-for-all at the Grammy Awards, an incredible Live 8 version, and the finale to the Drowned World Tour. But I think it was her mash-up of ‘Music’ and ‘Disco Inferno’ from the ‘Confessions Tour’ that holds status as my favorite performance of the song:

Do you like to Boogie Woogie?
Song #26: ‘Music’ – September 2000
Continue reading ...
12
January
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #25 ~ ‘Love Makes the World Go Round’ – 1986/1987

{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.}

Make love not war we say, it’s easy to recite,
But it don’t mean a damn unless you’re gonna fight;
But not with guns and knives, we’ve got to save the lives,
Of every boy and girl that grows up in this world.

Here’s a little secret that I may or not have shared in the 25 Madonna songs that have been chronicled thus far on this Timeline: my brother is the person who actually brought the ‘True Blue’ album into our home. It was 1986, and I found it in his room. It was a cassette tape – remember them? – and I have no idea why he purchased it, except it was the 80’s, and back then our tastes occasionally overlapped. Obviously I listened to it much more than he ever did, and ‘True Blue’ was the first album I loved, listened to, and learned from start to finish. (Prior to this I was a singles guy, selectively limited to the pop hits of the radio and never taking the time to investigate or buy (or afford) an entire album. My musical library consisted of 45s if I liked a song enough and could figure out the artist.) This was way before the Internet, way before I had any reliable form of transportation, way before my awakening to the pop world, if you will. My main source of music was taping it off the radio, commercials and tattered intros and exits all intact. And somehow ‘True Blue’ forged its way into my world – crisp, clean, and complete, without the panicked tune-in-tune-out static of a recorded radio broadcast.

There’s hunger everywhere, we’ve got to take a stand,
Reach out for someone’s hand, Love makes the world go round.
It’s easy to forget if you don’t hear the sound
Of pain and prejudice, Love makes the world go round.

It was the 80’s – the big, bad, flashy, trashy, oh-so-modern, angular 80’s. I did my best to fashion my room into the bright neon glow of the new store on ‘The Facts of Life’ (after Mrs. Garrett moved out and Cloris Leachman moved in, with a few guest appearances by George Clooney). Swatch and Benetton ads were taped over the wallpaper, a blinking stop light stood in the corner, and a few gimmicky plastic items (including a neat ‘rolling wave’ piece of moving pop art – no, it literally moved) were rather garishly assembled. I was attracted to anything “modern” and in the 80’s that meant a lot of cheap trash. Novelty stores were where I found much of my inspiration, and the Top Ten at Ten of Fly 92.3 kept me attuned to the warblings of Samantha Fox, the Bangles, and Madonna.

They think that love’s a lie, but we can teach them how to try,
Love means to understand, reach out for someone’s hand.
Cause everything you do comes back in time to you,
We have to change our fate before it gets too late.

The song is, let’s admit it, a trifling of a silly thing, with somewhat banal lyrics, a totally programmed 80’s track, and just a bit of processed Latin flavor left over from ‘La Isla Bonita’. (I think I recall one writer dismissing it as a “feed-the-world fiesta.”) I didn’t care, nor could I tell at the time that it wasn’t a lasting bit of pop music. I was just happy to dance around the bedroom, choreographing elaborate routines and envisioning how my classmates might one day marvel at my dancing ability. I pictured either a talent show, or a benefit, that had me center stage, and a few of my favorite friends would be in supporting dance roles. The boy(s) on whom I had a crush would somehow be a part of it, teased but ultimately embraced with a knowing wink, as if we had a shared secret that the audience would never know, but somehow still thrill to.

Don’t judge a man ˜til you’ve been standing in his shoes,
You know that we’re all so quick to look away,
Cause it’s the easy thing to do,
You know that what I say is true.

In reality, I would be too scared to ever dance on stage. The boy I crushed on would find me mean and intolerable, completely missing the ‘girl-teases-boy-she-likes-most’ game, probably because I wasn’t a girl. And all the while Madonna kept on singing, imploring us to, “Make love, not war,” and reiterating that “Love makes the world go round.” The twenty-something soul I felt I had as an eleven-year-old boy wanted to believe this – did, in fact, believe it – and held onto the hope as the march into adolescence commenced.

Song #25: ‘Love Makes the World Go Round’ ~ 1986/1987
Continue reading ...
08
January
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #24 ~ ‘Shanti/Ashtangi’ – Summer 1998

{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.}

What can one say about this bit of sung Sanskrit from 1998’s brilliant ‘Ray of Light’ album? Personally, not much. And yet… and yet. There is something about this song that I’ve always liked. No idea what is going on lyrically, but I forced myself to learn the words and sing along (which is a nifty car-ride trick to impress, or in my case underwhelm, any friends in trapped earshot).

Vunde gurunam caranaravinde
Sandarsita svatma sukhavabodhe
Nihsreyase jangalikayamane
Sansara halahala moha santyai
Hala, hala
Ahahu purusakaram sankha cakrasi
Ahahu purusakaram sankha cakrasi
Dharinam dharinam sahasra sirasam
Dharinam dharinam sahasra sirasam
Vande

It’s a bit of chanting to ease the soul, and for a number of years whenever I felt stressed or scared (I distinctly remember repeating the mantra silently to myself while riding up in the elevator to my first state job) it offered a small piece of peace, or at least a welcome distraction to whatever I happened to be dreading.

Om shanti, Om shanti
Shanti, shanti
Shantay Om
Om shanti, Om shanti
Shanti, shanti
Shanti Om…

But what does it all mean? It’s been a while since I’ve brushed up on my Sanskrit (and by ‘while’ I mean forever), so here’s how it supposedly translates, by way of the internet:

I worship the gurus’ lotus feet
Awakening the happiness of the self revealed
Beyond comparison, working like the jungle physician
To pacify loss of consciousness from the poison of existence
In the form of a man up to the shoulders
Holding a conch, discus and sword
Thousand headed, white
I bow respectfully
Peace

I don’t know about you, but the only thing I got out of that was ‘Peace’. No matter, the music and the Sanskrit combine for a mystical experience, the beat and melody make for an irresistible combination of hooks and bait, and the whole thing is better than it has any right to be.

I’ve always thought that Madonna should make a world music album. This seemed like it might mark the jumping off point for that, until I heard its descendant, ‘Cyberraga’, a B-side from the ‘Music’ sessions. Maybe one song in Sanskrit per career is enough.

Om shanti, Om shanti
Shanti, shanti
Shanti Om
Song #24: ‘Shanti/Ashtangi’ – Summer 1998
Continue reading ...
04
January
2011
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #23 ~ ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ – Fall 1991

{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.}

This is, luckily, one of those Madonna songs I have no real personal connection to, but it’s one of my favorites for her riveting musical portrayal of a marriage gone way off the mark. Written at the time that her relationship with husband Sean Penn was hitting the skids, this may be one of her most brutally honest, and jarringly unsentimental, songs.

You need so much, but not from me,
Turn your back in my hour of need,
Something’s wrong but you pretend you don’t see.
I think I interrupt your life,
When you laugh it cuts me just like a knife,
I’m not your friend, I’m just your little wife.

Powerful, gripping, profoundly sad, and all the while the beat is relentless, driving and pushing towards an inevitably tragic conclusion. Madonna said Sean Penn actually loved the song, embracing such unflinching, if unflattering, honesty. A brief glimpse into the madness of a marriage winding down, ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ offers hints of the personal terror of a destructive relationship. Whether it’s exactly Sean and Madonna may never be known to anyone other than the two of them.

Our luck is running out of time,
You’re not in love with me anymore,
I wish that it would change, but it won’t, if you don’t,
Our luck is running out of time,
You’re not in love with me anymore,
I wish that it would change, but it won’t,
Cause you don’t love me no more.

In honesty there is sometimes forgiveness, and maybe this was Madonna’s first step to letting go. It is certainly one of her finest artistic moments, and a highlight of the classic ‘Like A Prayer’ album. I think it’s the next set of lines that is the most heartbreaking:

The bruises they will fade away,
You hit so hard with the things you say,
I will not stay to watch your hate as it grows.
You’re not in love with someone else,
You don’t even love yourself,
Still I wish you’d ask me not to go.

I rediscovered the song in the Fall of 1991, following the ‘Truth or Dare’ splash that reignited my Madonna passion that subsists to this day. In that dark Fall, this had a bitter resignation to which my soul responded, finding some bit of a heroine in the rush of music, the downward spiral, fighting valiantly in a losing battle – the kind of battle that ends with no winner, that only serves to destroy.

He takes a drink, she goes inside,
He starts to scream, the vases fly,
He wishes that she wouldn’t cry,
He’s not in love with her anymore.
He makes demands, she draws the line,
He starts the fight, she starts the lie,
But what is truth when something dies?
He’s not in love with her anymore.
She’s had enough, she says the end,
But she’ll come back, she knows it then,
A chance to start it all again,
‘Til Death Do Us Part.
Song #23: ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ – Fall 1991
Continue reading ...
28
December
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
4 comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #22 – ‘Thief of Hearts’ ~ Fall 1992

{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.}

Bitch!

This is one of the most unintentionally hilarious songs Madonna has ever written! In keeping with that theme, I’m going to go very liberally on the exclamation points because I find them as unintentionally funny as this song! From 1992’s ‘Erotica’ album, ‘Thief of Hearts’ is a catty bitch-fight which finds Madonna going after the woman who’s going after her man.

You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
How many licks does it take?
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
Which leg do you want me to break?

Ha – Ha – Hilarious! My friend Ann and I cracked up over that last line every time we heard it. I mean, which leg do you want me to break? Oh Madonna “that’s rich!” To this day, I laugh a little whenever that line is sung, mostly because of Ann.

Here she comes, Little Suzie Ho-maker,
Thinks she’ll get respect if she screws him!

I am dying! I can still picture Ann and I laughing in Amsterdam High School, thumbing through Madonna’s riotous ‘Vanity Fair’ photos (the spread should have been titled ‘Boobs & Booty!’ not ‘Hot Madonna!’) It was a minor vacation from that cacophonous crest of adolescence, and abandoning oneself to the hokey hook-filled dance-filler of ‘Thief of Hearts’ was one way to make it through the misery.

You’ll do it, you’ll take it,
You’ll screw it, you’ll fake it,
Undo it, you’ll break it!
You’re over, you can’t take it!
{Repeat!}

Genius – simply mad genius! At a time when high school angst threatened daily to overwhelm, when the madness of hormones overflowed, there was Madonna, admonishing, “Someone please arrest her, she’s a thief of hearts! No one ever takes what’s mine!”

Bitch!

Saucy little minx, no? And as overly-dramatic as any other high school kid, which is why we could relate so well. Back then we spoke in song lyrics, and beats were our currency. We swam naked in the pool of pop music! Our heads bobbed to and fro like corks on the river of aural candy!

You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
How many licks does it take?
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
Which leg do you want me to break?

Yeeowwww! Take me, break me, make me a man! Work it, perk it, freakin’ berserk it! Shake your booty to the ground and peek-a-boo-too! We will return to our regularly-scheduled sanity, such as it is, immediately following this post.

Stop bitch!

{Glass shatters}

Now sit your ass down!!!

Song #22: ‘Thief of Hearts’ – Fall 1992

Continue reading ...
19
December
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #21 – ‘She’s Not Me’ ~ Summer 2008

{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.}

She started dressing like me and talking like me
It freaked me out,
She started calling you up in the middle of the night
What’s that all about?

The iPod has shuffled along to the saucy and slightly scornful ‘She’s Not Me’, from 2008’s ‘Hard Candy’ album. On its surface, the song is a taunting tale of a person betrayed, but I liked Madonna’s blunt intro to it on the Sticky & Sweet Tour: “Hey ladies, did you ever have a best friend who wanted to do everything that you did, including fuck your boyfriend?”

In Madonna’s case, such wariness of wanna-bes is understandable, but this is the first instance (that I recall) where she actually puts those lines of would-be Madonnas to shame in a song.

She started dying her hair and wearing the same perfume as me,
She started reading my books, and stealing my looks and lingerie…

Someone once asked if I was scared of people copying what I did, or taking photos I posted, or something like that – and when I first started this blog (way back in 2003) I did initially feel a little territorial, but that soon dissipated.

No one else can do what I do. Just like no one else can do what you do. Even if we try to do the exact same thing, it will always be different in some way.

I may not be the most skilled writer, or the greatest photographer, or the best blogger, but there is something that I bring to everything that I do that no one else can bring – it is singularly mine, and mine alone. It is the essence that we all have, that is solely ours, that is ingrained indelibly in all our interactions with the world, in every step we take and every impression we make.

She’s not me,
She doesn’t have my name,
She’ll never have what I have,
It won’t be the same.

It’s somewhat reassuring to think that even someone as definitively strong as Madonna has those moments of doubt, when it’s necessary to remind herself that “It won’t be the same.” Wimps and wanna-be’s need not apply!

As for the song itself, it’s one of the stronger confections off ‘Hard Candy’, and I love how such seemingly simple lyrics can convey multiple meanings and readings. In this case, it’s a double entendre of proclaiming that no other woman will ever be ‘Madonna’, but also that Madonna herself is not the woman that most of us think she is  – ‘She’s not me’ could be her refusal to own up to her public image or perception. Given her treatment of the song in the Sticky & Sweet Tour, which finds her harassing and dismissing various versions of her former selves (Material Girl, Slutty Virgin, Open Your Heart Peepshow Vixen, Express Yourself Glamazon), it’s a powerful indictment of the personae we have come to assume as her own.

Never let you forget…
Song #21: ‘She’s Not Me’ – Summer 2008
Continue reading ...
14
December
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
1 comment

The Madonna Timeline: Song #20 – ‘To Have and Not to Hold’ – Earliest Spring 1998

{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.}

To have, and not to hold,
So hot, yet so cold,
My heart is in your hand,
And yet you never stand close enough for me to have my way…

The thawing of that cruel and bitterly cold winter of 1998. The remnants of my Rochester ruins. The frozen wharf of a lonely Boston night. Biting winds, and the slow, gradual rebirth of the earth after the soul-rending slumber, a snow-covered sleep.

A masquerade party at the condo – the celebratory act of getting-over-it – and the lingering pangs of hurt, the sorry aftermath and sad spilled drinks of forgotten guests. A crumpled costume, all wrinkled wreckage – such fabulous flotsam and jetsam, glittering and gay in the night, sorrowful and woe-ridden in the morning.

To look, but not to keep,
To laugh – not to weep,
Your eyes, they go right through,
And yet you never do anything to make me want to stay…

The elusive, seductive pull of being told the object of your affection does not adore you back. Whispered longings, secrets never said, the killing ticking of a clock in the middle of the night, when no one is around, when the rest of the world has gone to sleep with its lovers, when the silence is crushing, and the loneliness all that is embraceable. Long gray slivers of moonlight across the floor, and a flickering candle beyond the door.

Like a moth to the flame,
Only I am to blame…
What can I do?
I go straight to you…
I’ve been told,
You’re to have not to hold…

You walk alone in the night, beneath the burgeoning buds of cherry trees, into the most romantic time of the year. You sleep alone in the dark, unafraid because you have no choice, and still you want, you yearn, you hope. There is so much to be shared.

To look, but not to see,
To kiss, but never be the object of your desire,
I’m walking on a wire and there’s no one at all to break my fall…

And then you think you find someone, and they stay with you for a while, the breeze blowing through the curtains in the night, and everything might be okay for a while, but things are strange, and the night turns cold, and you realize in your heart of hearts that it is only for a while.

Don’t break my heart…
Only I am to blame…

Song #20: ‘To Have and Not to Hold’ – Earliest Spring 1998
Continue reading ...
10
December
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #19 – ‘Waltz for Eva & Che’ – December 1996

{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.}

Continuing the Evita theme of late, the iPod has chosen another selection from that famous Andrew Lloyd Webber musical and it’s a duet between Madonna and Antonio Banderas. God knows I love a waltz, and God knows I love Madonna, so this is one of my favorites from the album. The final flourishes of the instrumental portion towards the end are especially inspiring.

Though it came in the midst of a questionable time, this song doesn’t have any heartache attached to it – only a happy memory of my college graduation party, held December 23, 1996 at my parents’ home in Amsterdam, New York. I wore a tux with tails, and even a bow tie and cummerbund. A lone calla lily served as a boutonniere. Suzie went so far as to wear a dress that was almost sleeveless. It was a big night.

The house was decorated for the holidays, lights twinkling around every corner, and the whole evening seemed to sparkle. I had managed to finish a full semester early, completing my Brandeis journey sooner than expected. I wanted out – I wanted freedom – I wanted to see the world – I wanted to waltz. And starting in the next month, I embarked on just that, but that’s another suitcase in another hall, and another story for another iPod selection.

Better to win by admitting my sin
Than to lose with a halo…
Song #19: ‘Waltz for Eva & Che’ – December 1996
Continue reading ...
05
December
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
1 comment

The Madonna Timeline: Song #18 ~ ‘Supernatural’

{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 wake up with your fragrance and it’s all over me
What cologne do you wear?

The ipod has chosen its first B-side Madonna song in the form of ‘Supernatural’. Thematically, this is more of a Halloween song than a Christmas ditty, but since it arrived in December of 1991, it has the holiday connotation, whether fitting or not. I ordered it from some overseas mail-order company (it was actually a 3 inch CD – the cutest little thing, really.) As the B-side to’Cherish’, it actually was released a year or so prior to when I got around to receiving it.

At this point in my life I was more concerned with fish and Madonna than romance, so the supernatural love story alluded to in the lyrics didn’t impress me much.

You transcendentally imposed yourself upon my bed,
You know you didn’t say very much…

Around this time I had also ordered a batch of live rock, so this song brings me back to the saltwater fish tank that housed a Heniochus and a lionfish, along with three (then two, then none) damsels. It was as exciting and pathetic as it sounds, with much of my world revolving around a closed-off bedroom, Madonna music, and an unruly head of hair that hadn’t discovered the proper products yet.

You’re not demanding for a man, that’s really quite rare
You’e not the least bit obsessed with your hair
You’re not upset when I come home later than ten
For a ghost you’re a very good friend.

I felt estranged from my whole family, isolated and powerless, scared and lonely, and my only outlet was in letters and mix tapes to Suzie, who was spending a year abroad in Denmark. She was one of my only lifelines- she and my friend Ann. Without them, I don’t know what I would have done. The world was closing in around me, and it was a world in which I played no real part. I longed for something else, somewhere that I belonged – another world perhaps – but ‘Supernatural’ was not cutting it for inspiration.

I had such high hopes for this ‘Like A Prayer’ out-take, and it was the first time I realized that some things are better left on the cutting room floor. Not that this song doesn’t have its own Halloween charm, I just couldn’t get into it at the time. It took a few more questionable B-sides before I would truly get it into my head that not every Madonna song is a keeper (‘Goodbye to Innocence’ anyone?)

A ghost baby?
Song #18: ‘Supernatural’ – December 1991
Continue reading ...
30
November
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
2 comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #17 – ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’

{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.}

Her voice has never sounded better. Even in the bustling pre-Thanksgiving buzz of Logan Airport, I can hear her clearly over the headphones of my portable CD player (this was 1996). I am about to board a flight to San Diego, my emotional state is shaky at best, but when Madonna is singing one of the most famous Andrew Lloyd Webber show tunes of all time, ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’, I pause to listen. There are storms moving in from the West, but the flight is departing on time. A heavy coat is slung over my arm, and I wish I could leave it in the cold of a Boston November. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The iPod has chosen ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ as the next selection, and while I was hoping we might get an Evita song at this time of the year, I suddenly feel ill-equipped to fully convey the sad connotations that this song evokes.

It won’t be easy,
You’ll think it strange,
When I try to explain how I feel
That I still need your love after all that I’ve done…

The Fall of 1996 found me living in Boston, and commuting to Waltham for my last semester at Brandeis. I had fallen for a classmate in my Literary Criticism course, and for a brief moment he seemed smitten with me. We shared a love of musicals, the cute guy at the Boston Chipyard, and my impeccable sense of style. We also shared a couple of late-night talks on the telephone, some pleasantly random encounters on campus, and a slight fear of our Literary Criticism professor.

I won’t go into other details here (that’s the ‘You Must Love Me‘ story, and the iPod hasn’t shuffled that way yet), but after a few weeks of flirting, one flat semi-date, and a risky letter laying it all on the line, he was not as enthralled with me as I was with him. And as my pathology has historically shown, it’s the ones who want nothing to do with me that I seem to love the most.

I had to let it happen,
I had to change…

And so, long story short, he broke my heart, in the kindest possible way, but a broken heart is a broken heart and there’s nothing much to be done about it. That November the ‘Evita’ soundtrack was released. It was Madonna in an Andrew Lloyd Webber musical – a gay man’s dream – but while the rest of the Madonna-mad homos celebrated, I tried to heal.

Back in those days, I lived a very organized and regimented life. Chalk it up to my Virgo birth sign, or my parents’ rigid structure – the point was, I had my school life and job and creative outlets strictly planned out, and there was little to no time for an emotional breakdown or messy feelings to muck up the flow. But I had read somewhere that Madonna claimed she allowed herself one day to get over a bad break-up, so the Tuesday that the ‘Evita’ soundtrack came out I designated as that get-over-it day.

Luckily, I did not have classes on Tuesday, so I slept in and putzed around the condo a bit. The day was dim and overcast, but there was no rain. I walked over to Tower Records (again, this was 1996, and it still stood on the corner of Newbury then) and bought the soundtrack.

I vividly recall the press Madonna was getting at the time, especially the one-two knock-out punch of Vanity Fair and Vogue. She was poignant, vulnerable, and poised on the brink of her first comeback following the Sex years. She’d had her first child – a daughter named Lourdes – and she was healing her lifelong hurt of a lost mother and a number of lost loves. In my dismal state I could somehow relate, and suddenly I wanted to be anywhere but where I was.

So I chose freedom,
Running around, trying everything new,
But nothing impressed me at all,
I never expected it to…

The next weekend my cousin’s wedding was taking place in San Diego. It was both exactly what I needed, and the last thing I wanted. A wedding is a wretched place to get over a broken heart, but at our darkest moments most of us turn to family – the people who have no choice but to love us. Or so we hope.

The truth is I never left you,
All through my wild days,
My mad existence…
I kept my promise,
Don’t keep your distance.

In Logan Airport, I took off my winter coat and waited for the plane to board. In my ears I listened to Madonna sing that epic song. Midway across the country, flying over all those square states, a storm appeared to the left of the plane – lightning and thick clouds swirled, and in the dark of night I almost dared God to take all of us down – I was that far gone.

Up in the sky, I felt removed from everything. The seat next to me was empty (are there ever any empty seats anymore?) so I could lie down and nap, and the flight attendants didn’t mind. While the night progressed, I was moving West and turning back time. What could be found in those three hours I was momentarily gaining? Would there be wisdom there, and would that soothe the ache?

Landing in San Diego was a healing moment of its own – the balmy humidity was a salve on the raw coldness I brought from Boston. I hopped in a courtesy van and arrived at the hotel where my family was already going about their wedding business. All except my brother would not be told of my state of mind. I wasn’t even out yet, and the accompanying loneliness and sadness weighed secretly upon me.

I tried to distract myself with the sunniness of San Diego, and the silliness of fashion, finding a tiger-print coat and a maroon ostrich boa in a vintage shop. I asked my brother to take a photo of me walking in a park, head down and countenance downtrodden, and it would become that year’s somber Christmas card. Through it all, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being unloved, and while my head (and my own brother) was telling me that this person was not worth the trouble, my heart would not be quieted – the heart wants what it wants.

At the wedding I talked and laughed with family. There were compliments on my outfits – there would always be compliments on my outfits – and if I had nothing else, I could still look good. I wondered then, if that’s all I had to offer. My lost suitor had been captivated by my clothes – in fact our first conversations revolved around clothing. How could such a superficial thing even compare to what I was feeling on the inside? And what do you do when you’ve built up such a pretty facade, but all anyone wants to do is look?

Such silly ruminations, and such a silly boy I was for feeling so devastated. Perhaps it’s even silly to speak of such things now. Yet these are the things that shaped me into the man I am today, and in so many ways those faults have not been perfectly patched. They run deep, and they run wide, and no matter how far I think I can go, they’re always with me.

And as for fortune and as for fame,
I never invited them in,
Though it seemed to the world
They were all I desired.
They are illusions,
They’re not the solutions
They promised to be
The answer was here all the time,
I love you
And hope you love me…

I didn’t cry for Argentina. I didn’t cry for Madonna and her newborn child and first shot at movie star credibility. I didn’t even cry for the boy who never sat next to me in class again.  I cried for that fact that love would never be easy for me, and that as good as I was at dressing up and making the ladies laugh, I could never be good at love.

In one of the magazine articles of the time, Madonna was talking about how she gained the coveted title role of the movie, and she said something that I grasped as hopeful for my goal of attaining a guy:

“I thought of a line from ‘The Alchemist’ that goes something like, “If you want something bad enough the whole earth conspires to help you get it.””

That’s not true in matters of love, and I think Madonna knows that too.

Have I said too much?
There’s nothing more I can think of to say to you…
But all you have to do is look at me
To know that every word is true.

Song #17: ‘Don’t Cry For Me Argentina’ – November/December 1996

Continue reading ...
23
November
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #15 ~ ‘Nobody Knows Me’

{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’ve had so many lives since I was a child,
And I realize how many times I’ve died…

The iPod bops along to Madonna’s incendiary ‘American Life’ album from 2003, shuffling over to ‘Nobody Knows Me’, a blippy, vocally-distorted stop/start stilted jolt of a song with a neat little funk-out. I think this will be perhaps best remembered for Madonna’s performance/lip-syncing of it on her Reinvention Tour (summer of 2004), when she strutted across a conveyor belt, doing some crazy-fun half-moon arm gestures.

After seeing the show in NYC, I remember marching along Broadway to my hotel with this song in my head, feeling solidly empowered and like I could take on the world. That’s the best thing about some of Madonna’s songs – they pump you up to the point that you don’t care who is staring at you as you dance (or trip) your way down Broadway.

This is, in my opinion, the only real ‘dance’ song on American Life (prior to remixes), and one of the few ‘lighter’ selections from that brilliantly dark album – in other words, it’s not indicative or representative of the rest of songs, but it is definitely a stand-out track, perhaps because of that.

The big disappointment in the concert version (as seen below), is that Madonna takes out the best part of the song – the quasi-bridge break-down:

I don’t want no lies!
I don’t watch TV!
I don’t waste my time!
Won’t read a magazine…

I’m not that kind of guy
Sometimes I feel shy…
Song #15: ‘Nobody Knows Me’ – Summer 2004
Continue reading ...
17
November
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
5 comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #14 – ‘Frozen’ ~ Winter 1998

{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 only see what your eyes want to see,
How can life be what you want it to be?
You’re frozen when your heart’s not open…

I had been hoping that the iPod would not choose this song for a while, as it’s one of the most emotional Madonna songs for me – the kind that perfectly aligns with a momentous time in one’s life, that both illuminates and shades that time, becoming a mini-anthem, dirge-like or not, and I cannot hear the song without being somewhat affected and reminded of that moment in my life.

You’re so consumed with how much you get,
You waste your time with hate and regret,
You’re broken when your heart’s not open…

It was the winter of 1998 – January – and I was living in Boston but searching, as always, for a break from where I was. Upstate, friends awaited me in Rochester, New York – and I headed there for a few days of carefree fun to dispel the wickedness of winter. We headed to a club for drinks and dancing, and in the darkness between the flashing lights, I saw him for the first time. A cute guy in overalls and a baseball cap – and a smile that was somehow, and unfathomably, meant for me.

My friend Gina went up to him and introduced us, much to my embarrassment, but he was nice and we talked. I’m not going to lie – when you’re 22 and single, every first meeting carries with it the possibility of being the first time you meet ‘the one’. (When you’re 35 and married, you realize that’s not how life really works.)

He must have known that then, but I did not. We went our own ways at the club for a while, but found our way back together at the end of the night. He wrote his name and number on a cocktail napkin and told me to call him the next day.

I was staying at Gina’s apartment, and when we got home she told me that he was a chef at a new restaurant. The next day we made reservations for dinner there, and he invited us into the kitchen to say hello. We agreed to meet up after his shift.

If I could melt your heart…
We’d never be apart…
Give yourself to me…
You hold the key.

The intervening time between dinner and meeting him is a blur, as is much of those few days. I remember being incredibly nervous until I saw him, as if I could never quite believe he was real, and whenever he was absent (which was most of the time), I felt panicked and desperate and almost manically hopeful. (Attractive traits all around.) I hid this as best as I could. There would be no crazy letters of self-saving ultimatum (not yet anyway – they would come later), and in those first few days I was free to imagine that this was the start of a great romance. That night it certainly felt so.

We went to the Avenue Pub – a local haunt less keen on style and more concerned with cheap, strong drinks. We sat at the bar and I met a few of his friends. At one point his hand rested on my knee – a sign of affection or camaraderie, I wouldn’t ever know – and though I usually cringed at being touched, with him it was all right, it was endearing, and it made me feel like I might be loved. Such a simple gesture, I don’t know how I could allow myself to believe it was so fraught with import, but there you have it. My state of mind. His casual carelessness. Our mutual desire.

Now there’s no point in placing the blame,
And you should know I suffer the same,
If I lose you, my heart will be broken…

I followed him back to his place, a rather lengthy drive through the cold winter darkness. In the dim light of a night that was suddenly filled with falling snow, we kissed and undressed. Shades of silver and gray swam among wrinkled sheets. It was warm next to him, and it was one of the only times I fell asleep without unease next to a man. What followed would do that to me. Not through any act of deliberate cruelty on his part, but in the absence of returned love – the debilitating draining that inevitably befalls unreturned affection.

In the early morning light, a layer of white snow covered the waking world. He got up to take the dogs out. I asked, jokingly, if he was going to wipe the snow off my car. He grinned before closing the door behind him. I dressed quickly in the dark chill of that morning, my body knowing even then that I needed to leave. When he returned, he asked me to stay, but I couldn’t tell if he meant it. Outside, I made the discovery that he had brushed the snow off my car.

For the rest of my stay I will call him daily, to see if he wants to meet up. He will hedge, say yes, then cancel at the last minute. I will sit, showered and dressed, in Gina’s apartment, for the next two nights – even extending my trip with the hope that he would be able to make it, and then when I absolutely had to return to work I made the solitary drive home.

Love is a bird, she needs to fly,
Let all the hurt inside of you die,
You’re broken when your heart’s not open…

Once back in Boston, I had a few phone conversations with him in which he explained that he would have liked to see me, but he just couldn’t schedule it with his busy work week. I understood, and mentioned I would be back in Rochester in a few weeks, so perhaps we could meet then. He agreed, and like a fool I believed, and returned – by bus to Amsterdam, then with my parents’ car to Rochester.

It’s strange, and a little embarrassing, to look back at my actions then, but whenever a sense of shame sneaks over me, I remind myself that I didn’t know any better. I didn’t understand that there were romantic rules of attraction, and to go against these rules meant certain ruin. If I liked someone, I let them know it. I didn’t wait three days to call, or act unavailable. If I was smitten, I didn’t hide it, and if I wanted to see someone, well, I drove six hours to see them.

Like most of the men in my life, I loved him – or thought I loved him – more than he would ever love me. As I get older, it sounds sillier and sillier for someone to say, but at that moment, in that time of my life, it was anything but silly.

On my second, third… fourth trip there, he didn’t even bother to return my calls. I sat in the car and cried, wrenching tears from a writhing shell of a body. In a rare moment of desperation, I called my Mom and simply told her that things weren’t going well. I didn’t give specifics, I just needed to hear her voice.

It was winter, and Madonna was gearing up to release her ‘Ray of Light’ album, leading off with the single ‘Frozen’. The snow fell around me as I returned to my parents’ home, and I shoveled the driveway to keep from going crazy. Walking off into the backyard forest one night, I laid down on the frozen ground, letting the snowflakes tickle and melt upon my face. On a still winter’s night, you can hear them fall – tiny pings and rustling crystals – and if you wait long enough you can join in their frozen mass. I did not wait that night.

If I could melt your heart…
We’d never be apart…
Give yourself to me…
You hold the key.

There would be more tears, and more pain, and more feelings of doubt and insecurity, and always the wondering as to my own worth. I could gain the attention and enthrallment of any number of people – yet the ones I loved the most couldn’t be bothered to love me back. It would be the conundrum that informs my life to this day.

You only see what your eyes want to see,
How can life be what you want it to be?
You’re frozen when your heart’s not open…

As for the song itself, ‘Frozen’ marked Madonna’s masterful move into electronica, by way of Morocco. With its sweepingly majestic Middle Eastern strings and barren drum programming, it melded an icy chill with desert heat – exemplified by a Goth-like video shot in the desert night. The first time I heard it was on one of those obsessive trips to Rochester. Sitting in Gina’s sad little apartment waiting for him to call, I watched as the video came on MTV – and in the tradition of ‘Like A Prayer’, the first time I heard it I didn’t like it immediately. Soon enough, it was one of my favorites – the crux of yearning and learning, obsession and lonely resignation.

If I could melt your heart…
Song #14: ‘Frozen’ ~ Winter 1998
Continue reading ...
12
November
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
No comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #13 – ‘Forbidden Love’

{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.}

Once upon a time there was a boy and there was a girl…

Am I the only one who remembers that Madonna had a song called ‘Forbidden Love’ on her 1994 album Bedtime Stories that predates this ‘Forbidden Love’ from her Confessions on a Dance Floor album over ten years later? Regardless of the recycling, the iPod has chosen this ‘Forbidden Love’, and though I have no clear-cut memories of this particular bit of passable-filler, it’s always functioned adequately as a segue into ‘Jump’.

The title is probably the most exciting part of the song, though Madonna does no in-depth follow-through for her gay fans, playing it Romeo-and-Juliet straight. As for the music, this is one of the slower songs from the non-stop action of the Confessions album, reminiscent of some Scissor Sisters work of the same time. Madonna performed the tune admirably on Madonna’s Confessions Tour (right after she climbed down from her mirror-ball cross), but I’m guessing we’ll never hear it again.

Just one kiss, just one touch, just one look, just one love…
Song #13: ‘Forbidden Love’ – 2006
Continue reading ...
08
November
2010
Tags: General, Madonna, Music
9 comments

The Madonna Timeline: Song #12 – ‘Over and Over’

{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 doesn’t matter who you are,
It’s what you do that takes you far…

Funny that the iPod should choose ‘Over and Over’ at this time – one of my favorite bloggers, Amanda Talar, recently posted a FaceBook memory of Kids Incorporated – which I recall mostly for the fact that Martika sang this very song on the show.

My other memory of the song came a few years later, when Madonna released her non-stop dance remix collection, ‘You Can Dance’, in 1987. God, those synth drum machines sound so 80’s…  where are my neon day-glo leg-warmers? I won’t even mention the elaborate dance routines I worked out to this song’s seven-minute-plus dub version. (Have I embarrassed myself enough? Hey, it was the 80’s, and we all made a lot of mistakes back then.)

As an eleven-year-old boy, the lyrics meant less to me than the catchy hook and beats, but a bit of the sentiment must have gotten through, because as fragile and superficial as some would make me out to be, I’m pretty resilient – and I do get up again, over and over. Determination, ambition, hard work, inspiration, blood, sweat, and tears – I love that this song refuses to give up.

And here’s that exercise-inducing dub version – all seven-plus-minutes of it:

I’m not afraid to say I hear a different beat…
Song #12: ‘Over and Over’ – 1985/1987
Continue reading ...