Category Archives: Madonna

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

Madonna’s B-sides and Bonus Tracks have only gotten better over the years (see ‘I Fucked Up‘, ‘Super Pop’ and ‘Beautiful Killer.’) This Madonna timeline selection – ‘Autotune Baby’ – is one of the best, wrapped in an annoying baby gimmick that almost – almost – ruins the whole beautiful affair. But I guess babies tend to do that, so we will make do. It’s a bonus track from the excellent ‘Rebel Heart’ album, and got lost in that release’s mad shuffle.

I TOLD YOU I DON’T WANT YOU ALL THE TIME CAUSE YOU’RE NOT MINE

I’M NOT IN LOVE BUT I’M IN LIKE, SO FAR IT’S WORKING FINE. 

BUT WHEN I NEED YOU THEN I’M DESPERATE,  I’M A LITTLE CHILD

JUST LIKE AN ANIMAL, DOWN ON MY KNEES AND BEGGING…

She’s employed the baby thing once in the past – in an unobtrusive bit of recorded laughter reportedly by Pat Leonard’s daughter in ‘Dear Jessie‘. That one was forgivable given the whimsical childhood fantasy of the song. This time around, an annoying child’s cry is used, distorted, and turned into a jarring musical recurrence.

YEAH, ALL WRAPPED UP, I WANNA BE YOUR LITTLE BABY NOW

PUT MY HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDER, YOU CAN ROCK ME, ROCK ME NOW

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT YOU CAN HEAR ME CRYING LOUD

PUT MY HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDER AND ROCK ME.

On repeated listens, however, it becomes an integral part of the song. Not that it isn’t for a moment anything less than grossly agitating, but there’s a useful purpose for it. That bothersome grating on the ears actually makes the chorus, when it arrives, that much sweeter. And what a gorgeous chorus it is – probably one of her best in a long time. Such a shame it had to be bound with the baby.

OPEN THE DOOR, UNLOCK ME

WE’VE GOT TONIGHT, SO ROCK ME NOW.

Lyrically it’s a casual relationship gone obsessive, a sweet love song surrounded by emotionally sadomasochistic tension. The push and pull of power and weakness, of domination and subjugation, of love and hate – it finds fruitful musical resolution in the chorus. (Again, this could have been one of the great ones were it not for that damn baby.)

I’M IN MY BED AND I’M OBSESSED AND LYING WIDE AWAKE

I NEED SOMEONE LIKE YOU TO COME AND PUT ME IN MY PLACE

CAUSE IN THE DAY I CAN’T BE TAMED, BOY YOU DON’T WANNA KNOW

BUT IN THE NIGHT MY HANDS ARE TIED, YOU TELL ME WHERE TO GO.

It’s a fuck you/fuck me lullaby, filled with barbed sweetness and poisoned candy. We all want to be so strong in the light of day. We wrap ourselves in armor and pretend that we don’t need anyone, that we are not dependent or needy creatures. Nobody wants to be the weak one.

YEAH, ALL WRAPPED UP, I WANNA BE YOUR LITTLE BABY NOW

PUT MY HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDER, YOU CAN ROCK ME, ROCK ME NOW

IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT YOU CAN HEAR ME CRYING LOUD

PUT MY HEAD ON YOUR SHOULDER AND ROCK ME.

Once the night falls, however, most of us just want to be held. Rocked gently to sleep. Comforted and wrapped in loving arms. We aren’t supposed to admit it, but there it is. From the moment we enter this cold world, we just want to be loved.

OPEN THE DOOR, UNLOCK ME

WE’VE GOT TONIGHT SO ROCK ME

OPEN THE DOOR, UNLOCK ME

WE’VE GOT TONIGHT SO ROCK ME NOW.

{I just can’t get over the damn autotune baby. I tried, but I can’t.}

ROCK ME NOW… ROCK ME NOW.

SONG #122: ‘Autotune Baby’ ~ Late Winter 2015

The Madonna Timeline returns in a few short hours with a cut from her 1994 album ‘Bedtime Stories’ – and it’s a bit of a doozy. Not for any surprises or earth-shattering revelations, but more for a specific memory frozen in time, one that exists quietly, softly echoing when the nights first start to go cold. It’s more of a fall timeline entry, but the random shuffle that constitutes the selection process is a fickle taskmaster. Before we get to that, however, let’s revisit two of the other songs that have appeared here from the ‘Bedtime Stories’ album.

It began with lead-single ‘Secret’ – a return to form while blazing a soulful new direction – and no one does that hat trick better than Madonna.

Second single ‘Take A Bow’ was the album’s biggest hit – and Madonna’s longest-running #1 Billboard single to date. She recently performed it for the first time on any tour while on the Asian leg of the Rebel Heart Tour.

Next up is a non-single that marked the defiance and sweetness that characterized the fall of 1994. Dry, brittle, brown leaves lined the streets of Boston. The first deep chill of the season had set in. There would be no more warmth until the next spring.

{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 CAN GIVE YOU EVERYTHING THAT YOU WANT

(BITCH GET OFF MY POLE! BITCH GET OFF MY POLE!)

YOU CAN’T BUY THIS AT NO LUXURY STORE

(BITCH GET OFF MY POLE! BITCH GET OFF MY POLE!)

One of the unexpected highlights of The Rebel Heart Tour has been Madonna’s performance of ‘Holy Water’ (yes, a proper tour review is still forthcoming). Previously, the song was a Prince-like throwaway from the otherwise iconic ‘Rebel Heart’ album, but as with most of her live performances, Madonna elevates the song into something much richer and more exciting than its original incarnation.

Cheeky and borderline-blasphemous, it’s classic Madonna, and the lyrics suggest a naughty simile comparing holy water with pussy juice. (Yeah, I said it, no need to wet it.) As I mentioned, I was not initially impressed with the track, but bring in some pole-dancing nuns and a phantasmagoric last-supper scene brought to life, along with that sneaky ‘Vogue’ mash moment, and suddenly I’m on board.

THERE’S A PLACE YOU GOTTA GO BEFORE I LET YOU TAKE IT ALL

IT’S LIKE A DRUG, IT SHOULD BE ILLEGAL

BABY YOU SHOULD GET DOWN LOW AND TASTE MY PRECIOUS ALCOHOL

YOU LOOK SO THIRSTY I THINK YOU NEED IT…

KISS IT BETTER, KISS IT BETTER, DON’T IT TASTE LIKE HOLY WATER?

MAKE IT WETTER, MAKE IT WETTER, DON’T IT TASTE LIKE HOLY WATER?

KISS IT BETTER, MAKE IT WETTER, DON’T IT TASTE LIKE HOLY WATER?

KISS IT BETTER, KISS IT BETTER…

It’s got a sinfully sinister bassline that worms its way into your ear, as well as lots of aural sex hiccups that burst like little orgasms along the trail to sexual salvation. Nobody melds sex and religion as masterfully as Madonna, and even if it’s been done before, it’s still a hoot and a half.

THERE’S SOMETHING YOU GOTTA HIT, IT’S SACRED AND IMMACULATE

I CAN LET YOU IN HEAVEN’S DOOR

I PROMISE YOU IT’S NOT A SIN, FIND SALVATION DEEP WITHIN

WE CAN DO IT HERE ON THE FLOOR…

SONG #120: ‘Holy Water’ – Fall 2015

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

There’s a sea anemone exhibit at the New England Aquarium in which the sea anemones are delicately lit, their tentacles waving gently in the current, while tiny bubbles float daintily to the surface. It’s tucked into a dim corner and the surroundings and the anemones themselves are so tranquil they are like sweetly-singing sirens, beckoning the unwary into their peaceable kingdom.

Yet if you watch long enough, lulled into a sense of stillness and calm, you will be harshly shocked by a sudden splash of a wave that bursts into the tank in a deluge of bubbles and tumultuous churning. It’s a rather effective mimicking of the ocean shoreline. The first time it happened I jumped back. Just a little kid, I had been peering intently at the magnificently-arrayed tentacles, my vision narrowly focused on this anemone world, so when that wave crashed into the tank, it was an unexpected explosion. Yet after my surprise, after the jolt of displaced water and air, things settled down again. The anemones remained in their places – only their pretty tentacles had waved wildly in the current. Anemones know how to anchor themselves, attaching to rocks and holding on with a tenacious grip that defies the most powerfully turbulent wave. I think of them when I hear this song.

IN A WORLD THAT’S CHANGING, I’M A STRANGER, IN A STRANGE LAND

THERE’S A CONTRADICTION AND I’M STUCK HERE IN-BETWEEN.

LIFE IS A LIKE A DESERT, AN OASIS TO CONFUSE ME

SO I WALK THIS RAZOR’S EDGE, WILL I STAND OR WILL I FALL?

TURN A BLIND EYE, TRY TO PRETEND THAT NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS

TORN BETWEEN THE IMPULSE TO STAY OR RUNNING AWAY FROM ALL THIS MADNESS

This Rebel Heart cut – the final song on some versions of the album – was originally conceived as a racing dance-stomper, but that demo was transfigured into this power ballad, complete with dirge-like marching drums, signaling the end of something.

Madonna has often hinted at the end, in all its myriad forms. ‘Live to Tell‘, ‘Spanish Eyes’, ‘Something to Remember’, ‘Mer Girl’, ‘Lament’, ‘Gone’, ‘Falling Free‘ and perhaps most daringly in ‘Take A Bow‘ (at a critical period in her career – when the post-Sex/Erotica backlash had public opinion dwelling on whether or not her career was finally over) Madonna has never shied away from questioning her own mortality, or the notion of an ending in abstraction (including the oft-predicted and ever-wrong end of her career). She has attributed some of this obsession to the death of her mother, which left her with an ending, but no real notion of how to begin again. Instead, she filled that hole with a race to live the fullest and most daring life she could, not wasting a moment, as if the ticking of the clock and her own impending end were things she could outrun. Thus far, she’s succeeded, but that hasn’t stopped her from occasionally confronting it in her work.

WHO AM I TO DECIDE WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

IF THIS IS THE END THEN LET IT COME,

LET IT COME, LET IT RAIN, RAIN ALL OVER ME

LIKE THE TIDE, LET IT FLOW, LET IT WASH ALL OVER ME, OVER ME…

For Madonna, things have always had to get a little crazy from time to time. She yearns for that tumultuous wave to come crashing down on her every so often, knowing that a jolt that shakes you to your core is the best way to rebuild. Like those beautiful and seemingly-delicate sea anemones, she relishes the rough and tumble push and pull of life’s current. Those anemones may look like exotic flowers blooming beneath the ocean’s surface, but they know how to hang on, and they carry a stinging poison in those pretty tentacles.

ALL OF MY ILLUSIONS COULD BE SHATTERED IN A SECOND

YOU COULD THREAD A NEEDLE WITH A TEARDROP FROM MY EYE

IT’S A CRUEL INJUSTICE TO BE WITNESS TO THE THINGS I SEE

LOOKING FOR THE ANSWER WHEN IT’S RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME

FROM THE TOWER OF BABYLON WHERE NOTHING IS WHAT IT SEEMS

GONNA WATCH THE SUN GOING DOWN, I’M NOT GONNA RUN FROM ALL THIS SADNESS

Outside the New England Aquarium, the wind whips around Boston Harbor with a viciousness only the ocean can unleash. Standing at the water’s edge, the city behind me, I recall other times when standing here was all I could muster. In the aftermath of heartache, in the despondent longing and hopeless wish for a pair of arms around me, I would go to the harbor to feel the sting of salt water. Outside the aquarium there was no glass wall keeping the waves from reaching us. There was nothing to stop the wind from pricking any exposed skin with that mineral-spiked water.

WHO AM I TO DECIDE WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?

IF THIS IS THE END THEN LET IT COME,

LET IT COME, LET IT RAIN, RAIN ALL OVER ME

LIKE THE TIDE, LET IT FLOW, LET IT WASH ALL OVER ME, OVER ME…

On certain nights, after trying to be as pretty and tenacious and dangerous as those sea anemones, I’d stand there feeling nothing but weakness. I thought the cold and the water and the winter would knock me down. I thought I’d never move beyond that demarcation, where water and land and sky met, where the shame of the past mingled with the possibility of the future. Yet I didn’t fall down. I stumbled a bit, and I’d stumble again, but I somehow kept going. The wind and the water rushed over me, but I was still there. A little bedraggled, a little beaten down, but still alive.

LET IT WASH ALL OVER ME, OVER ME…

LET IT WASH ALL OVER ME.

SONG #119: ‘Wash All Over Me’ – Winter/Spring 2015

“One shouldn’t ask oneself how a person flies or why, but simply start flying.” ~ Tomas Eloy Martinez, ‘Santa Evita’

It was a frigid evening in Rochester, New York in the earliest days of 1997, made more brutal by the fact that I had just come from a spell of 80 degree days in St. Croix. The sky was dark, even with all the snow on the ground. No more snow would come tonight – it was too cold. Strange, the way that works, and the way we understood it. I pulled the ridiculous faux leopard fur coat tighter around me, its satin lining sliding against my fuchsia satin shirt. Along with my dark tan from the few days of sun that now felt so far away, I made quite an absurd visage. A heavy black cross topped with a silver Christ figure dangled from my neck on a black silk cord. Taken together, this was my get-up for the Rochester stop of The Royal Rainbow Tour 1997, and I was heading to the movie theater with friends to see ‘Evita.’

My biggest fear in life is to be forgotten. ~ Evita Peron

 {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 WILL BE A REVOLUTION OF INQUIRING FURTHER

OF NOT WORRYING ABOUT WINNING OTHER PEOPLE’S APPROVAL

OF NOT WISHING YOU WERE SOMEONE ELSE BUT PERFECTLY CONTENT TO BE WHO YOU ARE:

SOMEONE UNIQUE, AND RARE, AND FEARLESS.

I WANT TO START A REVOLUTION OF LOVE…

A grand orchestral introduction and a parade of shirtless minotaur-men ushered in the Madonna of 2015, as she took to the Grammy stage to kick off the ‘Rebel Heart’ era. Most pop stars have only one or two ‘eras’ for which they are known. Madonna has had many: ‘Like A Virgin‘, ‘True Blue‘, ‘Like A Prayer‘, ‘Blonde Ambition‘, ‘Erotica/Sex‘, ‘Evita‘, ‘Ray of Light‘, ‘Music‘, and ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor’. Her ‘Rebel Heart‘ era may be the most interesting and compelling, at least for long-time fans, as it is the first in which she has not enjoyed major mainstream success. And yet it may be her most artistically powerful and critically lauded.

In early 2015, after the gut-wrenching leak of much of the ‘Rebel Heart’ album, she set out to do a proper intro to her new work with the first single ‘Living For Love’. With an updated 90’s house feel and some gospel backing, it was first-rate Madonna – an ‘I Will Survive’ for the current generation – rousing, empowering, and gloriously uplifting.

FIRST YOU LOVE ME AND I LET YOU IN,

MADE ME FEEL LIKE I WAS BORN AGAIN

YOU EMPOWERED ME, YOU MADE ME STRONG

BUILT ME UP AND I COULD DO NO WRONG.

I LET DOWN MY GUARD, I FELL INTO YOUR ARMS

FORGOT WHO I WAS, I DIDN’T HEAR THE ALARMS

NOW I’M DOWN ON MY KNEES, ALONE IN THE DARK

I WAS BLIND TO YOUR GAME, YOU FIRED A SHOT IN MY HEART.

This was a Madonna draped in the richest red, her passion and heart on full unabashed display, but shot through with a prickly world-wariness that read less as bitter and more as wise. The anticipation and excitement for new Madonna music was always grander than it was for others, and this lead single was a throwback and a step forward. Like a phoenix, she would be called upon to rise a few times, and even though she’d always succeeded, nervousness greeted the arrival of any new work. It was as if I had some vested stake in the reception and success of one of her projects, as if somehow my existence depended in part on the existence of Madonna, as if a failure for her would somehow be a failure for me. That’s a little crazy, but that’s true fandom, and I’ll never apologize for it.

Thanks in no small part to its early leak, the song and video for ‘Living For Love’ failed to catch fire on the charts (with the notable exception of the Billboard Dance charts, where she would land a history-shattering #1, breaking her own record). In a landscape where melody and meaning are losing out to shock and salaciousness, the OG shock mistress barely made a dent. As for the video, I find it may be too deeply beautiful and symbolic to find a place in the current pop world. Yet it appears that Madonna is far beyond that, and has been for some time. For die-hard fans such as myself, the charts no longer as much, if anything at all. The lack of airplay and Billboard numbers has not diminished my love for Madonna’s music; if anything, I listen to it more intently and defiantly.

TOOK ME TO HEAVEN, LET ME FALL DOWN

NOW THAT IT’S OVER I’M GONNA CARRY ON

LIFTED ME UP AND WATCHED ME STUMBLE

AFTER THE HEARTACHE I’M GONNA CARRY ON

LIVING FOR LOVE,

I’M LIVING FOR LOVE

NOT GIVING UP

I’M GONNA CARRY ON

LIVING FOR LOVE

I’M LIVING FOR LOVE

NOT GONNA STOP

LOVE’S GONNA LIFT ME UP

As for my own little maelstrom of a life, at the time of this song’s release – right around the holidays – I had my own bit of family business to move beyond, so this song doubled as more than just a break-up rebound anthem. It was a clarion for anyone who’d been hurt or wronged, a way of working out the pain in a piece of pop music, the kind of therapy that Madonna has been giving me for years. The best kind.

I COULD GET CAUGHT UP IN BITTERNESS

BUT I’M NOT DWELLING ON THIS CRAZY MESS

I FOUND FREEDOM IN THE UGLY TRUTH

I DESERVE THE BEST AND IT’S NOT YOU

YOU’VE BROKEN MY HEART, BUT YOU CAN’T BREAK ME DOWN

NOT FALLING APART, ONCE WAS LOST NOW I’M FOUND

PICKED UP MY CROWN, PUT IT BACK ON MY HEAD

I CAN FORGIVE, BUT I WILL NEVER FORGET

The best revenge is happiness. The best way to finding peace is to put your faith in love. Not in being loved, but in loving even when it’s not returned. It’s a waste, and, worse, a source of anger, to continue to wish for people to be fair and righteous, to love you as you have loved them. It’s a certain guarantee of heartbreak to rely upon others to provide such a safe haven.

Yet in spite of this, I will love, without condition or expectation, and I will put my faith in that.

TOOK ME TO HEAVEN, LET ME FALL DOWN

NOW THAT IT’S OVER I’M GONNA CARRY ON

LIFTED ME UP AND WATCHED ME STUMBLE

AFTER THE HEARTACHE I’M GONNA CARRY ON

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LIVING FOR LOVE,

I’M LIVING FOR LOVE

NOT GIVING UP

I’M GONNA CARRY ON

LIVING FOR LOVE

I’M LIVING FOR LOVE

NOT GONNA STOP

LOVE’S GONNA LIFT ME UP

As I watched Madonna at the Grammy Awards last winter, premiering her new song for most of the world, I felt a little better, the way Madonna always made me feel a little better. At one point she spun in a circle, tossed her hair forward and back, then led her dancers in sweetly-choreographed abandon, much the same way she bounced around to ‘Like A Virgin’ three decades ago.

The spark was still there. The girl was still inspiring. Best of all, I still needed her.

LIVING FOR LOVE,

I’M LIVING FOR LOVE

NOT GIVING UP

I’M GONNA CARRY ON

LIVING FOR LOVE

I’M LIVING FOR LOVE

NOT GONNA STOP

LOVE’S GONNA LIFT ME UP

SONG #118 – ‘Living For Love’ ~ Winter 2015

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

YOU’RE GONNA LOVE THIS

YOU CAN’T TOUCH THIS

CAUSE I’M A BAD BITCH!

Here is the colorful set of stairs she playfully climbed.

Here is the red water fountain from which she sipped.

Here is the bar where she dumped a drink down a cute male model’s throat.

This is the Standard High Line, where Madonna filmed her latest video – ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ – the last single from the amazing ‘Rebel Heart’ album. For some of us die-hard Madonna fans, every place she inhabited – no matter how fleetingly – is sacrosanct ground. We worship such locations as though they were little shrines to Our Lady of Perpetual Reincarnation. (The only reason we ever went to the Gaiety was to be in an actual place that Madonna had also been in. I swear.)

When I found myself ensconced at the Standard, I made a point of seeking out some of the spots where she filmed the video, and I felt the same thrill as I did when passing into that seedy theater where some of ‘Sex’ was shot. Decades later, I am riding up in the elevator to the top of the hotel. Psychedelic and surreal videos play on the walls, while foreboding orchestral music taunts from the blackness above.

Here she may have risen, I think with a giddy burst of excitement.

The floors of the Standard, accessible only by those with a proper key card, silently and invisibly zoom past. Pop scenes continue to unfurl on the video screen – Julie Andrews in ‘The Sound of Music’ juxtaposed with an abundance of bare-breasted ladies – as I reach the upper floors. The doors open to a brilliant white hallway. Everything is brighter this high in the sky.

WE HIT THE ELEVATOR RIGHT UP TO THE ROOFTOP

THE BASS IS PUMPING, MAKES ME WANNA SCREW THE TOP OFF

YEAH WE’LL BE DRINKING AND NOBODY’S GONNA STOP US

AND WE’LL BE KISSING ANYBODY THAT’S AROUND US.

Like the greatest Madonna songs, ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ is, more than anything else, inspirational. It makes me feel like I can do anything. Act like a forty-year-old fool. Be brave. Take all my clothes off in front of an entire city. It’s the same feeling Madonna inspired when I was a frightened little boy, dancing in a neighbor’s basement and forcing myself to be seen and heard, the same feeling I had when I traveled to Russia at the height of summer, and the same feeling I had when I drove through an early spring night blasting her ‘MDNA’ album. It’s something that no other artist has yet to inspire in me, this sense of courage to be completely myself in the face of a world that wants us only to conform. Madonna does that for me, and no matter what anyone else might say or think of the woman, it’s something that has literally saved my life. Best of all, it’s something that can never be taken away.

I JUST WANNA HAVE FUN TONIGHT!

PULL ME UNDER THE FLASHING LIGHT!

LET ME BLOW UP THIS HOUSE TONIGHT!

I walk around the hallway where some of the video was shot. Bending over to take a sip of water from the red fountain, I pause while my friend Chris takes a picture. Outside the gym area, a circular window looks out onto water. In the center of it, far in the distance, stands the Statue of Liberty – the same one that made a cameo in Madonna’s’Papa Don’t Preach’ video. At this point in her career, it is almost impossible to avoid self-references, and there’s a certain sadness in that. A sorrow in the way that it must feel constricting. Memories can be chains that bind, and the past can be a lugubrious albatross that lurks behind every turn, showing up just when you think you’d gone far enough beyond what you wanted to escape. I look out the window and wonder if Madonna looked out the same one, longing for something.

Brazen, blistering and bodacious, ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ manages to be classic and new Madonna at once. The sound is of the moment; the attitude is one she’s had from the beginning. A rallying anthem for fun and good times (much like ‘Turn Up the Radio’) it’s a desperate plea for throwing caution to the wind, and for proving that we can still go hard all night long and meet the break of dawn. In the city of New York, it’s the perfect music of the night.

WE’RE JUMPING IN THE POOL AND SWIMMING WITH OUR CLOTHES ON

I POURED A BEER INTO MY SHOE AND GOT MY FREAK ON

THE NEIGHBOR’S PISSED AND SAYS HE’S GONNA CALL THE FIVE-O

IF THEY SHOW UP THEN WE ARE GONNA GIVE A GOOD SHOW

I JUST WANNA GO OUT TONIGHT!

PULL ME UNDER THE FLASHING LIGHT!

LET ME BLOW UP THIS HOUSE TONIGHT!

Many of us have had such nights in the city, when the phone is telling you it’s 4 AM and you don’t believe it, so you end up crawling to some diner because you still don’t want it to end. It’s that romantic possibility of a few more minutes of the moment, when anything still might happen, or when you know it won’t but you like the company and feeling so much you can’t face closing your eyes to it. A night that’s so good that the arrival of morning is not met with relief or rejoicing, but almost sadness.

WE GO HARD OR WE GO HOME

WE GONNA DO THIS ALL NIGHT LONG

WE GET FREAKY IF YOU WANT

NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH, NAH…

BITCH I’M MADONNA.

Whenever I feel down or apprehensive about something, when the world is waiting to strike through the heart with its cold indifference, I put on a song like this. It builds me up from within, giving me an internal armor that lets me be the man everyone thinks I am – the guy who doesn’t care, who can charge through life confident and collected, put-together and perfectly secure in who he is.

It doesn’t matter that it’s not exactly true. Confidence can be built from the ground up. On the roof-deck of the Standard, looking out over what might as well be the whole world, I feel invincible – and for that one moment, I am.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

YOU CAN’T MESS WITH THIS LUCKY STAR.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?

SONG #117: ‘Bitch I’m Madonna’ ~ Now, 2015

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

A million miles later
We walked through the valley of the darkest night
We made it through the fire
We’re scarred and we’re bruised, but our hearts will guide us
Together
I know our love’s gonna last forever
We’re gonna be alright
Tonight

In a record-setting fourth-song-in-a-row-from-a-single-album, the Madonna Timeline has once again randomly skipped to a ‘Rebel Heart’ track. This time it’s ‘Hold Tight’ which features a straight-from-the-radio-even-if-it-won’t-be-played-on-it percussive percolator that finds Madonna espousing clichwd-verses of the everything’s-gonna-be-all-right sort. For me, it’s pure filler, but I think if she found a live venue for this (with some serious drums filling the stage, as seemed to be a possibility in the advance video peeks of tour rehearsal footage) it might make me a bigger fan.

For the moment, this is a filler in the Timeline too. We are getting closer to the final twenty-five percent of Madonna songs left on the iTunes circle for this Timeline, but there are still a few gems and jewels with memories to rival the best – after all, we have yet to hit – ‘Express Yourself’ or ‘Vogue’ – two monumental songs from the Madonna canon that speak wonderful words, elicit lovely memories, and conjure some life-changing moments. For now, just hold tight…

We’ll live with no limits
We’ll dance in the middle of the freezing rain
With you and I in it
Survive the eye of a hurricane
Together
We’re gonna make this better
We’re gonna be alright tonight

Hold tight
As long as you’re by my side
Hold tight
Everything’s gonna be alright

Only love, only love tonight
Lights off, we’re burning so bright
Hold tight
Everything’s gonna be alright

SONG #116: ‘Hold Tight’ – Spring 2015

There are two widely acknowledged but mostly-just-perceived failures in the course of Madonna’s long and winding career. The first and most spectacular would have to be her ‘Sex’ book. Along with her ‘Erotica album, it remains the most striking milestone in three decades of controversy. After that the most notable failure would probably be considered the ‘American Life’ album and video. In the aftermath of each she put out fall albums that resurrected a career that wasn’t quite prepared to be nailed to the cross. The first was ‘Bedtime Stories‘ following ‘Erotica.’ The second (and the one for which we are celebrating a 10th anniversary this week) is ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ following ‘American Life.’

To be fair there were successful endeavors after those low-points (the ‘Girlie Show Tour’ and the ‘Reinvention Tour’ were actually the most immediate follow-ups – evidence that Madonna on tour is a foolproof way to win over everyone all over again) but I think it’s her musical output after each questionable career lull that is the true mark of her merit.

Despite the crowd-pleasing closest-to-a-greatest-hits-tour-she’ll-likely-ever-do ‘Reinvention’ jaunt of 2004, the reparation to the ‘American Life’-scarred Madonna only came to full fruition in the fall of 2005. She’d just broken a bunch of bones falling off a spooked horse, and the weeks of recuperation in advance of her new album left her chomping at the bit. When she is hungry for a hit – commercial or artistic – Madonna is at her best. When the world has counted her out, she comes back better than ever. By the time ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ was released, the time was ripe for a Madonna Renaissance.

With its brilliant, if somewhat predictable, sampling of the classic Abba arpeggios, lead single ‘Hung Up’ was huge. An immense international hit that brought Madonna near the top of the charts again, it barreled into November with a stomping bass-line and catchy chorus that stampeded dance clubs and brought back a bit of glamour to a tired scene. The video was a cheeky ode to ‘Saturday Night Fever’, and no one but Madonna could have melded the 70’s, 80’s and current dance music so effectively.

Dance music was where she had first made her indelible mark, and whenever she seemed to be losing her way, a dance classic brought her back home. (See ‘Ray of Light’.) ‘Confessions’ was literally a non-stop dance explosion, each track segueing seamlessly into the next, yet the songs were gorgeously distinctive enough to stand on their own – a nifty hat trick that’s more difficult that it might seem.

No matter what transgressions Madonna may have perpetrated in the past, all is forgiven when she returns to the dance floor. ‘Confessions’ was a love letter to her most die-hard fans, but a brilliant record on its own terms, garnering almost universal praise and re-establishing her prominence in the fickle pop culture world.

The ‘Confessions’ era of 2005 was a pivotal return to form for Madonna, one that winked at the past while looking unflinchingly toward the future. With its perky pastiche of dance music inspired by the previous three decades, it was a pleasant reminder of what Madonna did better than anybody else. Yet there were deeper things at work too, with admittedly-confessional lyrics that brought some substantive heft to the twinkling mirrorball surface. When she snarls, “Just watch me burn” in ‘Let It Will Be’ and invokes the listener to “Wrestle with your darkness” in ‘Isaac’ she’s not just laying down meaningless word-play over driving beats – she’s seeking something closer to a spiritual exercise, some essence of the human experience that might remain when the lights come up on the dance floor.

It’s strange that I should remember events that happened twenty years ago better than I remember what happened yesterday, but that’s what being 40 years old does to a person, and quite frankly things often seemed a lot more exciting then. Well, not so much exciting as simply less predictable. In November of 1995, when I was first moving into the Boston condo, things were decidedly chaotic, even if it was mostly on an emotional plane. (That particular plane has never been exactly stable anyway.)

Madonna, aiming for a softer, quieter image in the months leading up to ‘Evita’ had released her first compilation of ballads, ‘Something to Remember’ and I traveled into Boston to pick up a copy from Newbury Comics. Back then there was a store by Government Center (before the one at Quincy Market opened). It was a drab, gray day – typical of a New England November, and a slight mist was hanging in the air. Not even falling, really, it was more like a very thick fog that disappeared as soon as you tried to disappear into it. I walked by the unremarkable City Hall building, surrounded by further drabness, and the city felt shrouded in a sheath of gray, everything muted and quiet like the murky beginning of the album.

Pausing at the top of the stairs that led down to Faneuil Hall I opened up the liner notes and read the songs she had chosen for this one, looking at the elegant photos and wardrobe from her recent Versace shoot. Each entry would eventually have its own memory attached to it. The new ones would have theirs as well, even if I didn’t know them yet. Together, they were a way of looking back…

1. I Want You

2. I’ll Remember

3. Take A Bow

4. You’ll See

5. Crazy For You

6. This Used To Be My Playground

7. Live To Tell

8. Love Don’t Live Here Anymore

9. Something To Remember

10. Forbidden Love

11. One More Chance

12. Rain

13. Oh Father

14. I Want You (orchestral version)

I looked around as Madonna’s collaboration with Massive Attack percolated in my ears. Across the expanse, I could see the beginnings of the walk that would lead to Beacon Hill, where the first man I ever kissed might have still lived. I’d lost track of him the year before. He almost broke my heart, but I was not yet bitter. I wondered, as I often did, what had or would become of him. Beneath his plain white sheets, in the sunny then dark fall in which we met, there had been some measure of love, or at least some fleeting bit of affection that might pass as love for the very desperate (of which I had to count myself). He was gone now, and would remain so, but that was ok. I mean, I was ok with it by that time.

Turning back and looking down over the cobblestone patch that marked the entrance to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, I thought of my mother. She had first taken us there a number of years ago, and we had stayed at a Holiday Inn just a few streets down. We watched ‘E.T.’ in the movie theater, and my brother and she had cried. I forced myself not to, knowing that once I started I might never stop. We’d gone to Quincy Market and ate pizza in the food hall. The bull markets fascinated us with their useless and overpriced items, and shops like The Nature Company and Geoclassics held allure with their semi-precious stones and minerals. Even in the midst of Boston, the pull of nature held me rapt as a kid. I went through a few visits in my head, as ‘I’ll Remember’ played in the background.

By the time ‘Take A Bow’ began, I was walking down the stairs, covered in the finest mist blowing in from the harbor. This was only the beginning. A Boston winter was rarely an easy time. Far worse was in store for us, and the foam-capped sea, tumultuous and churning, mirrored the raging heart, and all of it under the lunacy of the moon made for a memorable few months. As soft and quiet as these ballads were, beneath them roared an emotional tempest. Yet because I did not know what was to come, I faced it all with some foolhardy courage, born from sheer ignorance, and fostered in unwitting innocence. I was only twenty years old.

Twenty years later, I still remember.