Category Archives: Madonna

Yesterday marked the day, way back in 1992, when Madonna released her ‘Erotica’ album. It was the fall of my senior year in high school, and I was in a very dismal place. The prospect of leaving home in less than a year was a frightening light at the end of a tunnel from which I wasn’t sure I could escape. The last days of October ripped the leaves from the trees. Summer had long since surrendered. In the moments that led up to the release of ‘Erotica’ I felt like those leaves. Torn. Shredded. Fallen. Falling…

It was a dark time, and ‘Erotica’ was one of Madonna’s darker albums, which makes it one of her best. There were scorching spots like ‘Fever’ and ‘Thief of Hearts.’ There were softer stretches like ‘Bad Girl’ and ‘Rain.’ There were even funny bits like ‘Bye Bye Baby‘ along with under-rated, overlooked gems like ‘Words.’ And there were classic tracks like ‘Deeper and Deeper’ and ‘Erotica‘ itself.

To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would ever hear the album. At that time, I wasn’t sure I’d need my math homework the next day. I felt on the verge of self-annihilation. In the backyard, I stood lonely sentry by piles of oak leaves, after raking the expanse of dying lawn behind the house. From my hands, cold and wet clumps of leaves and twigs dropped into black garbage bags. In the folds of plastic that was the shade of clear night sky, I looked at molten-like reflections of clouds and pine trees and the bare branches of deciduous nudity.

Sometimes I feel emotionally naked on this blog. This is one of those times. It’s always easier to take your clothes off than show your heart and share your secrets. Suddenly I want to clam up and stop the telling of this story – and since this is my blog, that’s exactly what I’m going to do. For now, at least. I don’t feel like talking about it. But it’s already been said, and written about, and if you delve deep enough here it’s not difficult to piece it together. Tricksters don’t like to be caught, but sometimes we do get trapped.

In a similar way, ‘Erotica’ was the trap that Madonna set for herself. We all do it at some point. We design situations to test, to try, to risk, and, yes, to die. Bound by the ropes we weave, tied up in chains of self-construction, she exorcised her demons publicly, brazenly baring her body in her ‘Sex’ book and aurally releasing herself in the ‘Erotica’ album. It was a piece of pop art that pissed people off, because it raised a mirror to the world. No matter how vain we secretly (or not-so-secretly) are, the world despises anyone who points that mirror at it uninvited. I did not understand that then. I don’t think Madonna did either.

Whenever someone questions me about my love and adoration for Madonna, I think back to the fall that ‘Erotica’ came out, and how she was partly responsible for saving my life. It would be foolish to attribute my survival solely to her, but she most certainly played an integral role in getting me through the rough times.

She still does.

Madonna would make it past the critical and commercial downturn that the ‘Erotica’ period became, and I would make it past that frightening fall. Sometimes, though, on rainy nights late in October, I remember when the leaves fell in 1992, and I marvel that we escaped.

Surrender to me, to 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.}

Not every Madonna song is a classic in the mold of ‘Like A Prayer’ or ‘Ray of Light‘ – and even though this Madonna Timeline selection is reportedly one of Guy Oseary’s favorites, I’ve never been all that fond of it (though the video and sound are classic early Madonna.) This is ‘Burning Up’ – a relic from the 80’s that probably should remain buried there. I differ from many Madonna fans on my antipathy for the song, but there’s enough room in the world for different tastes, so I’m standing by my dislike.

Don’t put me off ’cause I’m on fire
And I can’t quench my desire
Don’t you know that I’m burning up for your love
You’re not convinced that that is enough
I put myself in this position
And I deserve the imposition
But you don’t even know I’m alive
And this pounding in my heart just won’t die
I’m burning up

‘Burning Up’ treated us to one of the first hallmarks of many a Madonna song: an unabashed ode to sexuality and pleasure that could also be read as an ode to love. Underneath all the double entendres there is the simple excitement of feeling the heat from an object of affection, and the passionate will to do anything for said object.

You’re always closing your door
Well that only makes me want you more
And day and night I cry for your love
You’re not convinced that that is enough
To justify my wanting you
Now tell me what you want me to do
I’m not blind and I know
That you want to want me but you can’t let go
Come on, let go!

It also set Madonna apart from everyone else, particularly in the way she snarls, “Unlike the others I’ll do anything, I’m not the same, I have no shame, I’m on fire!” Little did the world knew how true she would prove that to be.

You know you got me burning up, baby (Burning up for your love)
You know you got me burning up, baby (Burning up for your love)

Song #108: ‘Burning Up’ – 1983

{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.}

The woman stands alone in the spotlight. Thousands of screaming fans surround her, watching her every move, but she is undeniably alone, and, dare it be said, perhaps a little lonely. Her hair is disheveled, her body is both beautiful and a wreck – bound by a corset, restricted by lace, and held only half together by her trademark fishnet stockings. She looks a bit broken and fiercely forlorn. The familiar pop chirp and breezy bounce of the signature track is almost unrecognizable in this waltz – and the woman, almost three decades after she first sang the song, imbues the performance with a tragically ironic take on all that is shiny and new. This is Madonna and her latest incarnation of ‘Like A Virgin’ – the emotional high-point of the MDNA Tour. She sings to a plaintive slowed-down ballad version, with world-weary fatigue and heartrending abandon. Here, then, is our Queen, laid low by life. It is a mesmerizing moment from a woman who has made a career of transcending the boundaries of pop culture.

‘Like A Virgin’ is the album that catapulted her into the pop culture stratosphere, and it remains her best-selling album in the United States. As for the title song, it had a bass-line influenced by Michael Jackson, and the synth-heavy production so favored in the 80’s. It also had a universal message, particularly when you take out the mundane literal readings of the lyrics, and nothing that has lasted all this time could ever be seriously dismissed as a novelty song. Madonna herself has always claimed that ‘Virgin’ was less about losing one’s virginity and more about a freshness, a feeling of newness and wonder as befits the beginning of any relationship. There was a sexual aspect running through all of it, however, one that even she couldn’t deny, but to peg it solely as a sex song is largely missing the mark, and ignoring its lasting cultural influence.

I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through

Didn’t know how lost I was until I found you

I was beat, incomplete, I’d been had, I was sad and blue

But you made me feel, yeah you made me feel shiny and new… 

Going back a few years before the opening scene, she gave the song an electro-twist, riding around on a futuristic abstract horse on the Confessions Tour in 2006, while x-rays of her recently-broken ribs flashed across screens behind her. In that version she was the triumphant rider, returning to the scene of a crime in Madonna-fashion, defying that which struck her down a few months prior. By that time, ‘Like A Virgin’ was already a well-tread warhorse of its own, having undergone such drastic tinkering as 1993’s Girlie Show incarnation.

For that circus-like romp, Madonna donned a top hat and tails, channeling Marlene Dietrich in full androgynous glory. It came, right after the ‘Sex’ book and ‘Erotica’ album, with a comforting wink and nod (and only one phallic rising that was more comical than offensive). At the very moment that her career was saturated with sex, Madonna made ‘Virgin’ the unlikely heart of a rather family-friendly portion of an otherwise erotic-heavy show. That’s defiance. That’s the power of the shiny and new.

Like a virgin

Touched for the very first time

Like a virgin

When your heart beats

Next to mine.

It’s withstood the test of time due in large part to Madonna’s varied performances of the song, from a silly throwaway mash-up on the ‘Who’s That Girl‘ Tour to more magnificent executions such as in the epic Blonde Ambition Tour documented in ‘Truth or Dare’. To this day, the latter remains my favorite rendering of the song. Maybe it was the time period that ‘Truth or Dare‘ was released – the summer of 1991 – and its coinciding with my budding adolescence, or the infamous golden Gaultier cone-bra, or the simple brazen act of someone who had the nerve to rub one out for all the world to see, but for whatever reason, that’s the rendition of ‘Like A Virgin’ that means the most to me.

Gonna give you all my love boy

My fear is fading fast

Been saving it all for you

Cause only love can last.

“So, what’s considered masturbation?” the diminutive woman asked as she adjusted her head-set beneath the tangle of her blonde, Barbie-doll pony-tail.

“When you stick your hand in your crotch,” her brother sheepishly answered.

Such was the exchange that Madonna had with her brother Christopher before going on-stage in Toronto for that night’s show. It was, by many accounts, the pinnacle of her outrageous power, and her masturbatory performance of ‘Like A Virgin’ was the centerpiece of sexual provocation. Forget the cone-shaped bras strapped onto the male back-up dancers, the harem-like Middle-Eastern revision of the song, and the red velvet bed on which our tainted heroine draped her body – it was the simple act of self-satisfaction that had so many in an uproar, and this boy in rapt wonder and awe.

Watching her command the audience, and the world, with a brush of her nether-regions, illustrated the power of sex. It was titillation, it was promise, it was tease and release. It was a woman in control, with men as supporting players at best (and likely gay and uninterested to boot.) With a single touch, she brought a parochial world to its knees. With a simple grind, she felled centuries of male-domination. With one final flourish, she cried out to God and released the tormented torrent of the life of a woman.

You’re so fine,

And you’re mine

Make me strong, yeah you make me bold

Cause your love thawed out

Yeah your love thawed out

What was scared and cold.

As a gay boy, I didn’t quite get turned on by the proceedings, instead I took a different lesson: the power of self-love. Literally. Tied in with that was the power of sex and the power of seduction, along with the power that comes from being the object of desire, untouchable but for her own hands, isolated and alone yet watched by thousands. It was a daring show of raw sexuality and unabashed self-pleasure that left jaws-dropping wherever the Blonde Ambition tour landed. It is the image of ‘Like A Virgin’ that I retain to this day. It’s a far cry from its original version.

Like a virgin

Touched for the very first time

Like a virgin

When your heart beats

Next to mine.

Back in 1984, a lot of the world hadn’t quite heard of Madonna. I myself missed out on her debut album – including ‘Holiday’, ‘Lucky Star’, and ‘Borderline’ (I was, after all, only nine years old) but by 1985 ‘Material Girl’ brought her into my life, and my life into sudden-focus. Its infectious beat kept me glued to the rest of the ‘Like A Virgin’ album. Even so, the title song, and its accompanying Bride-in-Venice video didn’t do much for me. It was catchy enough, and I sensed in the title a certain degree of naughtiness, but at that time in my life I listened, shrugged, and fast-forwarded to ‘Dress You Up.’

You’re so fine, and you’re mine

I’ll be yours til the end of time

Cause you made me feel, yeah you made me feel

I’ve got nothing to hide.

Looking back, I wish I’d paid more attention to this moment and that first flush of Madonnamania. My wanna-be years were a bit further off, but something must have touched me. Now, it means a little more. ‘Like A Virgin’ tugged at my ears, at my pants, at my head, and at my heart. As it grew in resonance over the years, it came to mean different things at different times, but always the hope of starting over, the freshness of a new beginning, the bright bursting of a heart newly in love. If I listen closely enough, if I close my eyes and let my mind wander back, I can remember the innocence of childhood – and there it is again, all shiny and new… for the very first time.

Song #107: ‘Like A Virgin’ – 1984

It is a moment pregnant with possibility. She stands on the precipice of something great, and almost every time this has happened in the past (and there have been many such times), she’s jumped off and soared. That anticipation is in the air again, but still I find myself wanting something more. She is, after all, Madonna.

Despite playing on Instagram and teasing bits of what may musically come, she’s been largely quiet of late. A pristinely-photo-shopped romp with Katy Perry on the cover of a magazine gave fans a slight bone, but we’re salivating for more. Traditionally she averages about two years between albums, bridged with soundtracks and other projects, so we’re almost due for a new one – the first since 2012’s powerful if slightly-unappreciated ‘MDNA’. That colorful record was a driving, if at times dark, exercise in exorcism, dwelling on her divorce (‘Love Spent‘, ‘Gang Bang‘) and balanced by fluffier fare (‘Girl Gone Wild‘, ‘Gimme All Your Luvin‘, ‘Turn Up the Radio‘) but it wasn’t the miraculous pop moment she’s conjured in the past (‘Ray of Light‘, ‘Like A Prayer‘). The world awaits a proper return to form, but this world is drastically different from the world in which she rose to prominence three decades ago. Can she still cut it? Yes, but only if she goes back to her roots.

For the past several years, Madonna has, quite shockingly to some of us, kept largely to the same hairstyle. While this may seem trivial and off-focus, I bring it up because it’s a key feature to her career, and the point of this post. “Everyone always says, ‘Oh, she reinvented herself,’ but the thing is, I just get a new haircut every year, which everyone should do,” she once said. This was powerful, even if you think it’s frivolous. When was the last time you got a new haircut? Not any haircut – not the one you usually get, not the one your stylist lovingly knows so well – but a brand new color, a brand new length, a brand new look. I’m guessing most of us haven’t done that in years – if ever. Madonna used to do that with charming regularity, and drastically different results each time. It was a part of her success, and part of the unexpected thrill we got when each new image morphed into the Madonna canon.

Yet since 2005’s ‘Confessions on a Dancefloor’, she’s kept mostly to the reddish-blonde soft-frame of curls she still sports – it’s the look she wore for her H&M ads, the Reinvention/Confessions/Sticky and Sweet tours, and her impressive appearance at the Superbowl. It works for her, but to me it’s starting to feel, dare I say it, stagnant. That’s the one thing Madonna is not. Shape-shifting, jumping, and executing hairpin turns at a breakneck pace, she has never stood still or waited for very long. But her reliance on the tried and true, as well as her work with of-the-moment hit-makers, points to a recent tendency to play it safe.

What I want from Madonna is for her to go back to the beginning – to go back to being brave. I want her to age with dignity and defiance. I want the perennial ‘Fuck you’ attitude to re-surface and carry her into maturity in a way that once again redefines and challenges the ways in which society has slowly and predictably been trying to trap her. She falls prey to that with every round of face-filler, with every photo-shopped worry-line. Rather than skirting those issues or chasing the elusive quest for eternal youth (and there’s a good chance that some of us worry about that more than Madonna does), she would be the best one to champion a graceful yet empowering way of aging.

I’m not saying she needs to tone anything down – if anything, I’m suggesting the opposite. And in simply continuing to do what she does, she’s already, in a sense, defied a bunch of rules. Though the rebel in me secretly hopes for an earth-rattling ‘Sex‘ or ‘American Life‘ moment that pisses off more people than it pleases, she’s probably wise not to go for simple shock value. There have been delicious glimpses of it – her nipple-baring antics and butt-cheek peep-shows, which excited and thrilled even this staunchly gay character – and she still gets pages of press for something as small and silly as popping in a set of gold grillz. But I want her, more than anything, to be real. That was the real power of Madonna in my formative years. She glammed it up as her fame and money increased, but you always got the sense – and the photos to prove it – that she was willing to get down and sweaty on the dance floor with the gay boys. She didn’t isolate herself from humanity, she reveled in it, taking it in and transforming it into something else, something more.

In the writing of this, I’ve once again confirmed her power. She is more than pop star or show-off, she is a mistress of mirrors, reflecting back whatever ailments, shortcomings, failings, powers, magics, darkness, and light we each project. Madonna has, strangely, not always been about Madonna, but about what we think about Madonna, what Madonna makes us feel. It’s the key, and often-overlooked, component in why she remains such a fascinating creature, and why she will continue to remain so.

If her long and storied past is proof of anything, it’s that we should never count her out. In fact, such moments of doubt and wonder usually portend something miraculous in the offing. After thirty years, we know her better than she thinks we do. (And when she proves us wrong – again – it will be even better.)

It happens much the same way – the transition from winter to spring, that certain smell in the night air, the warmth on the night wind, the heart-rending churning of emotional mayhem that the arrival of the season of birth invariably brings. To that end, no one embodies such dramatic angst better than Madonna. Underneath all the hype and hoopla, the sexiness and showbiz pizzazz, I always sensed the wounded hurt of a lonely heart. It takes one to know one. In the span of the few minutes of a song, she could zone in on the basic longing and yearning for love that most of us have come to know and want at some point.

It’s there in the watery brilliance of the ‘Ray of Light‘ album. From the first (and deepest) cut ‘Drowned World/Substitute for Love‘, to the brutal memory-tripping of ‘Little Star‘ and ‘To Have and Not To Hold‘ – and the farewell implicit in ‘The Power of Good-Bye‘ it rings of loss and hope.

It’s there on the cusp of adolescence, in the tender final days of boyhood innocence, in the desperate want of ‘Crazy For You.’

It’s there in the eclipse-crescents of shadows beneath the leafy boughs hanging over my first year at Brandeis University, and the gentle melancholy of ‘I’ll Remember.’

It’s there in the beautiful brutality and spiritual transcendence of ‘Like A Prayer.’

And it’s there in the mysterious dim beauty of the ‘X-Static Process‘ of love.

The ache of the coming spring. The death of another winter. The power of a pop song.

{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 began, of all places, in the middle of ‘The Cosby Show.’ Then a part of America’s must-see Thursday night NBC line-up, it was the perfect time and location for maximum exposure. A preview ~ one of the only commercials for a commercial ~ had aired the week before. In the midst of a desolate arid landscape, tumbleweed rolling in the wind, a solitary tribal man stumbles into a hut that incongruently houses a television and a Pepsi dispenser.

“No matter where in the world you are on March 2, get to a TV and see Pepsi present Madonna with her latest release ‘Like A Prayer’ for the first time on the planet earth,” an ominous voice-over announced. The new Madonna single was to premiere in a Pepsi commercial. Soft drink preference aside (I had always been a Coke boy, when I had the luxury of drinking soda, which wasn’t often) I was excited. While nowhere near the levels of fanatical devotion I would attain in a couple of years, I enjoyed Madonna much more than the next guy. It was in the gay genes.

On March 2, 1989, I sat on the edge of the chair by the television in the cellar of my parents’ house. I can still picture its plaid upholstery, black and gray and brown, and straight out of the 70’s. Leaning forward, I watched with rapt attention as the laugh track faded and the commercial break began.

Madonna’s voice sounded the opening lines of ‘Like A Prayer.’

My very first impression? I didn’t like it. I was used to the simpler, disposable, instant ear candy of ‘Like A Virgin’™ and ‘True Blue.’ This was challenging, darker, more complex… and was that a Gospel choir? It marked the beginning of the way I would learn to love a Madonna song slowly at first (‘Frozen‘) but also more deeply. This would be a love that lasted through time and space, and such life-long loves don’t always begin with immediate gratification. It took some time, but once ‘Like A Prayer’ embedded itself in my head, once those grand cathedrals of mighty thought and musical rumination erected themselves in my mind, it was there for good.

As for the Pepsi commercial, it was sweet-enough, but it would only air twice. The official music video was released next, and it was then that all hell broke loose. A startlingly brunette Madonna (we’d only known the dirty and platinum blonde of the 80’s) sang her new song while dancing in a black slip, receiving stigmata, kissing a black saint come-to-life, and standing defiantly in a field of burning crosses, while a plain-as-day story of a black man wrongly accused of murder played out almost as an afterthought.

I remember being profoundly perplexed by all the controversy. The Catholic Church was pissed about the religious imagery, seemingly oblivious to its message of truth and justice. Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority found fault with just about everything Madonna did, and planned a boycott of Pepsi who, scared shitless, immediately dropped the commercial and their ties to Madonna (while kissing the millions of dollars they paid her good-bye.) Were people seeing the same video I was seeing? This was a tale of right and wrong, of innocence and guilt, of wrongdoing and murder and misplaced blame, of racism and violence, and ultimately of vindication and justice. The imagery was powerful, and effective, and the resulting firestorm of publicity only served to solidify Madonna’s status as cultural icon and zeitgeist master.

For anyone with the slightest ability to comprehend a video narrative, Madonna’s character stands for justice and truth, and the story is one of an innocent man wronged, and finally righted. The burning crosses were more for impact of imagery, conjuring the historical context of racism over a story in which racism plays an integral part. The religious moments, too, were more of a touching on key Catholic components that today seem both archaic and harmless. At the time, though, ‘Like A Prayer’ ignited an inferno of rage from all sides. For a thirteen-year-old gay boy, it sparked something else ~ the transcendent power of a pop song, and the way it could take one away from a miserable and mundane existence.

Every morning before going off to school I would watch the video on MTV’s Top-Ten countdown. It filled me with a thrill and a vague sense of danger, but the music moved me, every listen growing more powerful, touching something deeper. Despite the fact that I did well in school, had a few friends and a pretty good time there, it still required a bit of effort to gear myself up to face another day. There was always the possibility of being called out, of being called a faggot, of being targeted and taunted. I felt myself apart from all my classmates, something that distanced me from them no matter how close we got. Some of these kids I’d known since I was a baby, and yet I never felt part of the class.

After each period, the halls filled with the noisy rushing masses of burgeoning adolescence, each scrambling to find peace, acceptance, or their next class. After a tumultuous and sickly 7^th grade, I found my footing in my final year at Wilbur H. Lynch Middle School, but still never managed to truly belong.

In the middle of the building, a marble staircase rose across from the auditorium, and if you peered over the windows looking out you had a view of the hills rolling down to the Mohawk River. I stopped there, feeling the rush of life move around and past me, like some bit of time-lapse photography where my body was the stationary point around which all else evolved and changed. Standing still, I looked out the window. I wanted to be free.

I hear your voice, it’s like an angel sighing

I have no choice, I hear your voice

Feels like flying, I close my eyes

Oh God I think I’m falling out of the sky

I close my eyes, Heaven help me

I was breaking free of parental and parochial restraints, unfurling wings I never knew I had, challenging dogma that I’d never thought to question, and not because of Madonna, but because of knowledge and information and the realization that there was more to life than I was being taught and told. When I got home from school, I searched the television for her again, catching another countdown and re-examining what everything in the video might mean. More than the images, though, it was the music that moved me.

She was there in the night, to see me through. On the radio she sang to me as I laid in bed. The lights were out, and in the darkness I prayed. It was a prayer and a wish for love all at once, where the hunger of desire matched the hunger for something spiritual, and the soul demanded something both carnal and emotional and only found it in the orgasmic swelling of a choir. This was a song for eternity. A God anthem. A glimpse of heaven, a taunt of hell. In me something moved. Something recognized that soon I would have greater struggles, and the life I had, the love I would feel, would be at direct odds with what the church would have me be, what my family would have wanted for their first-born son, and what society would not be ready to accept until many years later ~ until, perhaps, many years too late. Luckily, I did not see that then. It would have been too much for my thirteen-year-old mind to comprehend. Instead, I got lost in the majestic swelling of the music, the rousing spirit of the choir, the glorious licks of an electric guitar.

It lifted me up. It raised my spirit. It spoke to me like the voice of God ~ perhaps greater than the voice of God because up until that point I didn’t think God had ever spoken to me. It gave me strength to get through whatever obstacle came my way. It was a covenant between me and Madonna, that whatever might come she would be there.

After my initial hesitation, I grew to love the song, feeling that wonderful pull to listen to it over and over ~ the kind of addictive draw I only felt with Madonna songs. Late at night, when I should have been asleep, the song would come over the radio, and I’d sit up and listen, slowly turning the volume up just a bit, getting lost in the chords and the choir, feeling a stirring from deep within my soul ~ and I knew I wanted to be a part of that one day, to inspire that feeling, to make something that touched someone.

When you call my name it’s like a little prayer

I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there

In the midnight hour I can feel your power

Just like a prayer you know I’ll take you there

The ‘Like A Prayer’ album, however, was another story. Being raised as a strict Catholic, and being shamed and scared into behaving lest I burn in the fires of hell, I could stand the vague religious teasing in songs such as ‘Like A Prayer’ and ‘Spanish Eyes,’ but not the sacrilegious squealing of the last track ‘Act of Contrition,’ where she turned the traditional prayer of confession into a screeching, jarring, in-joke of borderline-blasphemy. I played only a few minutes of that before shutting it off and taking the cassette tape out of the stereo. Frightened, I fled outside under the falling light of day, quickly traversing the length of lawn, then into the woods beyond the pool. I paused at the top of a bank, where forest weeds parted in a bit of a clearing, and placed the cassette on the ground. I found a rock ~ a large one for my small self ~ and raised it over my head, planning to smash the cassette into a multitude of plastic shards.

Conflicted, I paused, the muscles in my arms slowly starting to burn beneath the weight of the stone. I wanted to prove something to God, to prove something to myself, to prove, perhaps, that I did have faith, I did believe, I did have love in my heart. It was a sign of repentance. A sign of solidarity and support for the Lord. A sign of respect for Jesus Christ.

Yet it was all for show, and God would know that. I stood there, hovering over the tape, Madonna’s navel gazing up at me, and I wondered at my faith, not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the ridiculous predicament in which I had just placed myself. I put the rock down, lowered myself onto my haunches, and balanced there, contemplating what I was supposed to do. Dusk was at hand. The light was fading. Soon the woods would be dark.

I decided then… not to decide then. Pocketing the tape, I trudged back inside, and once in my bedroom I shoved it far back into one of my desk drawers, closing it into darkness. Something in those whispered prayers scared me. I feared what might befall my family if I listened to that. I feared whatever wrath or dark magic might be conjured if those words were released in my home. I wasn’t so concerned with myself ~ in fact, quite the opposite ~ but the idea of my behavior causing pain or harm to loved ones was where all that Catholic guilt manifested its treacherous power. There was also the question of my own soul ~ what might happen to it if I were to embrace Madonna’s blasphemous album? The tape stayed hidden for a couple of years. From time to time I’d catch a glimpse of it when searching for something else, sniffing a hint of its patchouli packaging, then quickly shutting the drawer again. I put it so far from my mind that I almost forgot about it.

But then a strange thing happened. I wanted to die. To kill myself. And suddenly I wasn’t so scared by God and religion and what might happen to my soul. It wasn’t that I stopped believing, I simply stopped buying into the dogma and the fear. If God was love, why should there be such fear? Why would He be so vengeful? Why would He hate me for my love?

When you’re freed from such fear, a song like ‘Act of Contrition’ means nothing ~ while ‘Like A Prayer’ could mean everything. The only moments I felt alive back then were when I listened to that album. Raking leaves and feeling profoundly hurt by my parents, I’d put ‘Promise to Try‘ and ‘Oh Father‘ on my walkman. I’d listen to ‘Spanish Eyes’ and let my own tears burn the pillow, begging for Christ to redeem and rescue me before taking my soul and body away. I even found the betrayal and loss in ‘Til Death Do Us Part‘ a comfort for my downtrodden state.

In the months and years ahead, ‘Like A Prayer’ – the song and album – transformed into something life-changing. The music was good. It was inspiring. The driving force of ‘Express Yourself’ was all I needed for motivating the worst day, and the giddiness of ‘Cherish‘ and ‘Dear Jessie‘ lifted the heart when I was on top of the world. Madonna had crafted a cohesive tapestry of sound and experience, the very best kind of pop art an artist could muster. And I felt, in connections small and large, the power that certain songs had of making sense of the madness.

It was far more serious than her previous pop efforts, deeper and richer as well. Crafted during the tumultuous death-throes of her marriage to Sean Penn, it is heavy with both tension and release. An impending divorce is a heavy burden, the pain of loss magnified by Madonna’s familial ruminations at the same time.

Like a child you whisper softly to me

You’re in control just like a child

Now I’m dancing

It’s like a dream, no end and no beginning

You’re here with me it’s like a dream

Let the choir sing…

For me, I was on the brink of such turmoil, about to be tossed into the raging river of adolescent angst, teenage rebellion, and the messy and difficult struggle of coming to terms with my sexuality. It was a maelstrom of emotions, a mass of moving moods which all of Madonna’s burgeoning messages would come to mollify. She was searching, I was searching, we were all searching for something – meaning, magic, love – and it came to fruition in a pop song ~ a magnificent, majestic, moving song that melded electric guitar and a Gospel choir and the voice of the woman who once sang ‘Like A Virgin.’

The fear that first accompanied the album, and that first supposedly-blasphemous performance of ‘Like A Prayer’ during the Blonde Ambition Tour had dissipated into something else, like the curling tendrils of incense that encircled the air, gripped the lungs, and then drifted off like they had never been of consequence.

Every year during Lent, the rituals of the Catholic church haunted me, in a good way. There was comfort in that dim smoke-laden atmosphere, in the hush and quietude of the cavernous church. All the mysteries of the crucifixion and the resurrection, in the alchemy of the Body and Blood of Christ, hung in the air like, well, Jesus himself. And bound like His bloodied head in a crown of thorns, shot through like the nails in His hands, the guilt that once bled from me was rendered into a similar collection of religious cyphers and signs ~ echoes of what once held such sway. ‘Like A Prayer’ was the musical embodiment of this time of the year, and I cannot think of it without thinking of the church.

When you call my name it’s like a little prayer

I’m down on my knees, I wanna take you there

In the midnight hour I can feel your power

Just like a prayer you know I’ll take you there

As for its place in the Madonna canon, ‘Like A Prayer’ remains, almost across the board, her most beloved song. Critics, fans, and non-fans alike agree on that much. It marked the first bit of widespread critical acclaim that she’d enjoyed for her music. (I still remember a hard-core Metallica fan, one of my classmates in high school, begrudgingly giving props to the guitar chords of ‘Like A Prayer’.)

Live performances of ‘Like A Prayer’ have proved to be perennially powerful, beginning with the epic Blonde Ambition staging ~ the first time she performed it for an audience. That version (Catholic misgivings aside) was a stunning church-themed tour-de-force of choreography and vocals.

Oddly enough, she would not perform it live again for over a decade ~ at an MTV release special for ‘American Life‘ in 2003. Since then, though, it has been a staple, not only for tours, but for one-off live performances. On the Reinvention Tour ~ the closest she’s come to a greatest hits tour ~ ‘Like A Prayer’ was given a stripped-down but rousing treatment, a testament to the power and construction of the song, and Patrick Leonard’s vital impact on Madonna’s musical legacy.

My very favorite live performance of ‘Like A Prayer’, however, may just be the one she performed for Live Aid 8, mostly because of her genuine and touching interaction with the girl whose face had embodied the original Live Aid dream. It’s a rare moment of earnest and unguarded joy in a career where very little has ever been left to chance.

On a much smaller scale, she also performed at the Hope For Haiti benefit. That acoustic version was intimate and somber, yet filled with hope, and it flew largely under the radar, which was a shame, as it was quite a compelling argument for Madonna’s oft-questioned musical prowess. As for those who had pegged Madonna as a pop star capable only of disposable, frothy throwaway hits, ‘Like A Prayer’ displayed a deeper and darker side to her songbook. A techno-infused mash-up that soars to a hand-clapping climax, the apocalyptic performance from the Sticky and Sweet Tour reveals the darkness at the heart of ‘Like A Prayer’ ~ even if there is light and salvation at its resolution.

That salvation would be found in the finale to her Super Bowl appearance, when thousands of lights glowed in the stadium, and one woman stood alone in the center of it all, commanding the stage and finishing up one of the greatest Super Bowl half-time shows in history.

Most recently, Madonna performed ‘Like A Prayer’ on the MDNA Tour. There is usually one moment in every Madonna tour that brings me to the verge of tears: the opening salvo of the Drowned World Tour, the intimate ‘Crazy For You‘ on the Reinvention Tour, the powerful ‘Live to Tell‘ on the Confessions Tour, or the haunting ‘Devil Wouldn’t Recognize You’ on the Sticky and Sweet Tour ~ but for the MDNA Tour it was the climactic ‘Like A Prayer.’ It was here that the transcendent culmination of the evening found its footing in the united fans, all of us joined across the globe ~ a connection to each other, a connection to Madonna, a connection to whatever God or higher power in which we each believed.

Life is a mystery

Everyone must stand alone

I hear you call my name

And it feels like home. 

Darkness. Anger. Fire. Danger. Life. Death. Heaven. God. From the depths of hell to the upper echelon of glory, the spiritual journey of ‘Like A Prayer’ is epic. It began at the beginning of some of my darkest times. Adolescence. Puberty. A time of questioning and wondering, doubting and despairing. But the trajectory of ‘Like A Prayer’ had to begin somewhere. It had to start from the lowest point and move steadily and slowly toward ascendance, ever-reaching upwards. It was a long journey. A spiritual journey. A journey I needed to make alone, and the only guidance was the voice of Madonna.

Just like a prayer,

Your voice can take me there,

Just ike a muse to me,

You are a mystery

Just like a dream

You are not what you seem

Just like a prayer,

No choice your voice can take me there.

Life was a mystery, but she was there to help me along the way. Madonna was the Beatrice to my Dante, calling me up from the depths of the despair and guiding me through the hellish journey, bringing me higher, raising me up, lifting my heart and spirit and soul.

I didn’t know it then, but I was lost. And I would be lost for a very long time. It was Madonna who helped me to find myself. Unbeknownst to her, it was her voice that carried me through those dim days, and any dim day that followed.

‘Like A Prayer’ continues to evolve and transform in the way that the most lasting songs do. Gaining resonance, growing in significance, and becoming much more than it ever originally was, the song has withstood the tests of time and taste. Listening to it today I still get goose-bumps. I still go back to those early days of being so lost and so alone. But it’s okay. Like a prayer will always take me there.

For the longest time, I’d been looking forward to writing the Madonna Timeline for ‘Like A Prayer’ as one of my favorite Madonna songs, I knew it would be a totem for this series. Yet as the songs progressed, and we passed #100, I began to feel a certain dread and pressure to do it justice, to properly impress upon you the import of this song on my life ~ and it turned out that’s impossible to do. Like the very faith it embodies, my love for ‘Like A Prayer’ is ethereal, untouchable, and indefinable ~ defying all explanation, at once intrinsically and universally personal. There would be no way to convey the myriad ways this song has informed my existence, the way it’s been a part of my life for the past 25 years. There are certain songs that become a part of our existence, woven delicately yet inextricably into the fabric that makes up the tapestry of our time on earth. They bind us to this moment, to this world, taking a stand and making a mark in the timeline of the universe. That will always be what ‘Like A Prayer’ is for me.

The best way to understand… is to listen.

No choice, your voice can take me there

Your voice can take me there…

Like a prayer.

Song #106: ‘Like A Prayer’ ~ March 1989

{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.}

The year was 1985. In the wood-paneled family room of my childhood home, the remains of a Saturday morning of cartoons had faded away, and the early afternoon chill of the second half of the weekend had begun. Our parents were off somewhere else, leaving my brother and I deliciously alone for a couple of hours. On the television, Madonna’s ‘Virgin Tour’ began, and the opening salvo of ‘Dress You Up’ sounded.

I didn’t know her then. I also didn’t know how concerts worked, or whether she would sing more songs that I recognized. All I knew was that one hit after another came over the TV, and I alternately sat and danced along with this woman who would change my life from that moment forward.

You’ve got style,

That’s what all the girls say

Satin sheets, and luxuries so fine

All your suits are custom-made in London,

Well I’ve got something that you’ll really like

If ‘Material Girl’ made me a Madonna fan, ‘Dress You Up‘ solidified that status. It was catchy, had a driving beat, and on the surface it was all about fashion. It spoke to me in ways overt and subliminal, and it may just be my favorite cut off the ‘Like A Virgin‘ opus – no small feat considering the lead-track (MG) and the title-track (LAV). ‘Dress You Up’ touched something deeper in my gay psyche: a love of glamour, a perfectly-crafted pop song, and a dream of something better. (It also marked my most egregious lyrical misunderstanding of all time – instead of “All your suits are custom made in London” I thought it was “All your suits are custom made and laundered.” Such was the thought process of a ten-year-old gay boy. Either way worked.)

Gonna dress you up in my love

All over, all over

Gonna dress you up in my love,

All over your body.

In my brother’s boyhood bedroom, I played this song over and over on his stereo, rewinding it and jumping on the bed to the Nile Rodgers beat. In the same space where we re-created ‘You Can’t Do That on Television’ (recording our own ‘˜You Can’t Do That on Tape’ audio cassettes and staging earthquakes with falling debris in the place of green slime – hey, I may have loved Madonna but I was still just a boy), I listened to her sing about the stuff of fantasy and fascination. The underlying metaphors might have been lost on my virgin ears, but there were more powerful forces at work.

Feel the silky touch of my caresses

They will keep you looking so brand new

Let me cover you with velvet kisses

I’ll create a look that’s made for you

Gonna dress you up in my love

All over, all over

Gonna dress you up in my love,

All over your body. 

Far more than come-hither sexiness, Madonna showed me the art of seduction – not so much as a means of gaining access to the bedroom, but as a pathway to acceptance and love. With her strut, her cockiness, and her devil-may-care sense of fashion, she taught me confidence – and even if that confidence wasn’t real, even if it was just a front ‘ there was power in that. When Madonna looked out at the world as her own, she made it all right for me to look too, and if I could get there by dressing myself up, so much the better. Because that was something I could do.

From your head down to your toes…

Song #105 – ‘Dress You Up’ ~ 1985