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.}

This is a pretty straight-forward paint-by-the-numbers pop love song, the kind that Madonna can do in her sleep, and it sort of sounds like part of it was done in exactly that way. Another of the more lack-luster cuts off her otherwise-electric MDNA album,’Superstar’ is standard fare, with its adulatory lyrics and bubblegum melodies, and as such it feels a bit flat.

You’re like Brando on the silver screen
You’re my hero in a mythical dream
You are perfect just the way that you are
You’re Mike Jordan, you’re my superstar

Ooh la la, you’re my superstar
Ooh la la, love the way that you are
Ooh la la, you’re my superstar
Ooh la la, that’s what you are

It may be most notable for its use as the 2012 Bravo television summer theme song, and it does have an easy-going summer vibe to it, somewhere along the soft-focus lines of ‘Cherish’. But the latter eventually won me over – this one has yet to do so.

I’m your biggest fan, it’s true
Hopelessly attracted to you
You can have the keys to my car
I’ll play you a song on my guitar

Oooh la la, you’re my superstar
Oooh la la, love the way that you are
Oooh la la, you’re my superstar
Oooh la la, that’s what you are

Still, it’s neat to hear Madonna ticking off other historical greats, a little wink and nod to her epic ‘Vogue’ rap, and the song should also be noted for it being the first on which her daughter Lola added backing vocals. (Though if no one told me that I’d never have heard it – and to be honest, it’s still a stretch to make them out.)

You’re my gangster
You’re like Al Capone
You’re like Caesar
Stepping onto the throne
You’re Abe Lincoln
Cause you fight for what’s right
You’re my angel
Bringing peace to my life

Ooh la la, you’re my superstar
Ooh la la, love the way that you are
Ooh la la, you’re my superstar
Ooh la la, that’s what you are

Usually, she does a little better in the lyrics department, especially when swooning over objects of desire. These are too trite and repetitious to merit much more than passing notice, and that’s not something you can typically do with Madonna.

I’m your biggest fan, it’s true
Hopelessly attracted to you
You can have the password to my phone
I’ll give you a massage when you get home

Ooh la la, you’re my superstar
Ooh la la, love the way that you are
Ooh la la, you’re my superstar
Ooh la la, that’s what you are

I’m guessing she didn’t find much of interest in this either, as it was one of the few cuts on the MDNA album that she didn’t perform on the most recent tour. I’m equally uninspired, and unimpressed. Let’s just fast-forward.

You’re Bruce Lee with the way that you move
You’re Travolta getting into your groove
You’re James Dean driving in your fast car
You’re a hot track, you’re my super duper star

You’re my superstar
You’re my superstar (ooh la la, ooh la la)
You’re my superstar (ooh la la, ooh ooh ooh ooh la la)

 Song #97 ~ ˜Superstar’ – Summer 2012

It was 30 years ago today that Sire Records released Madonna’s debut album, entitled simply ‘Madonna’. Unlike many casual fans, and some die-hard ones as well, I’m more a fan of her later work than her earlier stuff. In fact, with the possible exception of ‘Holiday’ (and then only when it’s done up Blonde Ambition style), I’m not enthralled with any of the cuts off her first album. (Not even ‘Borderline’, and certainly not ‘Lucky Star’.) But I’m aware of their importance in her career, and I know many a fan who considers them integral to her oeuvre. So with that in mind, let’s celebrate this date, because 30 years of anything is pretty damn impressive.

{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.}

While it’s one of the weaker cuts on the otherwise-brilliant ‘MDNA’ album (Review #1 and #2), ‘I Don’t Give A…’ is also one of Madonna’s most defiant fuck-off songs to date, brutally referencing her role as ex-wife and single mother, along with all the other things that go into making Madonna the icon she is.

Wake up ex-wife, this is your life

Children on your own, planning on the telephone

Messengers, manager, no time for a manicure

Working out, shake my ass, I know how to multi-task

In an exhausting list of all that comprises her life, she ticks off the mundane and the meaningful, and after thirty-plus years of doing this – and doing it her way – you have to give her credit. The song speaks to defiance and courage, doing what you’re going to do no matter what, no matter how many people tell you not to do it, and following your heart in spite of a world of doubters and naysayers. I know that feeling – we all do on some level – but only a few of us fight through to the end, to find justice and the realization that we were right all along.

I tried to be a good girl, I tried to be your wife

Diminished myself, and I swallowed my light

I tried to become all that you expect of me

And if it was a failure, I don’t give a…

The song itself borders on a bit of a rap. Whenever Madonna goes rap-lite, it’s a crap shoot. It can work brilliantly (‘Vogueâ’ or ‘Mother and Father’) or it can go down dismally (‘American Life’). This is somewhere between the two, but she doesn’t embarrass herself, even when chased by Nicki Minaj (who gets the epic final line).

Drawbacks aside, check out the phenomenal finale to this song. There are no words (literally) as the music builds to its climax. It was most effectively staged in the MDNA Tour when, after chucking her guitar and disappearing for a moment, she rises atop a single platform. A red cross glows above her, and as the music builds, she goes higher and higher, prone but defiant, down but going up, and in the end she smashes it all to bits, along with all the judgment and stifling preconceptions that have dogged her over the years.

I’m gonna be okay, I don’t care what the people say

I’m gonna be all right, gonna live fast and I’m gonna live right.

There’s only one queen, and that’s Madonna, bitch.

Song #96: ‘I Don’t Give A…’ – Summer 2012

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

I’m gonna wake up, yes and no

I’m gonna kiss some part of

I’m gonna keep this secret

I’m gonna close my body now

In the late summer of 2002, Madonna released her first James Bond theme, ‘Die Another Day’. The jittery, stilted techno-buzz of her collaboration with Mirwais (begun two years earlier on ‘Music’) continued here, but seemed to be keeping time and maintaining rather going in new exciting directions. Still, the strings were a dramatic touch, and the song itself was a neat credo to Madonna’s death-defying career.

Sigmund Freud – Analyze this, analyze this, analyze this!

As one of those between-break soundtrack songs that she releases to bridge her musical output (think ‘Crazy For You‘, ‘I’ll Remember‘, ‘This Used to be My Playground‘, ‘Beautiful Stranger’ or ‘American Pie’) I focused and obsessed about it as I tend to do when starved for new material, but in the ensuing years its interest and structure has weakened. (It would also prove to be the lead-off, and highest-charting single for her ‘American Life’ album, though it felt a bit tagged-on at that point.)

I’m gonna break the cycle

I’m gonna shake up the system

I’m gonna destroy my ego

I’m gonna close my body now

Minor Madonna chagrins put aside, I mostly thrilled at the first few listens. It was late summer, and I was about to embark on a new project (The Talented Trickster Tour Book: Reflections of a Floating World). The sun was beating down, drying and browning all that was once fresh and green. It burned the little remaining moisture out of the leaves, desiccating their veins, leaving them brittle and cracked, ripe for the fall. The scent of a dying summer has never been entirely sad – such things cannot go on forever, and it’s good to know when to take a rest. It’s also a good time to recharge creatively. My focus tends to disappear in the hazy summer months of chlorine-fueled filters, so when fall was on the horizon and a new Madonna song was on the stereo, it was the perfect collusion for a creative explosion.

I think I’ll find another way

There’s so much more to know

I guess I’ll die another day

It’s not my time to go.

For every sin, I’ll have to pay

A time to work, a time to play

I think I’ll find another way

It’s not my time to go.

It always rings hollow and trite to talk about the ‘creative process.’ Not only that, it reeks of self-importance. As much as I like to give off that vibe, it’s not really me. But I do think there’s something worth noting in the way that certain artists give so much of themselves up for their art. If we really care, a little of us dies with everything we create, at least if it’s worth something, if it matters. You can’t rend an emotion, a reaction, a feeling, without being affected in some small way – and often in some large way.

We thrash ourselves, mutilating our emotions, putting our process through the ringer, for an end result that is never guaranteed. Not only is it not guaranteed, it runs the risk of ruin. We are vessels, conduits for some greater force, and we’re not always in control. In fact, I’d wager that most of us are supremely out of control when it comes to that. Why do we do it? What makes some of us go to such extremes? That won’t be answered in a Madonna Timeline – at least not this one.

I’m gonna avoid the cliche

I’m gonna suspend my senses

I’m gonna delay my pleasure

I’m gonna close my body now.

The video Madonna filmed for this is actually much better than the song – showing three versions of herself: the tortured prisoner (in bloodied, beaten, torn-tank-top form), the white tufted heroine, and the black-clad villain who gets it in the end. In it, the battle between good and evil, light and dark, artist and human, finds visual release as two Madonnas battle to the death. It’s fitting that she references Sigmund Freud, considering all the psychoanalytical undercurrents running through the piece, and a deeper reading than this one will be might have more to say about her three characters and their relation to the id, the ego, and the super ego. On the surface, it’s a nice ode to Bond, a chilly, taut martini of a song that manages to be both elegant and raw, positing deeper questions within the guise of the stuttering techno-beats and deconstructed strings.

I think I’ll find another way

There’s so much more to know

I guess I’ll die another day

It’s not my time to go.

Song #95: ‘Die Another Day’ ~ August 2002

Fresh off her premiere of the filmed version of the MDNA Tour, Madonna inched her way back into the spotlight in stunning Marlene-Dietrich-like form. I am so digging the top hat and bow tie look here. No woman does androgyny better, and no one ever will. (Okay, that’s easily disputable, but it sounded good.) While I gear up for the next special installment of the Madonna Timeline (the song and memory of which actually inspired the whole Madonna Timeline itself, and at #94 it’s taken a while to come around on the iPod…) I’m giving a quick look at some summer highlights of previous entries that may have gone undetected by your radar. (By the way, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page and check out the ‘Search’ box, you can type in a Madonna song and see if it’s already been covered.)

Before the summer is the spring, and the spring of 1998 was marked by ‘Little Star’, and a residual melancholy from winter, and a decade and a half before. It still haunts me.

1990 marked the summer of ‘Dick Tracy’ and Madonna’s incendiary performance as Breathless Mahoney. That sexy chanteuse sang ‘Sooner or Later’ with the determination of a vixen hell-bent on getting her man. It was an inspiration.

The summer of 2009 was a high-flying good time, with some highlights in Boston and lowlights in Ithaca, and as the last summer of my official single-hood, it was a time of ‘Celebration’.

Last summer was capped by the deceptively upbeat and desperately escapist ‘Turn Up the Radio’ – one of the only times that a current Madonna single coincided with this relatively new Madonna Timeline. It’s one of my favorite entries, because it juxtaposes such a happy song with such a bummer of a summer.

The summer of 1998 was all about ‘Ray of Light’ – the album and the single – and this song dominated a turning point in my previously-angst-ridden existence. It marked Madonna’s ultimate comeback, and remains the best album of her career (thus far).

Memories of my father from 1986 came back with her ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ single from the summer of ‘True Blue‘. The follow-up to the scorching ‘Live To Tell’, it marked another familial milestone, the beginning of a long line of Madonna-related family moments.

For the next timeline (which goes all the way back to 1985, making it one of the earliest Madonna memories) we’ll return to the very earliest of spring, a time when the first pangs of adolescence began to prick my youthful heart, and things were about to go, well… Crazy.

{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.}

Papa, I know you’re going to be upset,

Cause I was always your little girl,

But you should know by now

I’m not a baby…

1986 ~ When Mom told me and my brother that our paternal grandmother had died, Dad was already at work. Yes, the day after he found out his mother was dead, he had to go to work, because when you’re a doctor you can’t always call in sick or bereft, especially when another life hangs in the balance. All through the day I pondered if he was all right. Having never seen my father cry, I wondered if he would. When he returned from work, I watched him walk into the family room like usual. There was none of the excitement that occasionally accompanied him home, just a slightly downtrodden look to him. I wanted to go up to him and hug him, but he’d never been that kind of man, and in the strict Catholic upbringing we had, I wasn’t that kind of boy. Instead, I think I did my best and uttered a heartfelt ‘I’m sorry’ when I finally got over my shyness.

The next day, we took him to the airport to make the long journey back to Philippines to bury his mother. I remember he wanted gum for the plane rides, so his ears wouldn’t pop. I had never met his mother. In fact, the only grandparent I ever knew was my Mom’s mother. Because of that, I held her a little closer to my heart. Grandparents were a luxury to me, and I listened with envy to tales of other kids seeing their grandma or grandpa every weekend or, fantasy of fantasies, having them live in the same house. As much as I cherished solitude, I longed for a large family on the periphery.

We hugged him good-bye, drove back home, and began the long wait for him to return.

You always taught me right from wrong

I need your help, Daddy, please be strong

I may be young at heart

But I know what I’m saying…

On an afternoon a few days later, the sun came in through my brother’s bedroom window spotlighting the tiny particles of dust in the air. My brother was outside somewhere, and I was alone. I shuffled idly through his cassettes, moving them out of the direct sunlight. Madonna’s ‘True Blue’ was still in its case. (Amazing fact: my brother is the one who bought the ‘True Blue’ album first.) I popped it into the tape player and the opening strings sounded. I’d heard it on the radio, and started to sing along, still not putting together what all the words meant.

The one you warned me all about

The one you said I could do without

We’re in an awful mess

And I don’t mean maybe…

Please

Papa don’t preach, I’m in trouble deep

Papa don’t preach, I’ve been losing sleep

But I made up my mind, I’m keeping my baby.

I didn’t quite know what the song was about. I was only ten, and ten-year-olds in 1986 were far less advanced and worldly than ten-year-olds today. But I did sense the note of rebellion, the cries against a father’s advice, and for some reason I couldn’t listen anymore. I quickly stopped the tape. For the first time ever I silenced Madonna.

My thoughts returned to Dad, who was somewhere in the Philippines now, at the funeral of his mother, and hearing Madonna tell a fictitious father not to preach seemed disrespectful. The fierce but veiled protectiveness I have always felt towards my family reared its overcompensating (and often nonsensical) head. (I once took great offense at a girl who mentioned that the milk I brought in for lunch – the milk that was packed by my Mom – was made at her Dad’s plant, as if she was somehow attacking my Mom and taking away from something she had done for me.)

The slightest bit of talk-back-to-your-parents defiance seemed ill-timed then, and I shut off ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ for the rest of the week that Dad was away. It felt like I’d be jinxing his safe return if I played something like that. I can’t explain it. At least, I can’t explain it well. Who knows, maybe such childlike rules made a difference. More likely they were just a waste of worry and concern for a ten-year-old. Whatever the case, Dad returned from the Philippines intact. He brought us back the miniature amenities from the plane – the neatest gifts to us kids. I studied him from a slight distance, wondering how something like this would change him, but couldn’t discern any distinctive differences. He had always been hard to read, at least for me.

He says that he’s going to marry me

We can raise a little family

Maybe we’ll be all right, it’s a sacrifice…

When Mom was going to school at night, Dad would be the one to tuck us in. On one evening, when I was missing her, I had dabbed some of her perfume on my neck, and as he tucked me in he said I smelled nice. Out of everything I had done to try to get his attention over the years – and out of all the convoluted ways in which I would attempt to gain his love in the future – it was my mother’s perfume that elicited one of the moments of affection I remember most fondly.

My father never talked to me about girls (and certainly not about boys). In fact he never talked to me about much. He taught his greatest lessons through example. A hard worker. A loyal husband. A good provider. Love wasn’t expressed or talked about, and rarely shown. He was not raised that way. As a child, that’s sometimes tough to understand or take. As an adult, I can understand a little better.

But my friends keep telling me to give it up

Saying I’m too young, I oughta live it up

What I need right now is some good advice

Please…

In some ways, it’s rather befitting that this song from 1986’s ‘True Blue’ album should so remind me of my father. It was, according to some, a metaphor of Madonna’s own ambivalent relationship with her father, masked in a fictional narrative about a girl getting pregnant and seeking her father’s love and approval over scolding and punishment. She would more directly address the theme in 1989’s ‘Oh Father’, but back then ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ was a more-than-compelling study of parent-child relationships, and let’s face it ~ like it or not ~ they form the basis of the people we will one day become.

My rebellion wouldn’t begin for a few years. For now I was still under the authority and ambivalent auspices of my father. Defiance was too far ahead for me to realize its worth.

Daddy, daddy if you could only see

Just how good he’s been treating me

You’d give us your blessing right now

Cause we are in love

We are in love…

That year ~ 1986 ~ I loved my father as I always would ~ unconditionally, helplessly, trepidatiously, hesitantly, earnestly, wistfully, willfully, reservedly, all-encompassingly ~ and it was unthinkable, as much as I might sometimes disagree with him, to ever tell him not to preach. My life-long dance with Madonna, which had just begun, found us – for the moment – at opposite ends of the ballroom.

Yet I was drawn to the song. It haunted me, calling from the future ~ from a time when I finally realized that parents weren’t perfect, a time when parents let their children down, a time when a father could be ashamed of his son. But that time hadn’t quite arrived, and I unknowingly – blissfully – basked in the final vestiges of the love that childhood protected. At the very least, I would always have that. I wasn’t quite ready to let that go, because when you lose the love of a parent, there’s nothing that ever makes up for it.

Don’t you stop loving me, Daddy…

Song #93: ‘Papa Don’t Preach’ ~ Fall 1986

{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.}

One of two new original songs from Madonna‘s third Greatest Hits collection, ‘Celebration’ , ‘Revolver’ is instantly catchy, but just as instantly forgettable. Used to decent effect on the opening gun-filled salvo of her MDNA Tour, with a cameo by a ridiculous Lil Wayne (she should choose her collaborators more carefully), it’s mostly filler, put over by the gun-toting choreography and Madonna’s sassy strutting.

Songs like this remind me that not every Madonna piece must be personal and profound, not every one must tell a story, conjure a childhood memory, soar into the stratosphere, or revisit a broken heart. Even if without ‘Revolver’, there would be no ‘Celebration.’

Song #92: ‘Revolver’ – Summer 2009