{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 took a pretty picture and you smashed it into bits,
Sank me into blackness, and you sealed it with a kiss.
If only I could let you go, why do I need you so?
Neatly dove-tailing with the latest news that William Orbit has scored the soundtrack for her next directorial effort, workingly titled W., ‘Amazing’ is one of the last collaborations Madonna shared with Mr. Orbit. From 2000’s Music, it was one of the only two cuts they produced together for that album.
While the worst of his work with her is treacly and uninspired (‘Time Stood Still’ and ‘Runaway Lover’ for example), the best of it shimmers and soars (‘Frozen’, ‘Ray of Light’ – hell, the entire Ray of Light album).
It’s amazing what a boy can do,
I cannot stop myself.
Wish I didn’t want you like I do
Want you and no one else…
A movie score could be the perfect bit of alchemy to set his ambient sonic moodscapes to flight, doing for W. what Trent Reznor did for The Social Network. Of course, this is all guesswork and speculation at this point – Madonna has been characteristically quiet during her creative mode. (Though I wish she would get back into the studio and make some new music.)
You took a poison arrow and you aimed it at my heart,
It’s heavy and it’s bitter and it’s tearing me apart.
If only I could set you free,
You worked your way inside of me.
‘Amazing’ is one of the brighter, poppier moments of the Music album, but like most Madonna songs it has an ambivalence that runs throughout it. She was about to marry Guy Ritchie at the time, but based on this song (and the eventual outcome of the marriage) things were not completely smooth-sailing. No one captures that push-and-pull better than 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.}
The iPod has picked 1985’s ‘Angel’ for the next timeline song – I was ten when it came out. I don’t remember much about when I was ten, except for a handful of Madonna songs. Like most of the ‘Like A Virgin’ cuts, this reminds me of driving in the car with my Mom and my brother – it was his cassette tape, and it was on perpetual play.
Why am I standing on a cloud, every time you’re around?
And the sadness disappears, every time you are near…
You must be an angel, I can see it in your eyes,
Full of wonder and surprise,
And just now I realize…
It is a quintessentially-80’s trifle, all synths and breathy echoes, and Madonna’s delicious laughter. Easy on the ears and the mind, but the perfect microcosmic emoting of the wonder and joy of infatuation.
Walking down a crowded avenue
All the faces seem like nothing next to you
And I can’t hear the traffic rushing by,
Just the pounding of the heart and that’s why…
No one captures the exuberance, and, I would argue, the innocence, of the beginnings of love better than Madonna. Especially at this stage of her career, when all was still shiny and new – she had the perfect grasp of a pop song – centered around romance, founded on a wish and a prayer, and wedded to a catchy melody and driving beat.
Now I believe that dreams come true,
Cause you came when I wished for you.
This just can’t be coincidence,
The only way that this makes sense is that,
Ooh, you’re an angel…
{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.}
Sooner or later you’re gonna be mine,
Sooner or later you’re gonna be fine,
Baby it’s time that you faced it
I always get my man.
It is the ultimate call of the siren. A prediction, a demand, a hope ~ all in the subtle jazz shadings of a Sondheim song. ‘Sooner or Later’ is the next iPod selection, seductively vamping along from its opening coos to its climaxing almost-growls, and Madonna delivers a sparkling aural gem. Restrained, yet powerful, her slightly-girlish vocals belie a steely strength. That confidence, that determination, that unfailing belief in her own prowess and power of attraction ~ that was something I never had. Certainly not in 1990.
To be honest, the hunt for a man was the last thing on my fourteen-year-old mind. I was too consumed with the drama of my friends, trying to fit in to my first year of high school. The one thing the song did lend me was a belief in oneself ~ and if Madonna could will her want into being simply by using a few declarative come-ons, surely I could put one of Mr. Rosmarino’s math proofs on the chalkboard and talk my way through it.
I didn’t have a goal at the time ~ it was enough just to make it through an average school day ~ but songs like this, and most of them by Madonna, gave me a bit of purpose. It marked the beginning of a drive and ambition to not be ignored.
Sooner or later you’re gonna decide,
Sooner or later there’s nowhere to hide,
Baby it’s time so why waste it in chatter?
Let’s settle the matter,
Baby you’re mine on a platter
I always get my man.
‘Sooner or Later’ was also nominated for a Best Song Oscar (fortuitous timing today), which it won ~ and more importantly which meant that Madonna would perform the song on the Oscar telecast. I missed the show that year (see, I wasn’t always that gay), but made sure to see it a few years later when my Madonna obsession began to rage. (Most of the performance was captured on a VHS Oscar Retrospective.) Of course it’s now on YouTube, and we get to see the telescopic opening, as well as the very best ending and exit vamp in Oscar history.
Early on, the camera goes in for a tight close-up as Madonna’s gloved hand trembles in the spotlight ~ one of the first glimpses we get of her nervousness for some performances, and a compelling peek of her as a mortal being. It is an endearing moment: here is the woman who at that point was one of the most famous and successful of all time, at arguably the height of her power and adulation ~ playing to a house of jaded actors who had little to no respect for her, and she went for it. That takes balls. That takes determination. That takes a belief in oneself and a disregard for the opinions of those who would never like her. In my Freshman year of high school, those were attributes that I sorely lacked.
But if you insist, babe,
The challenge delights me,
The more you resist, babe,
The more it excites me
And no one I’ve kissed babe,
Ever fights me again.
I felt the need to don perfectly preppy garb in an effort to win the affection and approval of my fellow students. I looked interested in what every teacher had to say, finishing all my homework on time and studying for every test in an effort to please all the school faculty. I did everything my parents asked and recommended, starting music lessons and keeping score for the girls basketball team to round out my education with extracurricular activities. I did it all without the inner-confidence that Madonna exuded, shaky hand and all, and I did it well. It just happened that none of it made me particularly happy or content. But that’s another story for another song.
If you’re on my list it’s just a question of when,
When I get a yen, then baby amen,
I’m counting to ten, and then…
As far as the Oscar show goes, it is one of her best live performances ever ~ including tours and award shows ~ and she sounds incredible. Not that it was without its quirks and foibles ~ at one point near the end one of her earrings falls off – a cluster of diamonds costing ten times what my house is worth – and gets lodged in a lock of platinum blonde hair. It stays there magically, until she bows her head as the song ends. Plucking it from her tresses, she tosses it into the orchestra pit. That’s star power, that’s grit, that’s Madonna.
I’m gonna love you like nothing you’ve known,
I’m gonna love you when you’re all alone.
Sooner is better than later but lover,
I’ll hover, I’ll plan…
Seriously, watch that Oscar performance ending and tell me you don’t love her.
This time I’m not only getting, I’m holding my man.
{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.}
Everybody comes to Hollywood,
They want to make it in the neighborhood.
They like the smell of it in Hollywood,
How could it hurt you when it looks so good?
Shine your light now,
This time it’s got to be good,
You’ll get it right now, yeah,
Cause you’re in Hollywood.
It was my summer working at the Thruway Authority – where we had our own parking (30 feet from the building) and I could drive to Delmar while on lunch. Madonna had had a rather dismal lead-off single from her recent American Life album, so she followed up with a paint-by-the-numbers pop-like bore of a safety song. It didn’t matter, I drove around with the windows open, challenging speeding tickets, blaring ‘Hollywood’, and drinking Boston shakes from the local ice cream shack.
Despite that, this remains one of my least favorite songs on that album, an otherwise-under-rated electronic pastoral, with flourishes of folk tempered with flashes of brilliance. Heavily laden with guitars of all sorts, the album got shafted because of the politicized fervor of post-9/11 fear. It’s a shame, but not because of this song.
‘Hollywood’ is another woe-is-life-at-the-top type song that posits the banal question, ‘How could it hurt you when it looks so good?’ Possibly when it sounds this bad. Sorry, I’m just not a big fan of this one. It’s telling that Madonna used an instrumental version of ‘Hollywood’ on the Reinvention tour in support of the American Life album. Or maybe she just found the repetitive yet tricky lyrics too much of a challenge – I recall a few flubs on the mini-promo tour she did for the album.
The video, however, is why I have the song on the iPod. It is classic chameleonic Madonna – highly stylized, filled with iconic images, and an absolute homage to her mode-shifting nature. There’s also a slight ‘All About Eve’ reference that puts Madonna in the glamorous trappings of Margo Channing as a younger maid looks at her longingly. That concept could have been explored a bit more, but any reference is better than none at all.
Most people will remember this song only from its performance at the MTV Music Awards, where Madonna kissed Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, then danced with Missy Elliott. The night it aired, I was in Ogunquit. Having heard whispers that she might be opening the show, I told Andy to go downstairs and make dinner reservations while I watched to see what might transpire during the opening. The snaky bassline of ‘Like A Virgin’ began and I held my breath. Britney and Christina did their rudimentary run-through of the song, and then there she was, rising from a wedding cake like the very first time, in groom/dominatrix drag, overseeing the proceedings and completely in charge of it all. Twenty years into her career, she was still the most highly-charged performance of the night, and all the world was talking about the next day.
Personally, I enjoyed that rendition of ‘Hollywood’ – and it left no doubt as to who the reigning Queen was, and remains.
{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.}
Gray shadows, one-night stands, the lost and the lonely, and the sad, unbearable waking of the morn. Such is the selection of the iPod shuffle, which has chosen ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ from Madonna’s film Evita. It was early 1997. I was single and trying valiantly to be fabulous. (Sometimes being fabulous means being kind of slutty.)
I don’t expect my love affairs to last for long,
Never fool myself that my dreams will come true
Being used to trouble I anticipate it,
But all the same I hate it wouldn’t you?
I was on the road with The Royal Rainbow World Tour, and Evita had just opened. Visiting friends in snowy Rochester, New York, I wore a leopard coat and fuschia silk shirt to see the film with a few friends. A little touch of star quality in dismal upstate NY. I was running away from having to start my real life, going on this world-wide jaunt to put off settling down now that I had graduated from Brandeis. Boston was still my home-base, but I preferred the vagabond nomadic excitement of living out of my parents’ Blazer, a rack of fancy frockery in the backseat, a sequin purse of toll coins in the front, and a small collection of necklaces dangling from the rearview mirror. I drove all night just to get away from myself.
So what happens now?
So what happens now?
Where am I going to?
Where am I going to?
In Rochester there was a poster store that carried a nice selection of postcards. A black and white image of a naked man, sitting on the edge of a bed in the morning light. Head down, clothes scattered on the floor, and the rumpled sheets of a duet or solitary struggle. It is hard to tell which is which, and the light of day doesn’t do much to aid in recovery. I had been in that position, had hung my head that low, and I would do so again and again in the years to come.
Time and time again I’ve said that I don’t care,
That I’m immune to gloom, that I’m hard through and through
But every time it matters all my words desert me
So anyone can hurt me and they do.
I preferred to stay in hotels rather than at my friends’ dorm rooms or apartments. Even then solitude was comforting to me, my natural state being one of distance, slight detachment – always separate from the rest of the world, even from my friends and family. And then again… distance lends enchantment…
So what happens now?
So what happens now?
Where am I going to?
Where am I going to?
And now the saddest part of the song, the refrain that rang in my head on so many mornings after:
Call in three months’ time and I’ll be fine, I know, Well maybe not that fine, but I’ll survive anyhow I won’t recall the names and places of each sad occasion, But that’s no consolation here and how.
How many times had I calculated the number of months the pain would last? I tried all sorts of equations – usually it was half the length of the relationship, if there even was a relationship. It was more tricky when there were sudden feelings after just a single night. Yes, decidedly more tricky, and somehow inversely more painful. It was the apathy and general disregard that used to hurt the most. I could never understand – not then – how one could not feel anything.
So what happens now?
So what happens now?
Where am I going to?
Where am I going to?
Don’t ask anymore…
Song #31: ‘Another Suitcase in Another Hall’ – January 1997
{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.}
Just one of those things
When everything goes incredible
And all is beautiful
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it) (Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)
And all of those things
That used to get you down
Now have no effect at all
Cause life is beautiful
(Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it) (Can’t get my head around it, I need to think about it)
The day started out in the sunny Mission District of San Francisco, with a breakfast at a corner diner, windows open, the morning walking lazily by. My friend Chris and I were about to hit the road and the long drive South – to the Santa Barbara area. Being a Northeastern boy, I always underestimate distances in other states, particularly those as long as California. I was attending another friend’s wedding, so I asked Chris if he wanted to drive down with me, not realizing exactly how far of a drive it would be, especially when taking the scenic Pacific Coast Highway route.
Most of Madonna’s songs, particularly in latter years, are what I would consider evening songs – moody, dark, and dramatic – perfect for a night out, and doubly good for an evening in – but not many are made for the morning. ‘Incredible’ is one of her morning songs – for greeting the day with promise and excitement, especially when that day is sunny and overflowing with the anticipation of a happy destination and unforgettable journey.
Remembering the very first time
You caught that some one’s special eye
And all of your cares dropped
And all of the world just stopped.
(I hope) I want to go back to then
Got to figure out how, got to remember when
I felt it, it thrilled me
I want it, to fill me
Chris is a good guy, and a lifelong friend, and while he doesn’t hate Madonna, he’s certainly not her biggest fan. But for some reason, he loves this song. And he played it at least twenty five times in a row – no exaggeration. Suddenly I was being paid back by my brother and mother for all the car rides in which I played Madonna relentlessly. And I got it. I got it good. But at the beginning, it was just the California breeze in my hair, the sun up above, and the great Pacific to our right as we wound our way down the coast.
You don’t know what you got ’til it’s gone
And everything in life just goes wrong
Feels like nobody’s listening
And something is missing
Guy bonding is easier than girl bonding somehow – there is less pretense, less preening – and there’s an ease to being with one of my straight guy friends that I haven’t found in straight women or gay men. Maybe it’s the underlying fact that we’re not one another’s competition, theoretically or realistically.
Chris winds us along the Pacific Coast, which is now lined with fog, affording only brief, tantalizing glimpses of the rocky shore and the ocean beyond. We make a few stops – including a break at the naturally majestic Post Ranch Inn (where we could just barely afford an appetizer, much less a night at the Inn – which runs up to $2285 – yes, per night).
When the fog parted, we took a moment to pull off the road before dusk descended. Groups of seals and sea birds huddled on the shore. Sharks inhabited these waters, and as the wind picked up and the light went, I shuddered at the thought of their dark world, equally enthralled and repelled. Then it was back on the road, and the darkening way South.
I remember when
You were the one
You were my friend
You gave me life
You were the sun
You taught me things
I didn’t run
I fell to my knees
I didn’t know why
I started to breathe
I wanted to cry
I need a reminder
So I can relate
I need to go back there
Before it’s too late
After about eight hours of driving (or riding as the case may be), I was over it – the song, the car, the traffic, and even the Madonna Inn, which we passed. We stopped for dinner around San Luis Obispo, recharging for the final stretch, and as we pulled into the hotel, I think we were both a little crazy.
It’s time to get your hands up
It’s time to get your body moving…
Some Madonna songs are great for driving, and while the 50th play of this one pushed it, ‘Incredible’ is the perfect driving song, especially along the shore of California with one of your best friends.
Let’s finish what we started
Incredible
You’re welcome to my party…
I don’t want this to end
I am missing my best friend
It was incredible
There is no reason…
{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 was the summer of 1990 – the summer of ‘Dick Tracy’, the summer of Blonde Ambition, and the summer of my trip to the then-Soviet Union. It was a summer of intrigue, of mystery, of wooded night walks, whispered secrets, and thick, hot days in which the sun beat down relentlessly and made one wonder whether the cool of night would ever come again.
All work, and no play, makes Dick a dull, dull boy…
Career gets in the way…
Square jaw, such a handsome face,
Why do you have to save the human race?
Life of crime, no it never pays,
Clean up the streets and make your secret-get-away,
All alone, in your room with your radio,
No one to hold you, had to let her go…
At this point, Madonna was still the only artist whose entire albums I learned inside out. ‘He’s A Man’ was the lead track on her ‘I’m Breathless’ album Music from and Inspired by the Film Dick Tracy. It was heavenly. And the album marked the first time she went in a Broadway/show-tune direction. Madonna singing Sondheim? Sign me up, and sign me up fast. I was just becoming a show tune queen, and this certainly helped to cement the deal. Sondheim was a hero to me for ‘Into the Woods’. I know most of his adoring public hearkens back to ‘Sunday in the Park with George’ or ‘Sweeney Todd’, but my first Sondheim experience was ‘Into the Woods’, and I loved it. Follow that with the three songs Madonna did with him on ‘I’m Breathless’, and this album was on non-stop rotation for the entire summer of 1990, much to the chagrin of my brother whenever he was trapped in the car with me.
You’re a man with a gun in your hand,
Waging a war between good and evil can be a bore.
If you don’t take time, it’s not nice,
So here’s my advice,
Take your love on the run,
Oh God let me be the one,
A man with a gun.
‘He’s A Man’ is a seductive, slow-burning introduction to the whole feel of the ‘Dick Tracy’ movie and that entire glamorous/gangster era when everybody was holding out for a hero named after a penis. Myself, I had not yet joined the hunt for Dick, so I watched the adventure from the periphery, all of fourteen years old and not quite ready to give up the childhood ghost. For that moment, listening to Madonna sing about it was all I needed. The rest took place in my head.
All boss and no brains,
Bullies and thugs, they take up all your time in vain.
Can’t let go, someone cries and you hear the call,
Who’s gonna catch you, don’t good guys ever fall?
It had a lounge-like bar feel to it, and though the hard stiff stuff stung my lips and burned my tongue, the atmosphere called to me in the seductive plucking of a bass and the languid runs of a smoke-addled pianist. A jazzy undertone ran throughout the record – and that summer – and in the midnight talks of adolescence, in the longing and the confusing want, Madonna sang her siren songs for a Dick, and I listened and pined along with her.
All alone, in your room with your radio,
No one to hold you, I would never let you go…
{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 are some Madonna songs that are so fun and catchy they stand alone, not needful of any backstory, (and certainly not crying out for my own silly attachment to it). Being that I don’t have any distinctive memory attached to it, we’re going to let ‘Give It 2 Me’ run its own bass-pumping course.
What are you waiting for?
Nobody’s gonna show you how.
Why wait for someone else to do what you can do right now?
Got no boundaries and no limits,
If there’s excitement put me in it,
If it’s against the law arrest me,
If you can handle it undress me.
Sometimes a good Madonna song is all you need to dance in front of a mirror, in your underwear, throwing a party for one and having the time of your life.
[Insert cute picture of me dancing in my underwear in front of the mirror if it were possible to take a picture of myself while dancing in front of a mirror and looking cute in my underwear.]
Don’t stop me now
Don’t need to catch my breath
I can go on and on and on…
When the lights go down
And there’s no one left
I can go on and on and on…
Give it 2 me!
Yeah!
No one’s gonna show me how.
Give it 2 me!
Yeah!
No one’s gonna stop me now.
A brief interruption: How cool is it that Pharrell Williams features his gorgeous purple Hermes Birkin in the original video?
They say that a good thing never lasts and that it has to fall
Those are the people that did not amount to much at all.
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
This would have been a perfect song a little later in the year, as it is so strongly associated with Spring for me- but the iPod will shuffle as it sees fit, so ‘I’ll Remember’ is up for discussion now. Some Madonna songs are filler – light throw-away moments that pass the time on car rides – but others are more distinctive sign-posts, framing and freezing a certain period of life that will remain tenaciously tied to a moment. This is one of the latter, and I can’t listen to it without thinking of the spring of 1994 at Brandeis and in Boston, the last girl I ever kissed, and the loss of any final vestiges of childhood.
Say goodbye to not knowing when
the truth in my whole life began.
Say goodbye to not knowing how to cry
You taught me that.
And I’ll remember the strength that you gave me
Now that I’m standing on my own
I’ll remember the way that you saved me…
I’ll remember.
This was the very last time I walked into Tower Records, or any record store for that matter, without being keenly aware of a Madonna release – the Internet was just in the process of revolutionizing information – but for now, for this one final moment of ignorant innocence, I was oblivious to what I was about to find.
Making a quick flip through the Madonna section, I saw something called ‘I’ll Remember’.For the date, the photo on the cassette (yes, cassette) was questionable – it being a reused one from the ‘Rain’ video, grainy and sub-par, but there was the Copyright of 1994. I quickly purchased it, popped it into my walkman, and as the opening Patrick Leonard-produced melody began, my heart leapt at this secret surprise.
Having just had my heart broken, by a girl no less – and no more – the song resonated more than Madonna songs usually resonate with me (which is a lot on their most unaffecting level), and the underlying melancholy and lost-love lyrics were another powerful link I felt to the artist.
Inside, I was a child,
That could not mend a broken wing.
Outside, I looked for a way
To teach my heart to sing,
And I’ll remember the love that you gave me
Now that I’m standing on my own.
I’ll remember the way that you changed me,
I’ll remember…
– – – – – – – – –
Back on campus, my Freshman year continued. The winter was relenting, the last of the most tenacious snow was finally melting in dirty patches. This was the time of heaves, when the earth buckled between moments of freezing and thawing, and the hearts of romantics followed tumultuous suit. Thoughts of suicide ravaged my head, and one night I found myself on the roof of the observatory building, looking over its edge and wondering. A couple of students burst into my silent reverie, giggling as their eyes adjusted to the dark, and still snickering even after they noticed another person standing there. I walked back to the staircase and descended.
– – – – – – – – –
I learned to let go
Of the illusion that we can possess
I learned to let go,
I travel in stillness,
And I’ll remember…
Happiness.
– – – – – – – – –
A couple of weeks later it was time to leave Brandeis. Somehow I had made it through a year of college, and I was returning home for the summer. At the end of April, or the very start of May, there was a solar eclipse. I remember watching the crescents of the sun filtered through the canopy of trees already in leaf outside my dormitory. Somewhere there are a few photos of those shadows, and that day. I was leaving Hassenfeld, my Freshman dorm, and my first year of college, and I was ready.
No I’ve never been afraid to cry,
Now I finally have a reason why…
No I’ve never been afraid to cry,
Now I finally have a reason why…
It strikes me as I write this – a rather late realization- that ‘ I’ll Remember’ was really the end of my supposed-straight life, and the very last remnants of my childhood. Try as I might, it was a losing battle, and that girl would prove to be the very last girl I ever kissed. We would have one more summer together, and then it would be the boys’ turn to break my heart.
 {Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
Hey Mr. DJ, put a record on,
I wanna dance with my baby…
In a vocoder-enhanced robotic voice of the future, the opening salvo of ‘Music’ found Madonna entering the new millennium ready to boogie-woogie. This song reminds me of my husband. Fun, funky, and instantly-classic. It came out just after I met him, and as such will always hold a special place in my heart.
It was September of 2000. I was traveling between Boston and Albany as Andy and I figured out what we were becoming. On a weekend alone, I heard this song on the radio for the first time. I sat there in the condo, ear up against the speaker, stunned and enraptured and slightly underwhelmed as I am the first time I hear any new Madonna song (it’s a good omen – see ‘Frozen’ and ‘Like A Prayer’). This was both a throw-back to her earliest R&B-dance roots, and an unflinching look to the future thanks to the computerized blips and stuttering booms of Mirwais. It was just before Internet leaks took over, and it was still possible to remain in the dark as to what a song sounded like until it premiered on the radio, and somehow I caught it at just the right moment. By the end of it, I was even dancing a little.
Do you like to Boogie Woogie?
Do you like my acid-rock?
Oh I more than liked it, I loved it. And I more than liked Andy. It was a time of celebration, a time of gleeful abandon, of giving it up to the beat, to the music, and to the prospect of loving and being loved.
And when the music starts, I never wanna stop,
It’s gonna drive me crazy…
Music…
Simple. Powerful. To the point. It was Madonna bringing it like only she could, staking another musical milestone with a memory that would burn brightly as one of the happiest in my life. As Summer ripened into Fall, and Andy and I felt our way into our relationship, Madonna was the soundtrack that formed the backdrop to all of the fun.
Music makes the people come together – yeah,
Music makes the bourgeoisie and a rebel…
That September marked our first trip together. We drove up to Ogunquit, Maine where Andy knew a few people, and it felt like we were a world away from everything else. In this fantastical place there was a beautiful ocean shore, a breathtaking seaside walk, a jewel-box of restaurants, and a couple of bars and dance clubs to fill the nights with adventure.
Don’t think of yesterday and I don’t look at the clock
I like to boogie-woogie.
It’s like riding on the wind and it never goes away
Touches everything I’m in, got to have it every day.
Andy’s friend Al ran MaineStreet at the time, and, while still relatively new, it had already established itself as a go-to spot for the good-time crowd. As the bar began to fill, and the lights flashed, the throbbing dance beat built to the first of many crescendos. Soon the dance floor was moving with the collective break-neck motions of the music-mad masses. It was then when I felt, more than heard, the opening strains of the Calderone Anthem Mix. Victor Calderone has a way with crafting a killer Madonna remix, steadily building and adding to his creation until it gives glorious way to the thundering pinnacle of its climax, and there it dangles for a delicious moment before its precipitous drop and heady whoosh to a racing conclusion.
I’ve got a bad-gay admission to make: I don’t go out to dance clubs a lot. I never have. I usually prefer the quiet atmosphere of a bar to the techno-deadened bass attack of a club any day. But once in a while I’ll have a night out when a club is exactly what I’m looking for, and if there’s a Madonna song on (as there more than likely will be) it makes it all the better, as if I’m meant to be exactly there, at that moment.
It’s happened a few times – a Calderone remix of ‘Frozen’ in the chilly Rochester winter, a transcendent bit of ‘Isaac’ and the exhilarating rush of ‘Vogue’ reborn in Chelsea, and Tracy Young’s whirling take on ‘Don’t Tell Me’ on a rare Saturday at Waterworks. This time it was ‘Music’ in Ogunquit, with a new boyfriend by my side, a new club in the midst of establishing itself, and a new Madonna album on the horizon. For that one moment, all was right with the world.
Music makes the people come together – yeah,
Music makes the bourgeoisie and a rebel…
On a technical side-note, ‘Music’ marked Madonna’s 12th Number One hit on the Billboard charts (and her last one, thus far). The album also debuted at #1 – her first number one album since 1989 (she’s been luckier in that of late, as every one of her studio albums since Music has managed to hit the top spot for at least a week: American Life, Confessions on a Dance Floor, and Hard Candy).
While spottier than its predecessor of perfection (the magnificent and yet-to-be-topped Ray of Light), Music was a more-fun companion-piece. I made my customary pilgrimage to Tower Records on Newbury Street (I think it was still Tower Records at that point – if not, then Virgin) for the midnight release, and got a free poster because I bought the Limited Edition special CD. The poster featured Madonna in high-cowgirl mode, a style that at first seemed jarring (she did once proclaim that she would never date a guy who wore cowboy boots) but ended up working better than even she probably anticipated. (Picture a smattering of pink cowboy hats at her ‘Drowned World Tour’ stops.)
As for the video, directed by Jonas Akerlund, Madonna also went back to old-school MTV fun, with a cheeky bit by Sacha Baron Cohen as Ali G, girl support from Niki Haris and Debi Mazar, and a requisite animated sequence that found a cartoon Madonna super-heroine in a Metropolis-like world with buildings and signs featuring the names of past hits. At that stage in her career, she could already look back with a wink, confident that the release of a new Madonna album was still a momentous event.
There have been a number of memorable live performances of ‘Music’ – most notably its limo-centric free-for-all at the Grammy Awards, an incredible Live 8 version, and the finale to the Drowned World Tour. But I think it was her mash-up of ‘Music’ and ‘Disco Inferno’ from the ‘Confessions Tour’ that holds status as my favorite performance of the song:
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
Make love not war we say, it’s easy to recite,
But it don’t mean a damn unless you’re gonna fight;
But not with guns and knives, we’ve got to save the lives,
Of every boy and girl that grows up in this world.
Here’s a little secret that I may or not have shared in the 25 Madonna songs that have been chronicled thus far on this Timeline: my brother is the person who actually brought the ‘True Blue’ album into our home. It was 1986, and I found it in his room. It was a cassette tape – remember them? – and I have no idea why he purchased it, except it was the 80’s, and back then our tastes occasionally overlapped. Obviously I listened to it much more than he ever did, and ‘True Blue’ was the first album I loved, listened to, and learned from start to finish. (Prior to this I was a singles guy, selectively limited to the pop hits of the radio and never taking the time to investigate or buy (or afford) an entire album. My musical library consisted of 45s if I liked a song enough and could figure out the artist.) This was way before the Internet, way before I had any reliable form of transportation, way before my awakening to the pop world, if you will. My main source of music was taping it off the radio, commercials and tattered intros and exits all intact. And somehow ‘True Blue’ forged its way into my world – crisp, clean, and complete, without the panicked tune-in-tune-out static of a recorded radio broadcast.
There’s hunger everywhere, we’ve got to take a stand,
Reach out for someone’s hand, Love makes the world go round.
It’s easy to forget if you don’t hear the sound
Of pain and prejudice, Love makes the world go round.
It was the 80’s – the big, bad, flashy, trashy, oh-so-modern, angular 80’s. I did my best to fashion my room into the bright neon glow of the new store on ‘The Facts of Life’ (after Mrs. Garrett moved out and Cloris Leachman moved in, with a few guest appearances by George Clooney). Swatch and Benetton ads were taped over the wallpaper, a blinking stop light stood in the corner, and a few gimmicky plastic items (including a neat ‘rolling wave’ piece of moving pop art – no, it literally moved) were rather garishly assembled. I was attracted to anything “modern” and in the 80’s that meant a lot of cheap trash. Novelty stores were where I found much of my inspiration, and the Top Ten at Ten of Fly 92.3 kept me attuned to the warblings of Samantha Fox, the Bangles, and Madonna.
They think that love’s a lie, but we can teach them how to try,
Love means to understand, reach out for someone’s hand.
Cause everything you do comes back in time to you,
We have to change our fate before it gets too late.
The song is, let’s admit it, a trifling of a silly thing, with somewhat banal lyrics, a totally programmed 80’s track, and just a bit of processed Latin flavor left over from ‘La Isla Bonita’. (I think I recall one writer dismissing it as a “feed-the-world fiesta.”) I didn’t care, nor could I tell at the time that it wasn’t a lasting bit of pop music. I was just happy to dance around the bedroom, choreographing elaborate routines and envisioning how my classmates might one day marvel at my dancing ability. I pictured either a talent show, or a benefit, that had me center stage, and a few of my favorite friends would be in supporting dance roles. The boy(s) on whom I had a crush would somehow be a part of it, teased but ultimately embraced with a knowing wink, as if we had a shared secret that the audience would never know, but somehow still thrill to.
Don’t judge a man ˜til you’ve been standing in his shoes,
You know that we’re all so quick to look away,
Cause it’s the easy thing to do,
You know that what I say is true.
In reality, I would be too scared to ever dance on stage. The boy I crushed on would find me mean and intolerable, completely missing the ‘girl-teases-boy-she-likes-most’ game, probably because I wasn’t a girl. And all the while Madonna kept on singing, imploring us to, “Make love, not war,” and reiterating that “Love makes the world go round.” The twenty-something soul I felt I had as an eleven-year-old boy wanted to believe this – did, in fact, believe it – and held onto the hope as the march into adolescence commenced.
Song #25: ‘Love Makes the World Go Round’ ~ 1986/1987
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
What can one say about this bit of sung Sanskrit from 1998’s brilliant ‘Ray of Light’ album? Personally, not much. And yet… and yet. There is something about this song that I’ve always liked. No idea what is going on lyrically, but I forced myself to learn the words and sing along (which is a nifty car-ride trick to impress, or in my case underwhelm, any friends in trapped earshot).
It’s a bit of chanting to ease the soul, and for a number of years whenever I felt stressed or scared (I distinctly remember repeating the mantra silently to myself while riding up in the elevator to my first state job) it offered a small piece of peace, or at least a welcome distraction to whatever I happened to be dreading.
Om shanti, Om shanti
Shanti, shanti
Shantay Om
Om shanti, Om shanti
Shanti, shanti
Shanti Om…
But what does it all mean? It’s been a while since I’ve brushed up on my Sanskrit (and by ‘while’ I mean forever), so here’s how it supposedly translates, by way of the internet:
I worship the gurus’ lotus feet
Awakening the happiness of the self revealed
Beyond comparison, working like the jungle physician
To pacify loss of consciousness from the poison of existence
In the form of a man up to the shoulders
Holding a conch, discus and sword
Thousand headed, white
I bow respectfully
Peace
I don’t know about you, but the only thing I got out of that was ‘Peace’. No matter, the music and the Sanskrit combine for a mystical experience, the beat and melody make for an irresistible combination of hooks and bait, and the whole thing is better than it has any right to be.
I’ve always thought that Madonna should make a world music album. This seemed like it might mark the jumping off point for that, until I heard its descendant, ‘Cyberraga’, a B-side from the ‘Music’ sessions. Maybe one song in Sanskrit per career is enough.
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
This is, luckily, one of those Madonna songs I have no real personal connection to, but it’s one of my favorites for her riveting musical portrayal of a marriage gone way off the mark. Written at the time that her relationship with husband Sean Penn was hitting the skids, this may be one of her most brutally honest, and jarringly unsentimental, songs.
You need so much, but not from me,
Turn your back in my hour of need,
Something’s wrong but you pretend you don’t see.
I think I interrupt your life,
When you laugh it cuts me just like a knife,
I’m not your friend, I’m just your little wife.
Powerful, gripping, profoundly sad, and all the while the beat is relentless, driving and pushing towards an inevitably tragic conclusion. Madonna said Sean Penn actually loved the song, embracing such unflinching, if unflattering, honesty. A brief glimpse into the madness of a marriage winding down, ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ offers hints of the personal terror of a destructive relationship. Whether it’s exactly Sean and Madonna may never be known to anyone other than the two of them.
Our luck is running out of time,
You’re not in love with me anymore,
I wish that it would change, but it won’t, if you don’t,
Our luck is running out of time,
You’re not in love with me anymore,
I wish that it would change, but it won’t,
Cause you don’t love me no more.
In honesty there is sometimes forgiveness, and maybe this was Madonna’s first step to letting go. It is certainly one of her finest artistic moments, and a highlight of the classic ‘Like A Prayer’ album. I think it’s the next set of lines that is the most heartbreaking:
The bruises they will fade away,
You hit so hard with the things you say,
I will not stay to watch your hate as it grows.
You’re not in love with someone else,
You don’t even love yourself,
Still I wish you’d ask me not to go.
I rediscovered the song in the Fall of 1991, following the ‘Truth or Dare’ splash that reignited my Madonna passion that subsists to this day. In that dark Fall, this had a bitter resignation to which my soul responded, finding some bit of a heroine in the rush of music, the downward spiral, fighting valiantly in a losing battle – the kind of battle that ends with no winner, that only serves to destroy.
One of the best aspects of a personal website, at least of those that I frequent, is the fact that you never quite know what you’re going to get. Because our blogs are so personal, and the human instrument so variable, it is unlikely to feature the same exact post twice. If anything, that is the underlying impetus of much of my life – it’s the reason why boredom and stagnation are my number one enemy. Things can get awfully dull when there is no room for growth or evolution or change or improvement. I will never understand those people so blind and set in their ways that they cannot open themselves up to new ideas, new ways of looking at the world, new experiences, and new hopes and dreams.
This website is what I often wish I was at my very best – and sometimes very worst, because in order to live up to the dizzying heights we ascribe to, it is necessary to wallow from time to time in the very muck from which we wish to rise. It’s contrast, the nice word for inconsistency and human frailty.
And so, as the year begins, the 8th year of www.ALANILAGAN.com (which roughly translates to 80 if we convert blog years to human years), I look to bring you more of the things that interest me, from David Beckham in his underwear to Ben Cohen in his, from Madonna in and out of her underwear to Shirley Horn alive again only in her extensive catalogue, from the safety and warmth of my marriage to the recalled journey of a young man mostly alone.
There will be travels and adventures at home and in lands far away, tales both remembered and yet to be lived, and always there will be the spring and the summer to come. It will be a journey of family lost and gained, loved and recalled and never forgotten, of friendships that have lasted through the decades, and new ones forged along the way. People will come and go, certain friends fade, certain friends renew, but ever and anon the love endures, the loyalty burns, and a laugh lingers forever.
So too will there be art – words to read, photography to see, music to hear, theater to experience, movies to watch – and somewhere in between is the art of this blog – and every blog – for there is indeed an art to sharing what we share with the world. In some ways it is the most accessible form of art – open to all, open to any, and relatively free from constrictions. It is still an art in its infancy, rife with failure and experimentation as it finds its own way. There is something raw and unfettered about it, and therein lies its potent of-the-moment glory. Perhaps its might is in its very temporal nature – both immediate and forever. Once put out there it is just as likely to be lost as it is to be forever embedded in someone’s files and spread and saved a billion times over. Who can foretell the lasting scope of this technology?
That’s where I’m headed – and you are invited to come along. No blog exists on its own. It took about eight years for me to realize that, proof that no one is too old or too stubborn to learn, no matter how much they think they know.
{Note: The Madonna Timeline is an ongoing feature, where I put the iPod on shuffle, and write a little anecdote on whatever was going on in my life when that Madonna song was released and/or came to prominence in my mind.}
Bitch!
This is one of the most unintentionally hilarious songs Madonna has ever written! In keeping with that theme, I’m going to go very liberally on the exclamation points because I find them as unintentionally funny as this song! From 1992’s ‘Erotica’ album, ‘Thief of Hearts’ is a catty bitch-fight which finds Madonna going after the woman who’s going after her man.
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
How many licks does it take?
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
Which leg do you want me to break?
Ha – Ha – Hilarious! My friend Ann and I cracked up over that last line every time we heard it. I mean, which leg do you want me to break? Oh Madonna “that’s rich!” To this day, I laugh a little whenever that line is sung, mostly because of Ann.
Here she comes, Little Suzie Ho-maker,
Thinks she’ll get respect if she screws him!
I am dying! I can still picture Ann and I laughing in Amsterdam High School, thumbing through Madonna’s riotous ‘Vanity Fair’ photos (the spread should have been titled ‘Boobs & Booty!’ not ‘Hot Madonna!’) It was a minor vacation from that cacophonous crest of adolescence, and abandoning oneself to the hokey hook-filled dance-filler of ‘Thief of Hearts’ was one way to make it through the misery.
You’ll do it, you’ll take it,
You’ll screw it, you’ll fake it,
Undo it, you’ll break it!
You’re over, you can’t take it!
{Repeat!}
Genius – simply mad genius! At a time when high school angst threatened daily to overwhelm, when the madness of hormones overflowed, there was Madonna, admonishing, “Someone please arrest her, she’s a thief of hearts! No one ever takes what’s mine!”
Bitch!
Saucy little minx, no? And as overly-dramatic as any other high school kid, which is why we could relate so well. Back then we spoke in song lyrics, and beats were our currency. We swam naked in the pool of pop music! Our heads bobbed to and fro like corks on the river of aural candy!
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
How many licks does it take?
You’re a thief of hearts, and now you have to pay!
Which leg do you want me to break?
Yeeowwww! Take me, break me, make me a man! Work it, perk it, freakin’ berserk it! Shake your booty to the ground and peek-a-boo-too! We will return to our regularly-scheduled sanity, such as it is, immediately following this post.
