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.}

Peeking out of the turret in Usen Castle, I envision whirling dervishes spinning in the sky, all crushed purple velvet and tiny darkened spectacles – wisdom in motion, divinity enthralled. They spin and spin, leaping from crescent moon to star in some astrological dance intent on rearranging the firmament as we know it. Like cardboard scenery, the sky shifts, impossibly painted on paper in the most outrageous shades of blue and indigo, ocean and air and the bottomless and topless abyss called space. Future and past clash in fantastical surreality, and the dream of the latest Madonna song, ‘Bedtime Story’, plays out as if this was all actually happening, as if it were all actually real. Looking back at that March pocket of 1995, I’m no longer what did or didn’t happen. All that feels true is simply that – a feeling, a notion, the causing of a commotion.

Inspired by Madonna’s touring persona, I ambled around upstate New York and called it a Friendship Tour, stopping to see friends at Potsdam, Rochester and Ithaca – just as March proved to be mostly winter instead of spring. Bandages around my wrists, and adorned with golden charm bracelets, accentuated the silk pajamas I wore to bed: the madness of Norma Desmond coupled with her frail sadness, and an indefatigable battalion of earnest if misguided hubris. What kingdom was this? On what throne did I pose while Ann took my picture and her mother laughed at my nonsense? It was wooden and high-backed, and I feel it solid and real in my hands, immovable beneath my body. An actual throne, to kick off anything but an actual tour, and in my head the two blurred, and I began to believe the myth I had made for myself.

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY THAT I’M USING WORDS

THEY’VE GONE OUT, LOST THEIR MEANING

DON’T FUNCTION ANYMORE…

LET’S…

LET’S…

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY…

Ann and I drive north, into the snowy land of Potsdam, winding through the backroads and braving the snow and ice and brutal sun. It’s the tail end of my sophomore year at Brandeis and I’m already spent. Reading Rabelais has put me in a foul and mischievous mood, at odds with many of my friends and family, and so I rely on Ann, who loves me no matter what comes out of my mouth (or goes into it). We laugh and sing along to Aretha Franklin’s ‘Freeway of Love’ and Belinda Carlisle’s ‘I Feel the Magic’ while the snowy banks rush by in a blur. When we arrive at our friend Missy’s dorm, she is nowhere to be found, and this being in the time before cel phones, we simply hunker down in the hallway and wait. I spin in a circle for a few more pictures, my ridiculously shredded red sweater flailing about in tattered strips – some vague homage to Salome via Norma Desmond – and all the while Ann lifts my sunken spirits, heals my wounded wrists, and brings me back to life.

TODAY IS THE LAST DAY THAT I’M USING WORDS

THEY’VE GONE OUT, LOST THEIR MEANING

DON’T FUNCTION ANYMORE…

T R A V E L I N G . . .

LEAVING LOGIC AND REASON

T R A V E L I N G . . .

TO THE ARMS OF UNCONCIOUSNESS

Madonna does her part too, though I’m not sure if her new song is a help or a hindrance on my emotional state of mind. ‘Bedtime Story’ is the title track from her latest album, ‘Bedtime Stories’ – a trippy little nugget of music penned by Bjork and eons away from anything Madonna had ever done. It was a cosmic left-fielder on the R&B/New Jill Swing sound of the rest of the album, and a thrillingly new sonic adventure from a woman whom some had already written off in the aftermath of ‘Erotica’ and ‘Sex’. Here she was, bravely and defiantly moving forward, holding onto her pop crown, and not for nearly the last time, as she put out a spectacular video of instantly iconic poses and looks. If the song itself wasn’t a #1 smash like its predecessor ‘Take A Bow’, it held a special place in the hearts of her die-hard fans. It also informed this very tender time in my life, when I sought solace in the arms of friends, forgoing lovers as much as I might have liked one. When on the brink of self-obliteration, first-time lovers are not usually much help.

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS…

While Ann is staying with Missy in her dorm, I’ve secured a hotel room nearby. I’m still not quite ready to be around people, even those who love me most. Wrestling with personal demons, in the deep dark of night, is not a communal affair. Such battles must be fought alone, if they are to be won for good. I cannot explain it then; I cannot explain it now. Ann understands, and leaves me to the war in solitude.

WORDS ARE USELESS, ESPECIALLY SENTENCES

THEY DON’T STAND FOR ANYTHING

HOW COULD THEY EXPLAIN HOW I FEEL?

Alone in the hotel room, after friends have departed, I lower the lights and confront the silence. The appalling silence. The silence that dares to try to comfort me after all its betrayals. And after banishing everyone from my space, I suddenly panic at the thought of not marking this time, and so begin the nagging attempt of immortalizing the moment on 35 mm film. Sinking down to the floor in a silk robe, I sit in the shallow pool of light that falls from the bathroom door, looking at the ground, pondering the position of a young man willing himself out of the world.

T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .

I’M TRAVELING

T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .

LEAVING LOGIC AND REASON

T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .

I’M GONNA RELAX

T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .

IN THE ARMS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

My sleep, when it finally comes, is restless. It feels like it snows a bit as my eyes wander to the window, but I don’t know if I’m dreaming that. Pulling the curtains open and closed and open again, as the gray light of a dying winter seeps into the room, I’m no longer sure if I’m sleeping or awake, whether it’s night or morning, if I’m actually there or actually not.

The room should feel cold on such a night, and maybe it does. Physical sensations have always been secondary to emotions, and it’s already made a mess of my young life. If we only knew to survive first and feel things later, so much danger might have been avoided.

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS…

That next day, we rise early. The sky is overcast but bright – the lightest of grays that is a cover of clouds but doesn’t quite look like it. It is simply as if the sky has drained itself of color, leaking every bit of sacred blue into some hidden sea. Whatever I had hoped to find or discover on the previous night’s voyage of solitude proved annoyingly elusive. As my friends arrive, I have nothing to show for it. Still, I remember that night. To this day, I remember it, and remarkably better than so many other nights with so many other forgotten people. Maybe I made peace with at least one of my demons. Maybe I had too many then to even notice.

We climbed into the car, a rack of costumes hanging in the back seat. We were heading to Rochester for the next stop. A mosaic-patterned scarf in reds and purples flew like a flag from the car antenna – the closest we would get to any sort of recreation of the bus extravaganza from ‘The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert’. It took flight, and in its silly way lifted my spirits.

AND INSIDE WE’RE ALL STILL WET

LONGING AND YEARNING

HOW CAN I EXPLAIN HOW I FEEL?

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS HONEY

LET’S GET UNCONSCIOUS…

Rochester, future city and site of a multitude of sins and mistakes, was right then a refuge, and Ann’s dorm room at RIT felt like home. With her band of misfit friends, I settled in and simply allowed myself to exist. The show would go on, and I would start assembling a vision of myself that wasn’t quite there yet, one that wasn’t quite real, filled with dramatic pomp and manipulated circumstance, which would carry me through the next few difficult years, as on the wings of a dream. With Ann by my side, I took off, and all those grand delusions would prove more than ephemeral ghosts.

T R A V E L I N G . . . T R A V E L I N G . . .

IN THE ARMS OF UNCONSCIOUSNESS

AND ALL THAT YOU’VE EVER LEARNED

TRY TO FORGET

I’LL NEVER EXPLAIN AGAIN.

SONG #164 – ‘Bedtime Story’ – March 1995

{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 TOO MANY QUESTIONS
THERE IS NOT ONE SOLUTION
THERE IS NO RESURRECTION
THERE IS SO MUCH CONFUSION

AND THE LOVE PROFUSION
YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE ME KNOW
AND THE LOVE VIBRATION
YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE IT SHINE

By April 2003 we had been in our home for just over a year, and our first spring traditions were starting to take form. The opening of the pool, the preparing of the gardens, and the general spring cleaning that accompanied this time of the year made for an exciting moment – the release of a new Madonna album added to the energy, but not in the bombastic way most people associate with Madonna, especially in the mayhem surrounding the release of that album.

The final song from the ‘American Life’ album’ to be featured on the Madonna Timeline is ‘Love Profusion’ – fortuitously timed as this is the same time of the year when that infamous album was released. For all the incendiary talk and controversy the lead title track inspired, ‘Love Profusion’ was more indicative of the electronic pastoral that Madonna had conjured with ‘American Life’ – and the classic sonic vibe of her work with Mirwais.

THERE ARE TOO MANY OPTIONS
THERE IS NO CONSOLATION
I HAVE LOST MY ILLUSIONS
WHAT I WANT IS AN EXPLANATION

AND THE LOVE PROFUSION
YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE ME KNOW
AND THE LOVE DIRECTION
YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE ME SHINE

YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE ME SHINE, YOU MAKE ME FEEL

‘Love Profusion’ captured that happily hazy period when spring was ripening into summer, but the evenings and mornings were still chilly. I put the quieter ballads together and played them on repeat to lull us to sleep at night. This was one of those songs – a sweet love song, the kind that always felt like a throwaway to Madonna in the vein of ‘True Blue’ or ‘Cherish’ – where she would perform them on one tour then retire them for decades. (Still waiting on that ‘Cherish’ resurrection…) ‘Love Profusion’ didn’t even get a tour performance, and I’m cool with that.

I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN

The lyrics feel lazy, but today I’ll take it for something lighter, and more innocent and hopeful. Back in 2003, we were ready for that, and in 2021 we are even more ready for it. That doesn’t mean it’s particularly special or groundbreaking, but even when Madonna is pleasantly unremarkable, she’s still a joy to hear.

THERE IS NO COMPREHENSION
THERE IS REAL ISOLATION
THERE IS SO MUCH DESTRUCTION
WHAT I WANT IS A CELEBRATION

AND I KNOW I CAN FEEL BAD
WHEN I GET IN A BAD MOOD
AND THE WORLD CAN LOOK SO SAD
ONLY YOU MAKE ME FEEL GOOD

The video for this is one of my least favorite Madonna videos. I almost wish she didn’t even bother, and the less said about it the better.

I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN
I GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN

AND THE LOVE PROFUSION
YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE ME KNOW
AND THE LOVE INTENTION
YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE ME SHINE

YOU MAKE ME FEEL
YOU MAKE ME SHINE, YOU MAKE ME FEEL

Song #163 – ‘Love Profusion’ – Spring 2003

The advent of Lent (only true Catholics will rejoice at what I did there) makes this a bit of a Madonna moment, so entwined has some of her music been with the Catholic religion. Her most spiritual albums have been released in the month of March – see ‘Like A Prayer‘ and ‘Ray of Light‘ – and she recently re-issued some ‘Like A Prayer’ remixes that are positively divine. I’m treating you to the ‘Churchapella’ version here for a lovely almost-acoustic take on her epic song – a song that has stood the tests of time and controversy to stand alone as a piece of perfect art. Just like a muse to me…

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

I’M TIRED OF BEING FAR AWAY FROM HOME
FAR FROM WHAT CAN HELP
FAR FROM WHERE IT’S SAFE
HOPE IT’S NOT TOO LATE
RUSH, RUSH, RUSH ON YOU
LOVE, LOVE, LOVED ON YOU
LOVED YOU LIKE A FOOL
PUT MY TRUST IN YOU

Vines of chartreuse splendor wind down from the shade-giving canopy, while spires of new banana leaves rise from a bulky terra-cotta-hued pot. Together they form a veil of green, behind which the sparkling surface of the pool beckons, sometimes playfully, sometimes teasingly, and sometimes annoyingly when it’s dancing with rain. A hummingbird will come to visit, darting its tongue into the deep throats of the fuchsia and salvia, while robins will make a more bothersome and bold presence. To this, friends and family will add their joyous noise and bustle, enlivening the home and the yard and the summer itself.

It was the summer of 2019 – the last summer before the world stopped, before we were all stranded at home, suspended in place, our lives on pause.

‘CAUSE YOU’RE THE ONE I CRAVE
AND MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS
THE FEELINGS NEVER FADE
I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD PLAY WITH THIS
SAID COME, COME GIVE ME STRENGTH
I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD WAIT FOR THIS
‘CAUSE YOU’RE THE ONE I CRAVE
AND MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS

OOH (OOH), MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS
OOH, I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD PLAY WITH THIS
OOH (OOH), MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS
OOH, I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD WAIT

Recent cravings for Madonna had her timeline returning to the blog, and the next cut is already up: ‘Crave’ from 2019’s ‘Madame X’ opus. That summer was the last one when the world felt semi-sane and whatever normal was before the pandemic. We couldn’t know that then, and so this breezy memory is sweeter and hazier than usual. Would we have made more indelible memories if we’d known what was to come? I don’t know, it may have been better that we didn’t have a clue. Ignorance is often bliss. Like the mythical sole passenger who survives a car crash because they were asleep and their body just stayed limp instead of tensing up and causing more damage – maybe it was best that no one knew what was in store for us. And so the summer of 2019 passed in all its innocent bliss, with this song rocking gently inside and outside the house, as we opened things up for the season of the sun.

‘CAUSE I’M JUST ME (YEAH), THAT’S ALL I CAN BE (OOH)
SOMETHING REAL (YEAH), SOMETHING I CAN FEEL
YOU KNOW I JUST CAN’T CHANGE, THIS IS HOW I’M MADE
I’M NOT AFRAID, TAKE ME TO THAT PLACE

YOU’RE THE ONE I CRAVE (CRAVE)
AND MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS
THE FEELINGS NEVER FADE
I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD PLAY WITH THIS
SAID COME, COME GIVE ME STRENGTH
I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD WAIT FOR THIS
‘CAUSE YOU’RE THE ONE I CRAVE
AND MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS

It was back in the days when being alone and staying home was a choice, a deliberate and intentional decision to spend the weekend by ourselves, an indulgent bit of privacy that today is commonplace and necessity, taking away much of the joy and treat of the thing. And of course, now we miss that company, especially in the summer.

YOU’RE ON ME, I DON’T THINK YOU SHOULD WAIT (WAIT)
YOU’RE ONLY ONE PULL UP AWAY (AWAY)
YOU’RE DOWN TO RIDE, YOU RIDE ME LIKE A WAVE (RIDE, YEAH)
I GAVE YOU A SENSATION (OOH)
A LONER, DAYS WE USED TO CHASE
IT’S DO OR DIE, YEAH, MY LOVE LIFE CAN GET CRAZY (CRAZY)
IT’S ON THE LINE, GIRL, YOU’RE RISKING EVERYTHING (THING)
IT’S OVER-X-RATED

Swae Lee was part of the 2019 summer soundtrack thanks to this one and the glorious ‘Sunflower’ – both subtle and insinuating tracks that lulled the summer days into nights, the way summer eases into just about everything. Nothing was rushed or hurried, nothing was worrying – the world eased into the sunny season and everyone put the work away. By the pool, we read and ate, idly dipping in when the height of heat overwhelmed. Friends stopped by when they could, family joined us for patio dinners, and no one had an idea of what was to come…

RAN SO FAR TO TRY TO FIND THE THING I LACKED AND THERE IT WAS
INSIDE (SIDE) OF (OF) ME (ME)
RAN AND RAN AND RAN SO FAST, A THING TO LAST, AND THERE IT WAS
I HEAR (HEAR) YOU (YOU) BREATHE (BREATHE)

‘CAUSE YOU’RE THE ONE I CRAVE (CRAVE)
AND MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS
THE FEELINGS NEVER FADE
I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD PLAY WITH THIS
SAID COME, COME GIVE ME STRENGTH
I DON’T THINK WE SHOULD WAIT FOR THIS
‘CAUSE YOU’RE THE ONE I CRAVE
AND MY CRAVINGS GET DANGEROUS

IT’S ON THE LINE, GIRL, YOU’RE RISKING EVERYTHING 

SONG #162 – ‘Crave’– Summer 2019

Released in the US on this day in 1998, Madonna’s ‘Ray of Light’ album is considered by most fans and music historians her best album to date. I’m in complete agreement of that, and have the added bonus of being at just the right moment to soak in its mysteries and majesty at the ripe old age of 22. When you are that age music somehow means more than it does at 45, and I’m not sad nor unhappy about that. It was perfect for its time, and it came out at the precise moment I was ready to hear it. 

‘Ray of Light‘ has mostly been about searching and seeking – universal themes that don’t diminish or deteriorate with time. If anything, such matters become more prescient and resonant the older I get, which is part of the artistic merit of the album. It’s always worth a listen – and all the way through – especially when the seasonal year is about to be reborn… 

This space was supposed to be filled with some tantalizing Valentine’s Day photos – I have a new leather harness and everything – but on the day it was supposed to happen I just didn’t have it in me. The Senate had failed to convict you-know-who, the winter had been dour and extra-frigid, and after getting sucked into the news station that Andy has on 24-7 I retreated to the basement and curled up on the couch for an extra-long movie – ‘Dr. Zhivago’ – which I had never seen before. Who could have foretold that the Russian Revolution would one day feel so quaint? On this crazy day, the world felt all sorts of wrong. 

Sapped of energy, and the desire to thrill, I slipped into a cozy cashmere turtleneck sweater and did my best to embrace the winter white running through my hair. I lit a few candles and tried to conjure some hygge, even as all my Valentine dreams dissipated. I just wasn’t in the mood for this love-fest. Lacking the drive to work out or do some yoga, I barely dragged myself back upstairs to meditate when the movie was over, but I did. It helped, as meditation always does, but even after the session I was left feeling drained and down.

As with many moments lacking in ambition, I turned to Madonna for some love inspiration. I tooled around YouTube looking for moments that happened around this time of the year. There was always her wondrous Oscars rendition of ‘Sooner or Later’ – and, later, the late-winter surreal marvel that was ‘Bedtime Story’ (which we have to reach on the Madonna Timeline) but I wanted something more overtly romantic. 

Madonna’s ‘Crazy For You’ was just coming into my life in the weeks following Valentine’s Day, if my memory serves, and so I bring this cover version into the blog and breathe new life into this somewhat sappy chestnut. On this day of all days, a little sappiness may be forgiven. 

The cynical side of me has often derided Valentine’s Day, preferring the sass and heartache of Dorothy Parker to any sort of sweet love song, but as I grow older I’m trying to embrace the harmless celebratory aspect of this day – and there’s nothing wrong with a little extra candy or flowers or fragrance. There’s more than enough bitterness in the word, and I’ve spent my fair share adding to that. It’s time to soften up, to let that cynicism go. Give in 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.}

FINALLY, ENOUGH LOVE

I DON’T SEARCH, I FIND

I DON’T SEARCH, I FIND

The summer of ‘Madame X‘ feels like a lifetime ago, and in so many ways it feels like the last summer of innocence. I suppose all previous summers were the last summers of innocence. Music brings back memories almost as potently as scent. So does this blog, thanks to summer recaps, part one, part two and part three. As for this song, ‘I Don’t Search, I Find’ we locate Madonna musing with some introspective lyrics over a moody dance track that thrillingly recaptures the ‘Erotica’ era in the best possible ways. 

The days of losing oneself in the hedonistic wild abandon of dance clubs somehow feel far away too, and somewhere in the past of ten or twenty-five years ago the dim sparkle of reflected light, bounced about off disco balls and mirrors and the eyes of the seeking, is still splintering its pretty shards through history. Eyes sleepy with drink or drug sweep the dance floor of time, looking for possibility, looking for reciprocated desire, looking for, above all things, love – always for love.

I FOUND LOVE

I FOUND SOMETHING NEW

I FOUND YOU

YEAH, I FOUND YOU

PLATINUM GOLD INSIDE YOUR SOUL

I FOUND LIGHT

I FOUND EMOTION

Those nights were filed with darkness, and thinking back on some of them I can feel the fear I probably should have felt then. Like the time I cajoled a guy into driving me from Boston back to Brandeis one night, and he ended up pulling off onto a dim side road, stopped his van (yeah, he drove a van straight out of ‘Silence of the Lambs’ and I was in it) and wanted to talk. Nothing came of it, and I was not even scared at the time it happened – only in retrospect do I feel the danger and naivete of youth, and forget its invincibility. I feel the same way about certain nights at tea dance, when the pulsating throb of the dance floor pumps its lifeblood through my system, and the whole mass of dancing people moves as one organism, gracefully fluttering in one singular sensation. There was community there, and happy co-existence. We needed each other to make it work, and we could rely on each other to make it happen. I fear that those days and that synergy may be gone forever. Not only because of our current situation, but the changing landscape of humanity. For now I shall side with cynicism in the hope of being proved wrong.

IT’S OUR GYPSY BLOOD

WE LIVE BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH

WAITING TO MOVE ON

AND IN THE END WE ACCEPT IT

WE SHAKE HANDS WITH OUR FATE

AND WE WALK PAST

THERE’S NO REST FOR US IN THIS WORLD

FINALLY, ENOUGH LOVE

For me, this song also reminds that despite the collective pulsation and sensations the dance floor once provided, those moments were largely few and far between. Mostly I just witnessed them from a safe vantage point, not usually joining in and moving with the masses. I never tore my shirt off and rubbed sweaty torsos with a group of men (not on a public dancefloor at any rate) and I didn’t do any of the drugs that sent so many off to some fantastical journey through the convoluted alterations of their brain. I sipped on my screwdrivers and got a little/lot drunk, but that was the extent of my dance floor debauchery. Occasionally I would go a bit further, but for the most part, when I honestly think back on my not-entirely-plentiful nights out, I remember them largely in solitary fashion. I never had a huge group of gay friends with whom I could tag along for regular jaunts to the club. Part of me thought I wanted that, but whether it was social anxiety or simple diversion in taste, I never pursued it. And so my dance club experience was largely limited, and largely made in solitude. Which makes this particular Madonna song somehow resonate with me, as it captures the loneliness of the scene as much as it celebrates the sonic atmosphere.

I DON’T SEARCH, I FIND

I FOUND PEACE (I FOUND PEACE)

I FOUND A NEW VIEW (I FOUND A NEW VIEW)

I FOUND YOU (I FOUND YOU)

YEAH, I FOUND YOU

It’s music for when you want to circle the perimeter of the dance floor, or hover on some balcony just above all the action. That was my territory for the most part. Once in a while someone would tear me away from such solitude and I’d join in the exertions, quite adeptly because I did get the gay dance gene, and for a few moments I’d legitimately enjoy letting go, but soon enough my socially anxious senses would return and I’d slink off to the bathroom or the bar and end it before it took me anywhere too far from where I’d come.

It does what the best of her latter-day work does: references the past in reverential form while looking ahead to the dance floor moments that are yet to come. Will we ever dance again? It’s too soon to say, but Madonna has not given up the fight, and neither have I.

FINALLY, ENOUGH LOVE…

SONG #161 ‘I Don’t Search, I Find’ ~ Summer 2019