{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 goin’ through it, yeahI know you see the tragic in itJust hold on to the little bit of magic in itI can’t break down nowI can’t take that nowDied a thousand timesManaged to surviveI can’t break down nowI can’t take that (I can’t take that)
I rise, I riseI rise up above it, up above itI rise, I riseI rise up above it all
For all of her strengths and triumphs, Madonna has been remarkably hit-or-miss when it comes to putting the closing song of an album together. For every ‘Vogue‘ there is a ‘Gone’, for every ‘Mer Girl‘ there is an ‘Act of Contrition‘. Mostly they are filler, albeit decent-enough filler – as in ‘Easy Ride‘ or ‘Like It Or Not‘, but only in that first example did she hit it out of the park. This Madonna Timeline entry, ‘I Rise’, from 2019’s ‘Madame X’ effort, is another decent-enough closer, but there’s not much more to say about it. That sort of dovetails with my thoughts on Madonna at the moment.
Of course I still love her, she simply hasn’t done anything in a long time that has sparked my fandom or stoked the fires of that love. This song would probably be her shrugging off such doubt in her, even from one of her lifelong fans. I’m absolutely certain she will rise again, and I can’t wait to see it.
