Category Archives: Music

Initially given a gorgeously-icy treatment, Madonna’s ‘Frozen’ majestically led the mystical charge of her greatest album to date, ‘Ray of Light’. it came with a number of wildly-varied remixes, the sleeper of which was this Stereo MC’s version, which accentuates its Moroccan desert vibe in the best way. It puts me in the mind of a night journey, the way I used to travel in my younger years, when I’d easily stay awake to three o’clock and be happily chugging away on the Thruway. 

Strangely, or fittingly… because I can’t quite see the forest through the trees yet… the notion of driving and traveling is stirring in my mind. More than the usual winter restlessness, it speaks to something else, something greater at work – a healing, a grieving, a running… away from or toward something, I can’t be sure. 

Isn’t everyone just traveling down their own road…

A mysterious post perhaps, inspired by the mystics and going back centuries, and if it’s one of the last in this incarnation of the website, so shall it be. (I’ve received word that the hosting platform for this place will be updated and my antiquated version of WordPress may not work after February 20, so if it goes away for a bit or forever, you’ll understand why.) Frozen in time, frozen in space, frozen in place…

The thawing of a heart is a curious thing…

It was during this week way back in 1987 that Madonna was reigning on the charts with her #1 hit ‘Open Your Heart’ – one of my all-time favorite songs by her, and one that she recently performed in thrilling fashion on her Celebration Tour. While the Madonna Timeline for ‘Open Your Heart’ has already been written, I am happy to resurrect this extended version of the song in honor of such a recollection of its chart success. 

1987 was a banner year for music in my life (even if critics may disagree on its musical merit). Pop songs can infiltrate the mind of a 12-year-old and leave an imprint that may last for decades. The cadence of melody here always brings me back to that winter of 1987 – much else from that winter has been forgotten, the typical loss and degradation from time, and other things occupying the mind. And still, the longing to belong, inherent in this song, the desperate way she begs for another to open their heart, will always resonate with that part of me who never felt like he belonged. 

“If you gave me half the chance you’d see my desire burning inside of me, but you choose to look the other way…”

Meanwhile, Madonna’s love for art, and an artist like Tamara de Lempicka, spoke to me on another, more subtle and subliminal level. I had just begun to appreciate her appreciation for certain painters, following her lead less for the specific artists she chose to champion (like Frida Kahlo) and more in her passion and love for the evocation of a scene, of a mood, of a feeling. The greatest works of art elicit an emotion of some sort, ideally many emotions from many different people. The readings and interpretations are as varied as the viewers. 

For a 12-year-old in the golden age of MTV, Madonna’s ‘Open Your Heart’ video was a piece of modern-day art – a little story set to music, a mini-movie defined and delineated by costume, dance, movement, and gaze. Madonna’s mastery of the medium made her a star, and an inspiration for many a burgeoning gay man such as myself. She was speaking a language I understood in a way I couldn’t understand the basic communication of other boys my age. They spoke through sports and physical activity, through fights and horse-play and wrestling; I wanted only to whisper, to share a secret, to cast a spell. With wishes, with words, with sheer force of will…

‘One is such a lonely number…’

{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.}

Madonna has crafted some amazing summer songs – see ‘True Blue‘ and ‘Express Yourself‘ and ‘Vogue‘ and ‘Ray of Light‘ – and songs hit a sweeter spot when they are released in the summer; the season of the sun burns musical memories into the mind more indelibly than perhaps any other time of the year. 

It was a darker summer but we didn’t know that then, and so it was a summer of light, the last if I really think about it. The thing is… summer always comes with dark nights, and darker currents underneath all the sun and fun. This Madonna Timeline, a bonus track from her ‘Madame X’ album, hints at that darker undertone, taking things on a slightly more serious turn, one that would find fruition the next year. 

Every night, before I close my eyes
I say a little prayer that you’ll have mercy on me
Please, dear God, to live inside the divine
Not like I want to die
Teach me to forgive myself, outlive this hell

Is it really love if it hurts?
Is it really pain if it’s inside?
On the outside, I’m strong
Hold my hand, please sympathize
Hard enough trying to forgive
Hard enough trying to live
Please don’t criticize, yeah
Please, please sympathize, yeah

The ‘Madame X’ album was an exercise in moody music, even as it came out just as summer was getting started. The drama of ‘Looking for Mercy’ finds Madonna examining a quest for mercy, a search for sympathy – the usual desire for connection and understanding. It’s not the fluffy stuff of previous summer fare like ‘Love Makes the World Go Round‘ or ‘Where’s the Party?‘ It rings closer in theme and import to ‘Live to Tell‘ – a throwback to summers that wanted to be more carefree than they ever actually were. 

Somebody to teach me to love
Somebody to help me rise above
I need to survive, I’m looking for

Looking for, looking for, looking for mercy
Looking for, looking for, looking for mercy
I’m looking for, I’m looking for love
Looking for, looking for, looking for mercy
Looking for, looking for, looking for mercy
I’m looking for, I’m looking for mercy

Looking back at that summer of 2019 – the summer before we were plunged unwillingly into a worldwide pandemic – it feels both innocent and somber, as though we knew there was something darker coming, and somehow we had to make the most of it. Summer lends urgency to its days, ever-aware that September would arrive sooner than desired. Did we embrace the days? Did we honor the hours? The memories now are mostly questions, the wisdom of hindsight muted and inscrutable, and the gauzy haze that summer wraps around its days closes in cocoon-like fashion. 

Is it really faith if I’m weak?
Can you tell the truth when you live lies?
I’m just looking for the signs
Hold my hand, please sympathize
Hard enough trying to forgive
Hard enough trying to live
Flawed, flawed by design, yeah
Please, please sympathize

Song #175 – ‘Looking For Mercy’ ~ Summer 2019

{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 Madonna Timeline is on a bit of a ‘Madame X’ kick of late, with the most recent entry being ‘God Control‘, and this one moving on to ‘Crazy’. One of the most charming and effervescent tracks of that album, ‘Crazy’ brings me happily back to the summer of 2019, a time that feels more quaint and sunny when you realize it was all in the months right before a worldwide deadly pandemic. In so many ways, that summer feels like one of the last great summers, and all the summers since then have been trying to achieve something similar, and all to no success. Maybe I’ve just grown up beyond having a carefree summer. Maybe last summer simply ruined it for me. I don’t know. What I do understand is that there is power in music – and power in this pretty little song. 

I spent all night waiting up
It’s gonna be the last night I wait up for you
Spent a long time wakin’ up
Used to think that I was not enough for you

Now I see that I’m just way too much
You got your hands full, I’m misunderstood
Now I see that I’m who I can trust
And you got a lot of room, you tryin’ to make it good

But if you think I’ve been foolish and you only fool me once
I guess it’s shame on you
Say now if you think I’ve been foolish and you
Keep on trying to do it, baby, Imma switch the plans on you

‘Cause you’re driving me crazy
You must think I’m crazy

The start of the summer of 2019 was spent in gleeful anticipation of the ‘Madame X’ album – one of the first true summer albums released by Madonna since I can’t remember when (perhaps the most notable one being ‘True Blue’). The magic had begun with ‘Medellin‘ and while some of the album was gloriously experimental, Madonna still knew her way around a heady hook and a magical melody, which she melded with some strong Portuguese influence on ‘Crazy’. 

And I won’t let you drive me cray-ay-ay-ay-zy
And I won’t let you drive me crazy
Você não vai me por tão lo-o-o-ouca
Você não vai me por tão louca

Starting the season as early as possible, I remember painting some of our worn backyard plant stands and furniture a bright yellow, unifying the accents with the curtains hanging from the canopy that year. They would be excellent foil for the garishly-colored pots I was using, forming a vibrant fiesta of color and bold hues that would help to make a celebration of summer. All the while, I played the ‘Madame X’ album on repeat, burning these beautiful songs into a summer memory. 

I bent my knees for you like a prayer
My God, look at me now
Pulled off my weakness layer after layer
Nothing left for me to keep ’round

I’m a force that I won’t tame, babe
Can’t go through this and stay the same, babe
I’ve seen a lot of stranger things, babe
And I’ll never look at you the same

But if you think I’ve been foolish and you only fool me once
I guess it’s shame on you
Say now if you think I’ve been foolish and you keep
On trying to do it, baby, Imma switch the plans on you

‘Cause you’re driving me crazy
You must think I’m crazy
Você me põe tão louca
Você pensa que eu sou louca

And I won’t let you drive me crazy-ay-ay-ay-ay-zy
And I won’t let you drive me crazy
Você não vai me por tão lo-o-o-ouca
Você não vai me por tão louca

Once the patio was put together and looking pretty, the canopy assembled and providing some shade, and the pool swirling its chlorinated warmth in circles of wavering blue and aqua, Andy and I would pause and take it all in, enjoying this little oasis in the midst of upstate New York, our own little escape from the rest of the world. His adamant desire to have a pool paid off, and I’ve always been grateful for that. Madonna sang her songs crafted halfway round the world, and they matched the surroundings and the time perfectly. 

I put you on a pedestal but statues, they can fall
Felt so safe, I let you drive me straight into the wall
Paid the hell you dealt me, thought you felt me
Was never good at games, now I just forget your name

But if you think I’ve been foolish and you only fool me once
I guess it’s shame on you
Say now if you think I’ve been foolish and you keep
On trying to do it, baby, Imma switch the plans on you

‘Cause you’re driving me crazy
You must think I’m crazy

Summer ended all too quickly that year, though we didn’t realize it then. It was just another summer in a long line of summers, and there would always be such summers to come, wouldn’t there? I wish I’d known so I could have held onto it a little longer. Strike that – I’m glad we didn’t know. There was nothing to mar the happiness of the moment. 

If that makes me crazy, so be it.

Song #174 – ‘Crazy’ ~ Summer 2019

This Santa took a tumble at Madonna’s latest ‘Celebration’ tour date when a dancer gave hi a bit of a lap-dance that he simply couldn’t handle. All in a Madonna concert, I suppose. The lady herself has never seemed all that big on Christmas, having released but one holiday song, a rather annoying version of ‘Santa Baby’ when she was in full Betty-Boop/Nicki-Finn mode. Still, as the only Madonna Christmas song we have (all stretches of ‘Holiday’ to the side) it has remained a holiday staple, even if nothing could ever come close to the original version by Eartha Kitt. It’s here below because it is, ahem, the season.

Personally, I’m glad we don’t have a Madonna Christmas album, although given her name and religious dabbling, I could see her putting together a majestically sacrilegious romp that might prove very interesting. Until such time, I’ll make do with the songs that remind me of my own personal holiday memories: 

• Masterpiece
• Let It Will Be
• Waltz for Eva and Che

{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 knows the damn truth
Our nation lied, we lost respect
When we wake up, what can we do?
Get the kids ready, take them to school
Everybody knows they don’t have a chance
To get a decent job, to have a normal life
When they talk reforms, it makes me laugh
They pretend to help, it makes me laugh
I think I understand why people get a gun
I think I understand why we all give up
Every day they have a kind of victory
Blood of innocence, spread everywhere
They say that we need love
But we need more than this…

One of the absolute highlights of Madonna’s somewhat-underappreciated (and some might say somewhat-underwhelming) ‘Madame X’ album is ‘God Control’ – a masterpiece of a sonic journey, complete with choir and tongue-in-cheek rapping, that comes with the last great video she’s given us. Give it another listen and viewing below:

We lost God control
We lost God control
We lost God control
We lost God control

This song, and the entire thought-provoking ‘Madame X’ album, brings me back to the summer of 2019 – in so many ways a last summer of innocence, and a last summer before the world went bonkers. Maybe it’s just me getting old, and maybe people always say this as time moves on, but I do genuinely feel that things are different. Society – especially American society – has changed, and it doesn’t seem for the better.

This is your wake-up call
I’m like your nightmare
I’m here to start your day
This is your wake-up call
We don’t have to fall
A new democracy
God and pornography
A new democracy…

The rise of America’s gun culture, and the apparently unswaying way we are all letting people, including children, just succumb to something that could be so easily stopped is one more tell-tale sign of these changes. Madonna tackled the subject in this song and video, switching out ‘Gun Control’ for ‘God Control‘ because religion plays its part in where we have been, and where we are headed. A hypocritical religion, perhaps, but a religion nonetheless. 

People think that I’m insane
The only gun is in my brain
Each new birth, it gives me hope
That’s why I don’t smoke that dope
Insane people think I am
Brain inside, my only friend
Hope it gives me birth each new
That dope I don’t smoke, it’s true…

Only Madonna could turn such a controversial topic into a video that is transfixing, enthralling, entertaining, disturbing, and impossible-not-to-watch. At four decades into an unprecedented career of entertainment domination, she’s mastered the art form of the video – hell, she practically invented it – and it remains one of the most vital methods of communicating her message. Images aligned with music, backed with meaning and significance, taking us on a journey of light and dark… this is what Madonna does best. 

Everybody knows the damn truth
Everybody knows the damn truth (wake up)
We need to wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up
We need to make up, make up, make up, make up
Make up, make up, make up, make up, make up, make up
It’s a hustle, yeah
It’s a hustle
It’s a con
It’s a hustle
It’s a weird kind of energy
A bizarre thing that happens to be
An abnormal fraternity
And I feel more than sympathy

A message that was depressingly resonant and needed in 2019 has become a message that rings with even greater loss and rage in 2023. Thoughts and prayers have done nothing over the past four years, and will continue to do nothing. Gun violence is the number one killer of children in America. So while you’re worried about drag queens reading books to your kids or an imaginary war on Christianity, ask yourself what Jesus might do when confronted with an epidemic like guns. Pretty sure he wouldn’t be arming himself with an AR-15. 

A new democracy!

Everybody knows the damn truth
Our nation lied, we’ve lost respect
When we wake up, what can we do?
Get the kids ready, take them to school
Everybody knows they don’t have a chance
Get a decent job, have a normal life
When they talk reform, it makes me laugh
They pretend to help, it makes me laugh…

And so we laugh, and so we float along… In that summer of 2019, my niece and nephew join us for a swim in the pool. Laughing and splashing, the carefree memories of childhood encroach on the present moment, and I remember a time when kids weren’t getting shot in schools. The water is warm, the sun is strong, and, based on all outward appearances, who can tell a summer day by the pool today from a summer day by the pool forty years ago? A disco tune still spins in the background, the gleeful squeals of kids having fun punctuate the beat, and that funny juxtaposition of laughter and tears reminds me that the world has gone mad, and I no longer know how not to go mad along with it. 

Song #173 – ‘God Control’ ~ Summer 2019