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…’
