{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.}

A million miles later
We walked through the valley of the darkest night
We made it through the fire
We’re scarred and we’re bruised, but our hearts will guide us
Together
I know our love’s gonna last forever
We’re gonna be alright
Tonight

In a record-setting fourth-song-in-a-row-from-a-single-album, the Madonna Timeline has once again randomly skipped to a ‘Rebel Heart’ track. This time it’s ‘Hold Tight’ which features a straight-from-the-radio-even-if-it-won’t-be-played-on-it percussive percolator that finds Madonna espousing clichwd-verses of the everything’s-gonna-be-all-right sort. For me, it’s pure filler, but I think if she found a live venue for this (with some serious drums filling the stage, as seemed to be a possibility in the advance video peeks of tour rehearsal footage) it might make me a bigger fan.

For the moment, this is a filler in the Timeline too. We are getting closer to the final twenty-five percent of Madonna songs left on the iTunes circle for this Timeline, but there are still a few gems and jewels with memories to rival the best – after all, we have yet to hit – ‘Express Yourself’ or ‘Vogue’ – two monumental songs from the Madonna canon that speak wonderful words, elicit lovely memories, and conjure some life-changing moments. For now, just hold tight…

We’ll live with no limits
We’ll dance in the middle of the freezing rain
With you and I in it
Survive the eye of a hurricane
Together
We’re gonna make this better
We’re gonna be alright tonight

Hold tight
As long as you’re by my side
Hold tight
Everything’s gonna be alright

Only love, only love tonight
Lights off, we’re burning so bright
Hold tight
Everything’s gonna be alright

SONG #116: ‘Hold Tight’ – Spring 2015

There are two widely acknowledged but mostly-just-perceived failures in the course of Madonna’s long and winding career. The first and most spectacular would have to be her ‘Sex’ book. Along with her ‘Erotica album, it remains the most striking milestone in three decades of controversy. After that the most notable failure would probably be considered the ‘American Life’ album and video. In the aftermath of each she put out fall albums that resurrected a career that wasn’t quite prepared to be nailed to the cross. The first was ‘Bedtime Stories‘ following ‘Erotica.’ The second (and the one for which we are celebrating a 10th anniversary this week) is ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ following ‘American Life.’

To be fair there were successful endeavors after those low-points (the ‘Girlie Show Tour’ and the ‘Reinvention Tour’ were actually the most immediate follow-ups – evidence that Madonna on tour is a foolproof way to win over everyone all over again) but I think it’s her musical output after each questionable career lull that is the true mark of her merit.

Despite the crowd-pleasing closest-to-a-greatest-hits-tour-she’ll-likely-ever-do ‘Reinvention’ jaunt of 2004, the reparation to the ‘American Life’-scarred Madonna only came to full fruition in the fall of 2005. She’d just broken a bunch of bones falling off a spooked horse, and the weeks of recuperation in advance of her new album left her chomping at the bit. When she is hungry for a hit – commercial or artistic – Madonna is at her best. When the world has counted her out, she comes back better than ever. By the time ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ was released, the time was ripe for a Madonna Renaissance.

With its brilliant, if somewhat predictable, sampling of the classic Abba arpeggios, lead single ‘Hung Up’ was huge. An immense international hit that brought Madonna near the top of the charts again, it barreled into November with a stomping bass-line and catchy chorus that stampeded dance clubs and brought back a bit of glamour to a tired scene. The video was a cheeky ode to ‘Saturday Night Fever’, and no one but Madonna could have melded the 70’s, 80’s and current dance music so effectively.

Dance music was where she had first made her indelible mark, and whenever she seemed to be losing her way, a dance classic brought her back home. (See ‘Ray of Light’.) ‘Confessions’ was literally a non-stop dance explosion, each track segueing seamlessly into the next, yet the songs were gorgeously distinctive enough to stand on their own – a nifty hat trick that’s more difficult that it might seem.

No matter what transgressions Madonna may have perpetrated in the past, all is forgiven when she returns to the dance floor. ‘Confessions’ was a love letter to her most die-hard fans, but a brilliant record on its own terms, garnering almost universal praise and re-establishing her prominence in the fickle pop culture world.

The ‘Confessions’ era of 2005 was a pivotal return to form for Madonna, one that winked at the past while looking unflinchingly toward the future. With its perky pastiche of dance music inspired by the previous three decades, it was a pleasant reminder of what Madonna did better than anybody else. Yet there were deeper things at work too, with admittedly-confessional lyrics that brought some substantive heft to the twinkling mirrorball surface. When she snarls, “Just watch me burn” in ‘Let It Will Be’ and invokes the listener to “Wrestle with your darkness” in ‘Isaac’ she’s not just laying down meaningless word-play over driving beats – she’s seeking something closer to a spiritual exercise, some essence of the human experience that might remain when the lights come up on the dance floor.

It’s strange that I should remember events that happened twenty years ago better than I remember what happened yesterday, but that’s what being 40 years old does to a person, and quite frankly things often seemed a lot more exciting then. Well, not so much exciting as simply less predictable. In November of 1995, when I was first moving into the Boston condo, things were decidedly chaotic, even if it was mostly on an emotional plane. (That particular plane has never been exactly stable anyway.)

Madonna, aiming for a softer, quieter image in the months leading up to ‘Evita’ had released her first compilation of ballads, ‘Something to Remember’ and I traveled into Boston to pick up a copy from Newbury Comics. Back then there was a store by Government Center (before the one at Quincy Market opened). It was a drab, gray day – typical of a New England November, and a slight mist was hanging in the air. Not even falling, really, it was more like a very thick fog that disappeared as soon as you tried to disappear into it. I walked by the unremarkable City Hall building, surrounded by further drabness, and the city felt shrouded in a sheath of gray, everything muted and quiet like the murky beginning of the album.

Pausing at the top of the stairs that led down to Faneuil Hall I opened up the liner notes and read the songs she had chosen for this one, looking at the elegant photos and wardrobe from her recent Versace shoot. Each entry would eventually have its own memory attached to it. The new ones would have theirs as well, even if I didn’t know them yet. Together, they were a way of looking back…

1. I Want You

2. I’ll Remember

3. Take A Bow

4. You’ll See

5. Crazy For You

6. This Used To Be My Playground

7. Live To Tell

8. Love Don’t Live Here Anymore

9. Something To Remember

10. Forbidden Love

11. One More Chance

12. Rain

13. Oh Father

14. I Want You (orchestral version)

I looked around as Madonna’s collaboration with Massive Attack percolated in my ears. Across the expanse, I could see the beginnings of the walk that would lead to Beacon Hill, where the first man I ever kissed might have still lived. I’d lost track of him the year before. He almost broke my heart, but I was not yet bitter. I wondered, as I often did, what had or would become of him. Beneath his plain white sheets, in the sunny then dark fall in which we met, there had been some measure of love, or at least some fleeting bit of affection that might pass as love for the very desperate (of which I had to count myself). He was gone now, and would remain so, but that was ok. I mean, I was ok with it by that time.

Turning back and looking down over the cobblestone patch that marked the entrance to Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, I thought of my mother. She had first taken us there a number of years ago, and we had stayed at a Holiday Inn just a few streets down. We watched ‘E.T.’ in the movie theater, and my brother and she had cried. I forced myself not to, knowing that once I started I might never stop. We’d gone to Quincy Market and ate pizza in the food hall. The bull markets fascinated us with their useless and overpriced items, and shops like The Nature Company and Geoclassics held allure with their semi-precious stones and minerals. Even in the midst of Boston, the pull of nature held me rapt as a kid. I went through a few visits in my head, as ‘I’ll Remember’ played in the background.

By the time ‘Take A Bow’ began, I was walking down the stairs, covered in the finest mist blowing in from the harbor. This was only the beginning. A Boston winter was rarely an easy time. Far worse was in store for us, and the foam-capped sea, tumultuous and churning, mirrored the raging heart, and all of it under the lunacy of the moon made for a memorable few months. As soft and quiet as these ballads were, beneath them roared an emotional tempest. Yet because I did not know what was to come, I faced it all with some foolhardy courage, born from sheer ignorance, and fostered in unwitting innocence. I was only twenty years old.

Twenty years later, I still remember.