The next installment of the Madonna Timeline will be the 100th song I have featured. What started out as a whim, has grown into something quite more. Looking back on the early entries, they seem breezy, light, and supercilious – but somewhere along the line they took on deeper meaning, much in the way that Madonna’s own career has progressed from trifling pop singer to global force. If there’s one thing we have in common is an amusement and appreciation at being under-estimated.
This is the first mini-promo of that milestone, so I’ve gone over a few past Madonna Timeline entries and found some that slipped under the radar. The first is ‘Sky Fits Heaven‘, one of my favorite tracks from the epic Ray of Light album. If this song came up now, it would get a much better write-up, but back then I didn’t know what I was doing. And rather than pretend I was perfect, I’d rather let the past speak for the past.
Such as ‘Justify My Love‘. The pre-cursor to the big Erotica bang, ‘Justify‘ has never been a favorite Madonna song of mine, but it maintains a prominent place in the Madonna canon for all the controversy it courted and then fucked.
April in Boston – and ‘I’ll Remember‘. On an upper floor of the Copley Marriott, I wrote out a story, looking out over the Charles River, my mother and grandmother out on a shopping excursion, and me alone – always alone – and wondering.
The heat of summer released its gloriously stifling hold, and no one could deny ‘He’s A Man‘. Well, he was…
And sometimes summer was just one big ‘Celebration‘. Sometimes.
More often fall was where it was at, and fall was traditionally the time in which I fell. The number of times I wanted to say ‘I Want You‘ far exceeded the times that phrase was ever returned.
Yet winter was where spells were cast as well, or, rather, not quite well… as winter wishes were the cruelest of all. You’re ‘Frozen‘ when your heart’s not open. So… ‘Open Your Heart‘!
Summer always comes around again, but it’s never the same. Whenever that happens, I find it’s best to just ‘Turn Up The Radio‘.
And if it’s love that you’re after – and who isn’t? – check out ‘True Blue‘ or ‘Crazy For You‘. Love is never what you think it will be.
