Category Archives: Madonna

{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

Get up on the dance floor, everything is groovin’
Get up on the dance floor, got to see you movin’
Let the music shake you, let the rhythm take you
Feel it in your body, sing la dee da dee

Don’t stop doin’ what you’re doin’ baby
Don’t stop, keep movin’, keep groovin’
Don’t stop doin’ what you’re doin’ baby
Don’t stop, keep movin’, keep groovin’

Such darkness came with the descent of fall, with its early evenings and frosty mornings – the shock of it after the ease of summer, the way it took one’s breath away – the advent of autumn was still a surprise at that time in my life. The ‘Bedtime Stories’ album set an evocative tone with lush orchestral tracks like ‘Love Tried to Welcome Me’, ‘Forbidden Love‘ and ‘Take A Bow‘, while the hazy atmosphere of ‘Inside of Me’ and ‘Sanctuary’ spoke to the private cocoon I’d wrapped around myself, isolating my daily existence from classmates and people in general. The contradiction of not wanting to be lonely and not wanting to be around people was apparent – I just didn’t find a way to put it into words. In some ways, I was happier bopping about alone in my room to a song like this and imagining being around friends and lovers than actually putting such imagined scenes into action. 

Come on join the party, let the bass line pump you
Bring your body over, baby let me bump you
I know I can groove you, you know I can move you
Feel it in your body, sing la dee da dee

Don’t stop doin’ what you’re doin’ baby
Don’t stop, keep movin’, keep groovin’
Don’t stop doin’ what you’re doin’ baby
Don’t stop, keep movin’, keep groovin’

Today marks Madonna’s 65th birthday, and she just announced her re-scheduled tour dates for North America, which moves my August 31 show to the lovely date of January 9, 2024. That jaunty shorts-and-sleeveless-t-shirt look I adopt for all her concerts will likely prove problematic for Boston in January so I’m not sure what I’ll do, or whether I’ll even go. She canceled outright the last time I had tix for her Madame X Tour, so I’m not completely confident she’ll show for this one. 

Anyway, of late my posts have been understandably heavy and serious, and I was trying to be a little more light-hearted with this birthday girl post, but not even Madonna has gone untouched by tragedy, and so I’m posting one of my favorite songs from her – the one that turned me into a super-fan after years of flirtatiously enjoying her music but never quite succumbing to fanaticism. That all changed when I found this song on the ‘Like A Prayer’ album. 

It feels like a good moment to re-examine it, and it speaks differently to me these days. Before I even knew real tragedy, I felt a kinship with it, an affinity with the darker, shadowy side of things, and as a kid I foolishly cuddled up to it, daring life to afflict me in some way, not understanding how it already was, not realizing how lucky I was just as I was robbing myself of any possible joy I might have had. 

Madonna persevered through her childhood in the aftermath of losing her mother, but she carried that loss with her at every step and turn. It’s one of the underlying layers that has always made her more than just a mainstream pop star to me, more than just a one or fifty-hit wonder. Today is her birthday, and so we honor her for still being here with us, having faced her own brush with morality recently. 

We need to cherish our icons when they’re with us, not after they’re gone. 

Happy birthday, M. 

I’ve seen the devil
Down Sunset
In every place
In every face…

Leave it to Madonna to continue the summer song vibe with this record-breaking return to the charts, along with The Weeknd and Playboi Carti. It’s easy and breezy and ideal for the summer season, the sort of song that percolates gently, easing into a sunny morning. Do I care about the lyrics? About as much as I care to be popular. This is just about the groove, the vibe, the languid shuffling movement that feels like slow-motion swimming, the only way to get away from the heat right there on the surface. 

Tell me, do you see her? She’s livin’ her life
Even if she acts like she don’t want the limelight 
But if you knew her, she lives a lie
She calls the paparazzi, then she acts surprised

Oh-oh-oh-oh, I know what she needs 
She just want the fame, I know what sh? fiends 
Give her a littl? taste, runnin’ back to me
Put it in her veins, pray her soul to keep, 
Ooh-ooh, every night (Every night)
She prays to the sky
Flashin’ lights is all she ever wants to see

A summer vibe then – the summer of ’23 – too soon to tell what it will become, too early to feel how it will end. Pass the iced tea. Let’s have tomato sandwiches for lunch, the kind that turn the mayonnaise pink, the pretty mess dripping down our fingers. Even the bees are welcome to a taste. 

The heat is high. The canopy does little to shield us from that. A hyacinth bean twirls its dark purple vines around a trellis, a clump of nasturtiums shading its base. Summer winds around itself now, heat building on heat, and a line of sweat drips down my chest, tickling and causing me to look down to make sure it’s not a bug. A salt lick for the horse inside of all of us. 

Beggin’ on her knees to be popular
That’s her dream, to be popular (Hey)
Kill anyone to be popular (Hm)
Sell her soul to be popular (Popular)
Just to be popular (Uh-huh)
Everybody scream ’cause she popular (Hey)
She mainstream ’cause she popular
Never be free ’cause she popular

Summer shade in a song, summer secrets held too long. Lounging by the pool, sunglasses hiding where my gaze might fall, I know the seductive pull of the sunny season. It’s California and Florida balled up and thrown into a sea of flames. It’s light and water and dancing across the surface. It’s sitting as still as possible to remain as cool as possible as if that were remotely possible. The conundrum of summer – like the queasiness of Sunday night – is impenetrable and impossible. That’s why we had Sunday tea dances, why we braved the bridges to bear down on Provincetown, why we pinned our hopes and dreams on that one perfect swimsuit that would bring all the boys to the yard. Summer was the infuriating and tantalizing tease that the most diabolical devil couldn’t conjure even at his cruelest turn. 

I know that you see me, time’s gone by 
Spent my whole life runnin’ from your flashin’ lights
Try to own it, but I’m alright 
You can’t take my soul without a fuckin’ fight