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{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.}

I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before…

I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say you’re sorry
I’ve heard it all before
And I can take care of myself
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say ‘Forgive me’
I’ve seen it all before
And I can’t take it anymore.

Driving, pedal to the metal, through the cruel winter of upstate New York. I’m upset at something or someone, and it’s a righteous resentment, a wrathful anger. I’m mad at the world, my rage will not be contained, and the only way out is through this song. It is not the first time a Madonna song proves a savior and a means of survival, and it likely won’t be the last.

You’re not half the man you think you are
Save your words because you’ve gone too far
I’ve listened to your lies and all your stories (Listened to your stories)
You’re not half the man you’d like to be

I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say you’re sorry
I’ve heard it all before
And I can take care of myself
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say ‘Forgive me’
I’ve seen it all before
And I can’t take it anymore.

By the time this song was released, I’d already been with Andy for about five years, so it had been a while since a man had done me wrong, but not long enough to have me forget. Some kinds of pain cannot be forgotten. Most of us have been there at some point or another, whether we like to admit it or not. The more calm people may have a better way of dealing with it ~ weeping quietly to themselves or categorically eradicating that person from their lives ~ while others may thrash and crash and burn everything around them. I’m somewhere in the middle, having done a little of all of the above. Usually though, I’ll put my anger into a thinly-veiled post, or take a ride and play something like ‘Sorry’ at ear-throttling volume, singing (well, screaming) along with the words, until the anger exits my system, or at least dissipates a bit before returning home.

Don’t explain yourself ’cause talk is cheap
There’s more important things than hearing you speak
You stayed because I made it so convenient (made it so convenient)
Don’t explain yourself, you’ll never see.

While the song is clearly aimed at a lover-done-her-wrong (at that point in her life it would likely have been Guy Ritchie), I don’t always use it as the soundtrack for any grumpiness on Andy’s part. More often it’s for anger directed at wrong-doings by the world, or work or something equivocally unimportant. That’s why a relatively-silly song like this works. I save my serious anger and disappointment for the ballads.

I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say you’re sorry
I’ve heard it all before
And I can take care of myself
I don’t wanna hear, I don’t wanna know
Please don’t say ‘Forgive me’
I’ve seen it all before
And I can’t take it anymore.

This is one of my favorite Madonna songs – maybe not Top Ten, but possibly Top Twenty (the only thing missing may be a sung-through bridge) – and at the time it came out (2005/2006) it was her best since ‘Music’. Nobody throws a dance-floor tantrum better than Madonna, as exemplified by the roller-skating video follow-up to ‘Hung Up’. It prompted a slight resurgence in corsets, and even a bump in Farrah Fawcett feathers. It’s also fun as hell, cheeky as ever, and a reminder of what Madonna does best.

I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before
I’ve heard it all before.

Song #70: ‘Sorry’ ~ Winter 2006

{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.}

You can call me a sinner
Or you can call me a saint
Celebrate me for who I am
Dislike me for what I ain’t

The iPod has selected ‘Like It Or Not’ from 2005’s Confessions on a Dance Floor album for the first Madonna Timeline entry of 2012. This one bucks the last-song-of-the-album-that-often-sucks tradition Madonna has sometimes employed (‘Act of Contrition’, ‘Gone’, ‘Voices’). Filled with confidence and matter-of-fact defiance, it haughtily exhibits the classic Madonna-mantra of self-empowerment, but after twenty years into her career it wasn’t so much an act of haughtiness as simple truth.

Put me up on a pedestal
Or drag me down in the dirt
Sticks and stones may break my bones
But your names will never hurt.

It’s an excellent starter for 2012, a year which will usher in a brand new Madonna album (her first on a new record label), a Superbowl performance, and the wide opening of her directorial effort W.E. Once again, we seem “poised on the precipice” of greatness, and she will be the one to take us there.

I’ll be the garden
You’ll be the snake
All of my fruit is
Yours to take
Better the devil that you know
Your love for me will grow

Even when it seems she has nothing left to prove, there are those who would not have her around at all, so this is a necessary reminder of her power and relevance, her lasting contributions, and the promise of so much more to come.

Her live performance of this song, on the Confessions Tour from 2006, is a simple, straight-forward delivery with some serious strutting, and a chair straight out of Cabaret. It’s Madonna at her best, connecting with her audience, but just as happy being alone and doing her own thing.

Because this is who I am
You can like it or not
You can love me or leave me,
But I’m never gonna stop.

Song #59: – ‘Like It Or Not’ ~ Winter 2006

{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.}

Once upon a time there was a boy and there was a girl…

Am I the only one who remembers that Madonna had a song called ‘Forbidden Love’ on her 1994 album Bedtime Stories that predates this ‘Forbidden Love’ from her Confessions on a Dance Floor album over ten years later? Regardless of the recycling, the iPod has chosen this ‘Forbidden Love’, and though I have no clear-cut memories of this particular bit of passable-filler, it’s always functioned adequately as a segue into ‘Jump’.

The title is probably the most exciting part of the song, though Madonna does no in-depth follow-through for her gay fans, playing it Romeo-and-Juliet straight. As for the music, this is one of the slower songs from the non-stop action of the Confessions album, reminiscent of some Scissor Sisters work of the same time. Madonna performed the tune admirably on Madonna’s Confessions Tour (right after she climbed down from her mirror-ball cross), but I’m guessing we’ll never hear it again.

Just one kiss, just one touch, just one look, just one love…

Song #13: ‘Forbidden Love’ – 2006

{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.}

I’m gonna tell you about love.

Letâ’s forget your life,

Forget your problems, administration, bills, and loans

Come with me…

The iPod seems to be on a Confessions on a Dance Floor trip, selecting ‘Future Lovers’ as the next random song. While this one was never a single, it opened her Confessions Tour in 2006, and as such is embedded in my memory on those how sweaty nights at Madison Square Garden and the TD Banknorth Garden in Boston.

This was probably her greatest concert entrance (no mean feat considering the brilliance of her Blonde Ambition ‘Express Yourself’ opening). Descending in a giant glittering disco ball (okay, not-so-secret behind-the-scenes reveal – she never came down in the ball, it descended and she entered it from below before it opened up). The effect was still spectacular.

When the disco ball opened up like some gorgeous hot-house flower unfurling its magical splendor, there was our Lady of Perpetual Provocation, resplendent in a horsetail top hat and whip, corseted satin and lace, and every bit the ring-leader of another amazing spectacle.

‘Future Lovers’ is a great way to open the show – playing to the die-hard fans who know the non-singles, while being familiar and groove-heavy enough to thrill anyone who didn’t memorize the track listing of the Confessions album. She inserts a bit of Donna Summers’ ‘I Feel Love’ into the live version, and it’s pretty amazing, setting the course for one of her most fun shows.

On a personal note, I saw this with my two favorite people – Andy in Boston and Suzie in New York. I think Suzie’s breasts were leaking as she was still breast-feeding Oona at the time, but she was a trooper and our Madonna concert tradition remained unbroken. As for Andy and Boston, I just remember dancing along with the sweaty masses and loving every minute of it.

In the demonstration of this evidence,

Some have called it religion.

This is not a coincidence.

Would you like to try?

Song #4: Future Lovers ~ Summer 2006

{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 iPod is telling me to ‘Push’. Not much to say, as this wasn’t a big memory maker. A track on Madonna’s otherwise-brilliant ‘Confessions on a Dance Floor’ album from 2005, it was never a single, so most people won’t know it. To be honest, it’s mostly filler, something that comes on when I’m in the shower and can’t reach the stereo. 

You push me to go the extra mile,
You push me when it’s difficult to smile,
You push me, a better version of myself,
You push me, only you and no one else.

Song #3: Push – Winter 2005/2006