MADONNA – “Papa Don’t Preach”
“Papa Don’t Preach” is a fantastic record. Not because it’s a star getting serious, or because it raises issues, or because it ‘tackles’ anything in particular. It’s not a newspaper column. What it does is take a situation – a moment in a situation, even – and turn it into pop so urgent and convincing and exciting that you start groping around for the serious stuff as a way of giving what you’ve experienced some context.
“About” is a false friend to pop music. The idea that a song is “about” some bigger, grander thing than itself can ennoble some records. But it also works to reduce them. If the most important thing about “Papa Don’t Preach” is that it’s ‘about’ unplanned pregnancy then all sorts of temptations creep in. The temptation to look for a message in the song – the girl in “Papa Don’t Preach” is keeping a baby, therefore Madonna thinks girls should keep babies. The temptation to generalise – her decision is agonising, therefore this decision is always agonising. And above all the temptation to use “about” as a way to cushion the record’s directness, the feeling that something is at stake not in the wider world but here and now in this song and the moment it makes you live.
What’s at stake is a woman’s relationship with her father, whose approval she wants, and thinks she needs. “Papa Don’t Preach” draws a lot of its urgency from being a real-time, direct address – a form that’s the equivalent of the cinematic close-up on a face: you can feel building, warring emotions flicker and play across the record. This song – after steeling itself with that wonderful faux-formal intro – moves from nerviness, into flattery, desperate hope, panic, steeliness and anger. Sometimes the singer’s unsure of herself, other times surer than anything in the world. In the chorus she’s a mix of defensive and defiant. She commands, then pleads, in the space of a line or two – “You give us your blessing now, cos we are in love – please!”.
Those long throaty howls of “please!” seal it – this is Madonna’s best vocal on a single yet. The immediacy of “Papa” was nothing new for her – in “Burning Up”, “Into The Groove”, even minor stuff like “Gambler” she’d manifested that kind of fierce in-the-moment presence. But she hadn’t sung those songs like she sings “Papa Don’t Preach”, teasing her voice around the light, genteel synthpop arrangement then smashing against it, as as the record lurches between cry for help and declaration of independence.
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Tom in FT / Popular • Pop • 2,133 views • Share/Save
I share *some* of the hard-to-nail-down reservations others have expressed about this song/record and its associated vid.. The whole package is somehow more conventional and less light on its feet than everything that’s come before from M. I vaguely remember thinking: ‘Good.. but no Live to tell or Crazy for you’.
Still, it’s pretty great. A top-notch vocal from M., esp. as Tom suggests, the big ‘pleeease’ going into the second chorus. The second chorus is then the high point of the vid. – we come back to M. dancing around in the bustier top….and it’s her finest dance vid. moment yet (let’s assume most people didn’t catch her doing Holiday on TOTP). The camera’s mostly slightly above her and yet she dominates *us* – her shoulders are back, her chest is pushed forward, and she’s on the move. Showing her training, she keeps her center grounded/still so we can really see all the articulation of her limbs, legs really snapping and so on. It’s a great moment. Madonna had announced the previous year that she was ready for her close-up, and here it is. She’ll have a seat at pop’s high table (with Elvis and James Brown and MJ) reserved for those who can really move, and move us even without singing a note, thank you very much. Also, the specific melodrama of the song makes sense for M. if you think (as I do) that her deepest insight was that there was massive unmet demand in culture by the ’80s for female glamour (no big new females stars out of Hollywood since the 60s, etc.), i.e., which she was then determined to meet/supply. Pushing a few dormant Natalie Wood melodrama buttons was in that case an excellent move.
I can’t agree with the suggestion made by a couple of people above that the string opening is anything *too* special… Neither ELO nor Yes lost any sleep over this. And Siouxsie’s monster (vaguely street hassle-ish) string intro to Overground rules over the lot of them:
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#24 Yes! I was going to mention ‘Girlfriend’ myself just as a song that sounded v influenced by PDP at least from a production pov. Pretty decent song too iirc.
Re 26: Not wanting to sound too curmudgeonly but, christ, they don’t sound like real strings, do they? Cathedral City to the comte of the Left Banke’s Walk Away Renee.
Re 23: It feels to me like your first instincts were right: Live To Tell was an issue song (child abuse), ramped up for the illegitimate child of PDP, then onto wild Catholic baiting, the Sex book, and…. phase two when she realised that was as far as she could take the shock tactics (country squire look and nutty English accent notwithstanding).
Papa Don’t Preach – coming from a 28-year old – seemed to me very sensationalist. The girl wanted to make a (tabloid) name for herself. I much preferred non-sensational 45s like Angel, Dress You Up, Open Your Heart – swift, clean, non-stop ecstatic dancing. This is ok, but a bit Kids From Fame.
The subject matter of the song has always made me feel slightly uncomfortable. It’s not like Madonna would seem like an obvious pro-life spokesperson, but still it doesn’t really sit right with me.
It’s a decent song as such, but I always preferred “Open Your Heart” to this. “Papa Don’t Preach” doesn’t have any parts that truly stand out, nice string intro aside. But the video is memorable – I think it was one of the first videos I saw when we got MTV (sometime in ’89-’90), and it stuck with me.
SwedenWatch: #6 on the sales chart, and straight to #1 on the Tracks chart.
“the Pro-life/Pro-choice lobbies, if indeed they were active under Reagan” huh? Pro lifers helped elect Reagan, and the 80s were heavy duty abortion wartime (it’s when the clinic protests started in earnest, for example). There was also a lot of agitation about unwed teenage mothers. I remember there being a fair amount of controversy about this song at the time in America and I’m sure Madonna knew that there would be. 8 or 9 seems right to me.
[...] superb piece of Tom Ewing writing in his Popular series, in which he reviews every British number one single from the beginning. [...]
did y’all know that Madonna flashes a boob in the video?
seriously, play it in slow motion during the 1st or 2nd chorus… it just pops right out there!
The “True Blue” LP was for me peak-Madonna before she started taking her eye off the music ball and this is a terrific single. Fantastic intro (must be in the Top 10 – I’ll try and think of some others)great vocal and a song as strong as the tape keeping her breasts in that top (though obviously not 100% effective if we believe the pervs above :-))
Those intros (in no particular order :
PDP
Two Tribes
Echo Beach
You’ve Got My Number (Undertones)
This Corrosion
New Year’s Day
West End Girls
Love Will Tear Us Apart
Wasteland (The Mission)
Just Like Heaven (The Cure)
@30…Sorry Tonya, I had not realised the debate was raging as hard then.
I think Tom nails it with the comments about whether the record is “about” something. It’s not, it’s about someone – and therefore the choices the narrator makes can’t be universalised. Reminds me of the arguments around Knocked Up, with the suggestion that because the Katherine Heigl character decided to have the baby it was therefore an anti-abortion movie.
@34. Is there really a point to listing greatest intros? Pop songs are normally less than 5 minutes, so almost all excellent songs will have excellent intros (there aren’t many great sub-5 minute films without terrific initial shots either). Conversely, there are relatively few songs with fantastic intros that don’t end up being excellent songs since, normally, just unpacking that initial kernel of excellence gets you at least half of a pop-song (interestingly, the converse direction isn’t true of short films as far as I can see).
At any rate, reflecting on your list, I found it very hard to think of songs I really like that *don’t* have splendid intros, and not much easier to think of indifferent songs overall with (wasted) cracking intros.
#15: Well, MBI, I wish I could agree with you but I’m afraid that her “PLEEEEEEASE” strikes me in the manner of the clipboard thinly wielded by an impatient trainee office manager rather than a girl frantically trying to make belated sense of her life. Come to think of it, has Madge ever been comfortable with franticity?
But in some cases the intro can be the most memorable or celebrated part of a song – that’s not necessarily the case with PDP but from a production pov I think its noteworthy/interesting – few big hits actually open with just a (relatively lengthy) string sequence whether authentic or synthesized. I think it stands out on that basis, they didn’t just kick off with the beat. I guess ‘The Sun Always Shines On TV’ intro is more blatant in its ‘this is epic pop, brace yourself’ grandeur. George Michael’s ‘Faith’ maybe a similar example with its organ riff on ‘Freedom’ tho that is much more understated and personalised.
most notable ace-intro/awful-song: Dire Straits Money for Nothing
juan @32, in one of the Related Articles (above) i review this song in terms of a) the string intro b) madonna’s boobs.
We had an ace intro shame about the song example here.
Re 40: Apparently Sting’s wailing on the Money For Nothing intro was a ’song’ he’d already copyrighted, thus he nabbed a writing credit from the Straits without politely asking first. Isn’t he horrible?
Doesn’t anyone else have a problem with the not-synthetic-enough/not-real-enough sound of PDP’s intro?
The teenageness of “pleeeease” certainly works for me, though. I can’t hear the clipboard.
Charlatans’ ‘One to Another’ for me was an exciting intro followed by ok/dullish song.
Deeeeeeeeelite – Groove…on t’other hand is a dance floor filling intro followed by a dancefloor-packed tune
Witchita, I think you are right about PDP’s intro – it’s a compromise reflecting the rather contrived attempt to write a ’step up into pop’s big league’ hit
The strings intro was later sampled on Progress presents The Boy Wunda’s fairly rubbish ‘ard ‘ouse track ‘Everybody’, a top 10 hit exactly ten years ago.
Didn’t Shut Up And Dance sample it as well? Maybe just wishful thinking on my part.
#41 Tom the most obvious example is bunnied (clue early 1996).
#37 There’s something in that but amongst those I listed I don’t think Two Tribes or This Corrosion live up to the promise of the intro.
Two songs I like which don’t have great intros are Boomtown Rats “Banana Republic” which tries about three before settling on the right one and The The’s “Armageddon Days Are Here Again” with its heavy-handed pastiche of “Ballroom Blitz”.
Generally as well I don’t favour records which kick off with the chorus such as “Eleanor Rigby”; it’s like giving away the goods too soon.
Conversely, the Schooly D-esque echoey scratches of “Unfinished Sympathy” has to be the worst intro to an absolutely awesome song.
#45 that’s sort of cheating though, it shouldn’t even qualify as an intro, it’s just sadism. Anyway, PLENTY to say on that at the appropriate time :)
Re 42: Yes, I have a problem with those awful synthetic strings on PDP’s intro. Not that they spoil it for me – for my money it’s one of her best Number Ones – but they just don’t seem to fit with the rest of the song.
Are they really so awful? I actually think they sound pretty authentic, to the point where I wouldn’t have assumed they were synth. I don’t see it as any worse than ‘house piano’ basically (I can see what WL means re ‘not sounding fake ENOUGH’ tho I think). I’m also pretty tolerant of synth pizzicato tho (you can blame/thank Rollo Armstrong for this). It’s things like brass and marimba that tend to grate with me most when “faked”.
Prince would have made them faker, I think, though I’m now immediately struggling to think of a song where he actually did good fake strings (I’m guesing they’re real of Take Me With U??).
True, Steve, synth brass always sounds like a crap Roman fanfare, and some house piano sounds pretty mousey now. It does sound like “house piano” though, rather than an attempt to be Beethoven.
Ahem. My nomination for pop’s most exciting intro, setting up a song that never relents…. Blockbuster. And the air horns on Set You Free do a similar “pay attention!” job.
And it could be said that many instrumental trance tracks are ALL intro until three-quarters of the way in the breakdown arrives…
I do quite like the string intro, but I wouldn’t say it’s particularly special in itself. What’s really terrific is the transition from the strings into the rest of the song – the string melody builds to its peak, thump, and straight into the song proper. It’s done with great economy and craft – no sense of the strings just being tacked on for me.
@41, Tom. Thanks for that link back to a prior ace-intro discussion. Billy Smart’s point about, e.g., Daft Punk looping great opening patterns (just 2 bars in the case of Digital love IIRC) is great.
@49, Steve. The strings don’t sound especially synthetic to me either. Punctum above seemed to suggest that the strings are real later on, i.e., in the middle eight and thereafter. Can anyone confirm this? They sound the same to me, and, in general, it would be a bit odd to pay for a bunch of string-players and then not use them (except possibly as a sample source) for your big F-minor intro.
Utterly unrelated point: the font on the single sleeve reminded me of The Mary Tyler Moore Show font (a big influence on any ’70s childhood!). Comparing images now, the font’s not *that* close, but there’s something there.
All this talk of strings made me go off and listen to Mahler’s 5th.
re 54 Good choice – particularly the adagio – perhaps we can call this the String Theory thread
Oh and BTW re 50 – Prince used veteran jazz arranger Clare Fischer this year (1986) to produce some quite woozy string arrangements for Parade.
@50, Wichita. The strings are real on ‘Take me with U’, ‘Purple rain’ etc.. The Purple Rain album lists the cello, violin, viola players, credits the arrangements jointly to Prince and Lisa, but saucily gives Lisa and Wendy the joint conducting credit.
#1 for 2 weeks in the U.S., I thought it was tops longer but so be it. Another one of Madonna’s iconic singles, but not my favorite by her. For once I agree with T. Ewing’s grade. A 9 sounds about right.
Given the pregnancy theme, has anyone done a mash-up of this with Billie Jean?
A little known fact about PDP is that Madonna was sued for plagiarising “Sugar Don’t Bite” by Sam Harris, a hit 2 years earlier.
Not sure how to do the html code, but his video is on youtube, the spam protector is not letting me post the link or even register for some reason.
If we’re talking about crap songs with great intros, I nominate “Yellow” by Coldplay. 30 seconds of indie-genius, followed by four minutes of indie-crappery.
Here’s the link to ‘Sugar don’t bite’:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPf0jCF1wHQ
That is truly dire on so many levels.
I wasn’t aware of the plagiarism suit – it seems a superficial similarity to me
I’m off on holiday – FLEEING from the next #1 – it’ll be up on Thursday so revive away in the meantime!
Witchita Lineman: The version I heard was that Sting’s management company insisted on the credit and Sting was embarrassed. I don’t know if that makes any logical sense, now that I think about it, so it could be an after the fact “No, no, I’m not a bad guy” defense.
It’s usually the management, even if only to keep the artist looking nice, as so often happens.
I can’t help it, I feel I have to post this here, punctum mentioned it and I’ve gotta post it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FXXno7R5XY
I’m not much for the “PLLLLLEEEEEEEAAAAAAAASSSSSSE” but then I’m not much for this album in the first place, it was as if getting married had made her more normal (in the Kirsty Young sense) than was good for her art. Not her success, obv.
Re 64/65: Hmmm, yes. I also heard Duffy’s management (Rough Trade) were recently angry with her for doing the Coke ad that has rather diminished her monochrome, nu-Dusty cred – apparently they knew nothing about it. Shoe on the other foot, but still a barely believable excuse. I’ve dealt with enough songwriters who squawk “oooh, I don’t deal with that side of things” to avoid looking greedy. And Sting, oddly enough, isn’t one to whom I’d give the benefit of the doubt.
Sting gives that version of events in his autobiography Broken Music (which is actually a pretty good read). Needless to say it is rot – the idea that Sting has no influence with his own management company is a little difficult to believe. I have a little sympathy with him keeping copyright in that his melody is just ‘Don’t Stand So Close To Me’, so I can see why he might have wanted to keep hold of it – however, I’d've thought that if he really wanted to put things right it would be a matter of minutes, and a fee of a mere pony or two, to get his lawyers to draft something to direct the royalty Knopfler’s way.
@67…when the time is right we’ll probably be discussing a nifty bit of business Madonna did with Coca Cola’s main rival, but we don’t want to wake the bunny!
Such an immense record; Madonna sounding like she actually means it, the mini-movie of a video, the tangible step up from 1985’s saucy pop onslaught. The True Blue album feels hot to me – maybe it was a sweltering summer, or maybe it was because I was 14 and sort of, erm, stirring. She was the bee’s knees then, so it was with horror that I thought she’d torpedoed herself with remix albums and ropey soundtracks over the next couple of years. OK, I guess we’ll come to that, and the recovery.
Wasn’t the string intro used on a Vauxhall ad campaign sometime in the late ’90s/early ’00s?
I’d agree with Tom’s 9/10, the urgency of the music and the performance work well for me – it’s maybe not quite as good as preceding single ‘Live To Tell’ though.
Maybe I’ve been mishearing it all these years but I don’t think she sings ‘You give us your blessing right now’ as a command – isn’t it ‘daddy if you could only see/just how good he’s been treating me/you’d give us your blessing right now’?
@ Jonnyk: You’re right, Tom made a mistake above – the line isn’t a command, it’s a statement; “Daddy daddy if you could only see / just how good he’s been treating me / you’d give us your blessing right now / ’cause we are in love”.
@ Matthew H: The soundtracks and remix album were to buy her some time while she took a well-earned break and worked on her next album. Incidentally, ‘You Can Dance’ has the song ‘Spotlight’ which she recorded for – and left off – ‘True Blue’, and it’s a cracking song.
Madonna was very much about controversy even back then, and she clearly had the pop-knowledge to see that a song about a teen pregnancy would resonate with her fans and give her some headlines. She was clearly trying to step up in terms of maturity after the ‘adult’ ballad ‘Live To Tell’, and everything on PDP – from the strings to the subject matter – was designed to show it.
I’m really surprised nobody has drawn a line to her other ‘controversial’ song just 18 months earlier, ‘Like A Virgin’: There we have Madonna – all puppy fat and squeaks – singing about sexual intercourse with someone that makes it feel like “The very first time”. Here we are the next year and she’s – uh-oh! Pregnant! She herself probably understood this connection. She had managed to rope in the teenage audience of ’85 by making them feel ‘naughty’, and here she was many months later attempting to keep them interested by being naughty and mature. It worked. She stayed a star and managed to build on her fame. ’86 was the year pop shed itself of the also-rans. True Blue was the first post-Thriller pop ‘event’ album. After ’86 it would be the US stars – with all the money the US record companies have to throw at them – that would endure as international icons (with one exception). Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince, Whitney Houston… and George Michael, were all pop stars in a different league.
I like PDP; it’s a strong pop single from a strong pop album, and it has that hint of controversy that Madonna used a lot. An understandably instant hit.