MADONNA – “Like A Prayer”
A wonderfully simple, wonderfully dense record. “When you call my name / It’s like a little prayer / I’m down on my knees / I want to take you there”. That’s just the chorus: 21 words, and what’s happening in them? A pun on Madonna’s name, setting up her dual role as divinity and supplicant, receiving a prayer while on her knees, drawing a parallel between the (apparently) fixed relationship of worship and the mutual shifts of self and role in sex. Which is all “Like A Prayer” is, even before you look at the video: sex and religion, entwined like lovers all through the song, their identities melting.
The choice of “little” in that chorus isn’t accidental – it’s an Aretha call-back, Madonna putting herself in a tradition of women who steer a way in pop between the devout and the earthy (before exploding the idea of that ‘between’). She’s also inviting direct comparison between her stuff and the soul and pop canon 80s tastemakers have spent the entire decade working to sanctify. It’s easy enough to sit down and try and make a ‘classic pop single’, though – we’ll see plenty of examples of that, mostly hamstrung by caution. “Like A Prayer” bears some of the trappings of the intended masterpiece – hark! a choir! – and occasionally I play it and it feels too detached, missing the snap and bite of even a weaker early single. But those times are outweighed by the times I come back to it and end up transported. (My instinctive reaction as “Like A Prayer” starts to peak is to raise my eyes to heaven.)
Her voice has lost some of its rough, snarky hunger, but that was on the way out in any case: the roleplay of “Papa Don’t Preach” aside, none of her True Blue hits had much venom. One of the things “Like A Prayer” is doing is inventing a new voice for Madonna – contemplative, compassionate, but distant too. It’s the voice she’ll use on her ballads for the next decade at least. Here, working with the wash of organ and choir, she uses it to sound iconic in a literal sense – like a colour-saturated picture of her namesake on a mantelpiece, lips suddenly moving in miraculous benediction: “Life is a mystery…”
From that beginning “Like A Prayer” builds then falls back, establishes space then fills it – it’s perhaps the only pop song which actually deserves the term “sonic cathedral” – then breaks out halfway through to reveal an even larger scale. In the Immaculate Collection mix most of this build and release is ruined by a galumphing house beat: I love house music and all its works but on this occasion the hi-hat is the devil’s trick and the righteous should avoid it. (And let’s not even consider the “whoa – yeah!” guy.)
The danger of making something ‘epic’ is that the details get lost, but “Like A Prayer” avoids this. Take, as one touch of many, the way the beat comes in for the first time under that long “home” in the intro: faintly latin, all disco, discreetly dispelling the aura of kitsch the intro has teased us with. It’s also a hint that ‘home’ might mean the club, the party, the world that the song finishes so triumphantly in, with the gospel soloists and Prince’s guitar and a horde of imaginary dancers all joining in together. Or the way the rhythm guitars switch between low-end grind to high-end skip and jangle during that climax. By then the song is romping home, triumphant, and the switch is a memory of its undertow, a reminder that this release was earned.
Very few of Madonna’s other hits are quite so obvious in their ambition, very few as clearly personal. But if “Like A Prayer” was only interesting in the arc of her own life and career it wouldn’t be so good. It feels immense not just because it’s long, or addressing big themes, but because it manages to pull together the strands of a pop decade as rich and confusing as itself. New pop’s sense of the pop single as event; the rediscovery of soul and gospel roots; the power of celebrity; the continued evolution and relevance of club music; even and especially the skyscraping portent of stadium rock. Pop stars are always having to prove themselves – they rarely earn the right to coast, and while this is the most renowned of Madonna’s event singles it’s not the first or last. But it’s the best, even though I’m usually suspicious of great singles which seem designed intentionally to be that: “Like A Prayer” pulls off everything it’s trying to achieve, and it’s trying a lot.
10
“English Rose” by the Jam on All Mod Cons.
I downloaded the mp3 Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s “F# A# infinty” and missed out on the locked groove at the end of “Bleak Uncertain Beautiful…” :(
@94 Well remembered, vinylscot, I was trying to think what that was called. Loved World Party at the time.
The Stone Roses hoedown was my least-favourite hidden track until I heard Ash’s “Sick Party” on 1977. At least the hoedown was on an album I didn’t actually want to listen to.
Reading up on hidden tracks at Wikipedia, here’s one the Kylie fans among you will appreciate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbNC3OgBFAw
Re: double grooves – and the second mention in this thread for the Primitives – the Spells EP alternate 12″ had Earth Thing and Empathise on a double groove on the A side, leading to about five aborted starts per play as I kept getting Empathise when hoping for Earth Thing.
Double grooves were a real missed opportunity. I thought songs where there was any possible tension about the conclusion could have been recorded twice with alternate endings, and put on the same side with a double groove so you wouldn’t know what you were hearing until the end. A great example would be Roy Orbison’s Running Scared, where he spends the song terrified of the return of his beloved’s last love, and then in the last verse he turns up: “My heart was breaking / Which one would it be / You turned around and walked awayyyyy with MEEEEEEEE!” We could have had another with the penultimate word changed to “from”.
#95 “Check On It” and “Listen” were both separate, stand-alone tracks on the reissue of B’Day; in any case, a stand-alone mp3 of “Check On It” shouldn’t be hard to track down given that it was a single.
One proper closing track I’d really like as a separate mp3 is Amy Winehouse’s “Amy, Amy, Amy” off her debut – one of her best songs, I think, but only available as a 13-minute track with two hidden covers (I forget what) attached.
Re: length of pop songs, well it depends on the song. I wasn’t meaning the old “classic 3 minute pop song” ethos cause we aren’t in the Beatles/Motown era where songs were in the 2 minute range. Amerie’s “1 Thing” is amazing, I never thought that was long, it’s just the average length of songs these days. What I had in mind was simple repetitive bubblegum type songs exceeding 5 minutes.
Take Madonna’s debut, there were only 8 songs so the tracks were long. The album version of “Holiday” is more than 6 minutes, Borderline, Lucky Star and Everybody are all over 5 minutes too. Same for “Cherish”. While these full versions are good, for me the edited single versions have more replay value (although it’d have to be the video version of “Cherish” cause that was another bad edit). There’s the conflict between dance and pop which dictates some of these songs have to be longer I suppose. Everyone has their own ideas of what songs they think are overlong.
#106 I’ve read about comedy records (presumably like the Monty Python one above) that did that, viz. have two different endings for two different grooves. I think MAD Magazine put out one or two.
I dunno how but the album La Roux has it so that when played on CD there’s about two minutes of silence before the ‘hidden* track’ but ripping it yields the song without any lead-in silence. That’s the proper way to handle it.
*of course most of the time now the hidden track is listed but just in slightly smaller lettering; at least Elbow’s The Seldom Seen Kid made a (risible) attempt to hide it by colouring it grey
A trivial, personal aside regarding “Like A Prayer” – for the first week or so, I thought that the line “Let the choir sing” was actually “Level crossing!”. Why Madonna mid-song would have chosen to blurt out “level crossing” in a panicked way defies any kind of rational explanation at all, but to this day that’s what I hear whenever she comes to that line.
#107 Yeah but, you know, I only wanted to buy it once.
with regard to the various mixes of Madonna’s singles – is there a site that can provide some guidance to the best or better versions? Or can folks here help? I appreciate that there may be some difference of opinion!
I used to own The Immaculate Conception on vinyl but it seems that the version of LAP on TIC is suspect and there seems to be some doubt cast on the current greatest hits package.
#112 There’s a large thread somewhere on the Steve Hoffman forum related to what you want. Finding it is another thing entirely. Most of the Madonna fan forums seem to require signing up first before you can even view them.
#108 It makes sense that Madonna’s early singles were unusually long by pop single standards, at that point she was basically a dance act, right? And tracks made for club consumption are usually longer to allow them to be mixed into other tracks in a DJ set.
#112 Of Madonna’s ’80s material I’ve only ever owned The Immaculate Collection and the original albums – so no single-only or video-only versions – and I don’t know whether there are any non-TIC, non-LP mixes that are superior, but I love all the LP versions I have.
#109: the flexi record MAD magazine put out in 1980 had no fewer than eight variant grooves (eight possible endings). Song’s called “It’s a Super Spectacular Day.”
http://threshold.vox.com/library/post/mad-magazine-its-a-super-spectacular-day.html
@112. lex@114 has the right idea – only the Immaculate Collection versions of things are must-avoids, and the original album versions of things are normally very good and often often differ only subtlely from any single version. The biggest problems arise with songs that weren’t originally on M. albums, esp. Into the Groove and Crazy for You. The former, which was completely wrecked on the IC, has at last been replaced by the single version on Celebration (and in any case, for whatever reason, ITG’s cd-single has been widely collected and is pretty easily tracked down for a download). The latter, perhaps because CFY’s IC version *wasn’t* a complete trainwreck, has just been left in that version on Celebration.
This is incredibly irritating. As far as I know, the original 4 min 8 sec version of CFY (which is about 20 sec longer, with a thicker bass sound, less up-front treble-synth wittering, and a different, more live-sounding reverb on the drums), still isn’t available on any Madonna album. It’s worth tracking down if you can.
Proof that it’s easy to be pretentious about pop music. Did all this pass through Madonna’s mind when she sang this? I doubt it. It’s a great pop song because you can read all this into it and still be wide of the mark.
@116 – I have “Into The Groove” on the reissued version of Like A Virgin – it’s obv not the TIC travesty but is the original single version different again?
#117: D-.
You’re right of course Popsmitten, it’s actually about toast.
@lex. I believe that it is the single version. Yay. So it’s really just the Immaculate Collection that’s the problem for ITG.
BTW, I know that for some people the differences between Immac Coll Crazy for You and the single version are minor, but even setting aside the host of small timbral differnces, the IC version being 20 sec shorter omits the genuinely lovely fade out, extended ‘baby’ from Madonna (this was a famous one-take vocal performance that nobody really expected from her) as the killer backing vox also resolve underneath. This isn’t *quite* as bad as omitting the most urgent ‘now I know you’re mine’ from Into the Groove (which the IC ITG staggeringly does), but it’s in the same ballpark, so I take the single version to be clearly preferable (this is a single I bought and adored, so I understand I’m more fussed about it than most are!). At any rate, ahem, there are 192 Kbps copies of the single version of CFY around on the web, e.g., here. And of course you can always just watch the vid.!
I’d forgotten to note the Australian chart performance for this, which was the first number one we had in common with the UK in 1989. Number one for a week in mid-April, then dropped down for three weeks to make way for Fine Young Cannibals’ “She Drives Me Crazy” (yay) and Mike + The Mechanics’ “The Living Years” (er, nay), then went back to number one for a further three weeks in May.
@121 thanks! That’s definitely better than the TIC mix. I think that’s the last of the Immaculate Collection tracks that I hadn’t replaced with a superior version – sometimes I think it was a deliberate ploy by Madonna to get people to shell out for the original albums as well as just TIC, which I guess is worthwhile just for “Justify My Love”.
Did they botch the ’90s hits in the same way on GHV2? The only track I have directly from it is “Beautiful Stranger”, and I’m SURE it’s a lot muddier than the single I remember from the time.
#112 – The Immaculate Conception – omg! I had never got this until now.
@londonlee, 96. Diamond Dogs’ Track 11 “Chant of the ever-circling…” ends with about 10s of bruh-bruh-bruh-bruh at full volume, then slowly fades out for another 15s. Not quite the same impact as the locked grove you mention, but a reasonable approximation. The Rykodisc version of the cd that I have then continues with Track 12 ‘Dodo’ (a great unreleased track that really looks forwards to Young Americans), and Track 13, a demo version of Candidate (which is great too, but which makes you appreciate just how many sonic chances Bowie took on the original record – the version of Candidate that’s Track 4 on DD is genuinely abrasive and avant-garde, certainly when compared with the demo).
@swanstep, #125. I assume that you’re familiar with Pushing Ahead Of The Dame the site that is working it’s way through Bowie’s back catalogue (there’s a link towards the top right of this page) and which has just reached Dodo.
@lonepilgrim. No, I hadn’t heard of that site. It looks interesting. Thanks. [I confess that I haven't given Bowie himself much thought for many years, except for Low. But between (i) recently discovering Jobriath (ii) like everyone else, trying to make sense of the Gaga phenomenon, and (iii) trying to make sense of what the great decline/recession we're now in is feeling like, I'm definitely finding myself attracted again to that troublesome 1973/4 period with Bowie as its presiding, fast-fluxing, musical genius.]
I was watching a lot of old Roxy Music clips on YouTube the other day and came to the conclusion that they were the presiding musical geniuses of the period. Though perhaps Bowie reflected it better.
#112 There’s a site that lists all the various mixes of every Madonna song which is a useful for reference for knowing exactly what’s out there – http://web-o-rama.net/madonnaremixology/
#113 I think I found that Steve Hoffman forum thread – http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showthread.php?t=189547
This was Number One on the European Hot 100 for twelve weeks.
Just to say that having said “no more impromptu Popular breaks” I’ve gone and done exactly that – basically I’ve been bed/chair-ridden since the start of the weekend with a vile sinus-busting monster cold: I’m now capable of coherent thought to the extent I can write a guardian column so hopefully the intellectual everest that is “Eternal Flame” can be conquered tomorrow.
@Tom. The Bangles did one of those (infamous/endlessly parodied/whiny)’Behind the Music’ specials for VH1 in the US. The whole thing’s up on youtube, but Part 3 covers how the band fell apart and has some good lines from band members about Eternal Flame’s (ironic) role in that.
H-h-hold your horses, SS!
Tom, sounds grim, get well soon.
I can beat that Tom! Took a tumble at the weekend and dislocated my right patella and snapped my infra patella tendon…I’m in for surgery tomorrow. Thinking of a line from a bunnyable song from certain Aussie movie director.
Re 130: Get well soon Mr.E. What’s that line from Chinatown -
” yeeaah summer colds are the worst”.
On the off-chance that anyone’s interested, I’ve written a couple of long-ish posts on Madonna’s Holiday: one on music and lyrics, and one on performance.
I FINALLY have a proper copy of this song, having bought the 2-disc ‘Celebration’ for a criminally low three pounds in HMV. Before then, the one that was sounding out from my iPod was a remix from a CD single I found at a charity shop a few years ago, which starts similar to the original (certainly more so than the Immaculate Collection), but ruins it with a load of extra drumbeats over the breakdowns, and replaces that great “Just like a prayer, your voice can take me there” ending with a really dull instrumental for two minutes.
A deserved 10, one of my fave Madonna tracks along with Vogue.
Coming fairly late to this one, pretty much everything’s been said. I agree with anto back at #7 that Madonna never looked more beautiful than in this video, and (perhaps not coincidentally) her dancing was never so free-spirit and unchoreographed – in major contrast to her next number one. The message is that the religious (or sexual) rapture is taking over her body and the expression is all there in the unfettered movement.
She’d always played, of course, with the overtones of the name she was blessed with and the religious iconography, but this was taking things a step further. More so in the more overtly religious USA than the UK, there were hot-button topics aplenty here, none more so than the burning crosses borrowed from the KKK and the seemingly black Jesus (not that great a percentage would have realised the St Martin de Porres link or its significance) – and I guess even an interracial kiss was still daring in certain states? If the message, or one of them, is that religion should be a conduit for joy and integration, then maybe they should play this video at the Koran-burning event in Florida this weekend.
MMWatch: Ian Gittins awarded single of the week to ‘Like A Prayer’. March 11 1989;
“She’s back! And it’s as if she’s never been away. After films, bust-ups, the works, Madonna slips back to music and finds her stage all set. There’s a huge Pepsi tie-in this time, so with all copies of ‘Like A Prayer’ locked in a secret London vault at the time of writing, it’s to the TV advert launch for any quick-thinking hack. Two minutes and a can of Pepsi-Cola. *There’s* how to return.
And ‘Like A Prayer’ is one more great dance trifle, the latest in a line of unruffled classics. It’s just the same formula; chorus, hooks, all the greats, and that superbly innocent yet *carnal* voice at the centre. The song’s about not being in control. As if! Every *breath* is meticulous. Even the gospel choir can’t upset her balance, can’t compete with the airy precision. And the video shows Madonna, as a tiny girl, watching her grown-up self as a STAR. There’s no better symbol for her. Really. Business as usual. Madonna’s back! The game goes on.”
Also reviewed that week;
New Order – Round & Round
Ice T – High Rollers
The Wonder Stuff – Who wants To Be The Disco King?
Gene Pitney – It’s Over
Guns ‘N’ Roses – Paradise City
Ellis Beggs & Howard – Big Bubbles No Troubles
The Stone Roses – Made Of Stone
[...] Ewing, “Madonna – ‘Like a Prayer’”, Freaky Trigger, August 23, [...]