Provided courtesy by August A Galifi
Like A Virgin
Writers: Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly
Producer: Nile Rodgers
December 22, 1984 (Six weeks at number 1)
Top Five for that Week
Nile Rodgers did not want Madonna to record "Like A Virgin." "I liked the melody alot, because the tune was catchy, but I didn't think the lyric `like a virgin' was such a terrific hook," the producer told Steve Pond of the Los Angeles Times. "It just didn't seem like, you know, the all time catch phrase. But after about four days I couldn;t get the song out of my head, and I said, `You know, Madonna, I really apologize, because if it's so catchy it stayed in my head for four days, it must be something. So let's do it." The song was not only not written for madonna, it was not even written for a female singer. "The idea for the song came from personal experience," lyricist Billy Steinberg said to the L.A. Times. "I wasn't just trying to get that racy word virgin into a lyric. I was saying that I may not really be a virgin, I've been battered emotionally and romantically by so many people, but I am starting a new relationship and it just feels so good, it's healing all the wounds and making me feel like I've never done this before, because it is so much deeper and more profound than anything I've ever felt." Steinberg, who wrote Linda Ronstadt's top 10 hit from 1979, "How DO I Make You," penned "Like a Virgin" with Tom Kelly. Michael Ostin of Warner Brothers Records' A & R department was invited to Kelly's house to hear some demos. "It was a fluke" is how Ostin described the fateful events that led to Madonna hearing the song. "I was there mostly to hear what Billy and Tom were up to in their own career, and they played me four or five tunes, all really nice," Ostin said. "Then they said, `Listen, we've got this other tune, we got this other tune and we really don't know what to do with it, it's not right for us and we don't know what other artist might be appropriate.' They played me `Like A Virgin' and it just so happened that the next day I had a meeting with Madonna to discuss her next album. The lyrics, the groove of the song- I just thought it would be perfect for her, and it was an uncanny coincidence that I was going to metting with her the next day and she was on my mind. When I played it for Madonna she went crazy, and knew instantly that it was a song for her and that she could make a great song out of it. Madonna's biggest hit prior to "Like A Virgin" was "Lucky Star," number four in October of 1984. She had also charted with "Borderline", number 10, and "Holiday", number 16, but it was "Like A Virgin" that established her as a major artist, debuting at number 48 on November 17, 1984, and moving to number 1 five weeks later.
Crazy for You
Writers: John Bettis and Jon Lind
Producer: John "Jellybean" Benitez
May 11, 1985 (Number 1 for one week)
Top Five that Week
Lyricist John Bettis and his songwriting partner Jon Lind were more than a little shocked when they found out who was going to sing the ballad the had written for the film Vision Quest. "I was on vacation out in the desert, and Joel Sill (then an executive in charge of music for Warner Brothers pictures) called and said Phil Ramone was in love with the song and wanted to cut it on Madonna," Bettis recalls with a laugh. "Borderline was out at the time and I said, `Excuse me? This is for Madonna? Really? Can she sing a song like this?' Jon and I were surpirsed at the choice of the artist at the time, if you want to know the truth. Bettis and Lind had written "Crazy for You" after receiving a copy of the Visoion Quest script from Sill. "In reading the script, the place I wanted to write a song for was the first time the two main characters, a young boy and a girl who's a boarder at the house, dance together at a club," Bettis elaborates. "We were noodling around and (`Crazy for You') was something that Jon was singing over that section of the song. It was really desciptive of that scene in the film. Some time had elapsed before they received a call from Sill letting them know that Madonna was going to sing their composition. "We went to one of the sessions, and to be quite honest, that session didn;t go all that well," Bettis continues. "Jon and I were depressed about the way the song had come out. We heard nothing else about it, and we were a little nervous that the song was going to be dropped from the picture." "I went to England to work on the film Legend with Jerry Goldsmith," says Bettis. "When I got home, Jon Lind called and said 'Have you heard the new record of 'Crazy for You'? I've got a single here for you.' I said, `What are you talking about? A Single? What?!?!' So I went over to his house and he played me a brand new version with a new arrangement. We owe a great deal of gratitude to a man named Rob Mounsey, because he completely rearranged the the original track and added a background vocal and reaally made a hit record out of it. The man who brought Rob Mounsey in to arrange a new recording was Jellybean Benitez. "It was the first time I ever produced a ballad," Jellybean says. "Prior to that I had only produced dance/pop songs or dance songs. It was the first time I ever produced a live session, as ooposed to having synthesizers and drum machines do everything." "I was tense because I had never done a record like this," admits Jellybean, who produced "Holiday" on Madonna's first album. "Everything I did was totally on instinct. I tried to make the song stand on it's own, but at the same time work in the two scenes in which it is used in the movie." Jellybean notes that the song was very important to Madonna. "She had just charted with `Like A Virgin' and 'Material Girl'. This song really opened up radio as far as Adult Contemporary was concerned. I think people saw that she could really do other things." Bettis was happy to collect a number one song, but he had his doubts that "Crazy for You" would reach the top spot after being stuck at number 2 for three weeks in a row. "Going to number one really surprised me very much because we were out at the same time as `We Are the World'. Jon and I said, 'If you gotta lose to something, it might as well be that.' Luckily enough, in the final week of the upward surge of the record, we topped `We Are the World,' which lets you know how hot the song and how hot the artist were.'
Live to Tell
Writers: Madonna and Patrick Leonard
Producer: Patrick Leonard
June 7, 1986 (One week at Number 1)
Top Five for that Week
Patrick leonard had just finished the Jackson's Victory Tour when his manager asked if he would be interested in being musical director for Madonna's Virgin Tour. At first, he said no, but then he talked on the phone with Madonna, found her charming and agreed to the two-month tour. By the time the tour was over, Madonna had asked Leonard and Stephen Bray to write songs with her and to co-produce her next album, True Blue. "Madonna agreed to write some lyrics for a song that i was going to write for a film that paramount was doing," Patrick explains. "My managers represented the guy who was directing the film, it was his first film. I saw a little piece of the movie and I had a script. I wrote a theme, and I said, `What if I could get Madonna to write the lyrics for it?" The movie was called Fire with Fire. "It was set in a girls' school and a boys' prison, somewhere in the mountains around Vancouver," Leonard remembers, although he never saw the completed film. Paramount passed on his music. "They just didn't think this theme was any good. They though I wouldn't be capable of scoring the film." Leonard told Madonna that the people at Paramount didn't want the theme. "She said, 'This song would be great for Sean's new movie.' She wrote the lyrics, she just wrote them on the spot, which is what we always do. I don't think we have ever taken more than three hours to finish a song from start to finish. She sang it on the demo only once and left with the cassette. That day I went to work with Michael Jackson on some transcription material he was writing for the Bad album. The phone rang at Michael's and it was Sean Penn. He said, `I'm over at the director's house and Madonna just brought the song over. We love it and we would like to talk to you about it.' " Patrick finished his work with Michael and drove over to the home of Jamie Foley, the director of At Close Range. When he arrived, Foley and Penn told him that Madonna had suggested that he score the film. SHe had also asked who was going to sing the song, since it was written for a man to sing. But there was no question in Leonard's mind that she was the only person who should sing, "Live to tell." "We recut the song, but we used the (same ) vocal. She only sang it once (for the demo) and that was the vocal we used because it was so innocent and shy. She had a legal pad in her hand and you can hear the paper. It's as raw as raw can be and that's part of what gave it all it's charm." "Live to Tell" was released prior to True Blue. When it went to number one, it was only the fifth single in eight years and not be available on an album. "Live to Tell" was also Madonna's second number one single from a film., following Crazy for You from Vision Quest. "Live to tell" was a showstopper on Madonna's True Blue tour, and at a benefit concert at Madison Square Garden to raise money for medical research for AIDS, she dedicated the song to the memory of her friend, artist Martin Burgoyne.
Papa Don't Preach
Writers: Brian Elliot and Madonna
Producers: Madonna and Stephen Bray
August 16, 1986 (Number one for 2 weeks) (hit number one on her birthday)
Top Five that Week
"Papa Don't Preach" is a message song that everyone is going to take the wrong way," Madonna predicted to Stephen Holden in the N.Y. Times. "Immediately they are going to say that I am advising every young girl to go out and get pregnant. When I first heard the song, I thought it was silly. But then I thought, wait a minute, this song is really about a girl who is making a decision in her life. She has a very close relationship with her father and wants to maintain that closeness. To me it is a celebration of life." Madonna was right. Everyone had something to say about the song, from Tipper Gore, founder of the Parents Music Resource Center, to Gloria Allred, an attorney from L.A. committed to sexual equality. Allred said that Madonna should "make a statement noting that kids have other choices, including abortion, or if she doesn't want to make that statement, then she has the responsibility to make another record supporting the opposite point of view." Gore, head of the Washington Wives group that vigorously protested explicit sexual lyrics, said she thought the song was important because it "discusses, with urgency, a real predicament which thousands of unwed teenagers face in this country. If it fosters a discussion about pregnancy between teens and their family, then I think it is all to the good." Songwriter Brian Elliot, who composed "Papa Don't Preach" with "additional lyrics" by Madonna, commented to Jay Padroff in Music Connection, "The Pro-Life League has decided that "Papa Don't Preach" is a rallying cry for them. All around the country,their offices have adopted my song. Strangely enough, Tipper Gore, who used to condemn Madonna, has applauded the songs urgency and sensitivity. Of course, I am really glad this happened after the fact because I was a little worried that had Tipper Gore given her public support of the song earlier on, it might have killed it." Elliot, who had recorded one album for Warner Brothers, was producing session for a new artist Christina Dent. He took the tape to Michael Ostin in the A & R dept.. "He liked the first song, but completely fell out over `papa Don't Preach'. Eliot explained. Ostin later asked if he could play the song for Madonna, and Elliot consented. Ostin later told him that Madonna loved the song and wanted to record it. "At that point, Christina and I had been working together for six months or so. I felt that the song was strong enough to make it and do something for Christina, to get that career rolling. But Iwas pursuaded by a great many people that to have madonna cut the song would be an astute move for everybody. It would bring a lot of credibility and visibility and economic autonomy for me and everything I was doing, and move my career forward by four or five years in a six month span." Elliot asked madonna's management if he could go to the studio and listen to her version of the song. He was given a time to be at the studiowhen Madonna would not be there. "I'm listening to it for the first time and I hear, `Well, did I wreck your song?' And I turned around and there she is. We had a `spirited' discussion about certain interpretations of lines, and it was resoved to the mutual delight of all concerned." Elliot did not stay out of the controversey created by the song. "If Madonna has influenced young girls to keep their babies, I don't think that is such a bad deal," he told the L.A. Times. "I've heard from all sorts of people that I'm a voice for the New Right and a minion of right-to-life groups. But I had no ambition for this to be adopted by and special interest groups. I don't have a banner to wave. I just wanted to make this girl a sympathetic character. AS a father myself, I'd want to be accessible to my children's problems."
Open Your Heart
Writer: Madonna, Gardner Cole, and Peter Rafelson
Producers: Madonna and Patrick Leonard
February 7, 1987 (One week at Number 1)
Top Five that Week
Madonna's "Open Your Heart" moved up the Hot 100 simultaneously with Cyndi Lauper's "Change of Heart." But what Cyndi doesn't know is that songwriters Cole and Rafelson wrote "Open Your Heart" with her in mind. "She never heard it," Cole reveals. At one time the Temptations were under consideration to perform the tune. "They put the song on hold. Benny Medina, who was at Motown at the time, called peter up and asked us if he could cut the song with the Temptations.Well, about a week later we found out Madonna had already cut it. Once the Temptations heard that Madonna had cut the song they didn't have any interest in it any longer." Cole and Rafelson wrote "Open Your Heart" as a rock and roll song, although the original title was "Follow Your Heart." I got the title idea from a local health food restaurant in Canoga Park, California called Follow Your Heart. The two songwriters spent a year writing and perfecting the tune. "Peter and I usually write very quickly. It's usually a day or two a song, but for some reason this didn't really hit us as a hit song. We didn't give up on it. We just kep working on it over the course of a year. Thank god we did. " Cole's manager, Bennet Freed, was working with Madonna's management when they were looking for material for her. "He gave her two or three songs and `Open Your Heart' was the song that I thought would be the least likely song she would choose. The original version didn't really fit into what Madonna was doing at the time. I thought she was going to stick with `Holiday' and what she was already doing. But this song was a step forward for her, it was a different area, more rock and roll than I thought she would want to go." Freed called Cole to let him know Madonna had recorded the song. "Madonna redid some of the lyric ideas and with Patrick Leonard, changed the arrangement around. Pat and her put a bass line underneath the song and got it into a rock and roll dance area instead of just rock and roll. The original song was more pop/rock than dance. Pat and her just cut it into a dance song." Even after it was recorded, Cole was not certain that it would ever be heard. "It was the first song that was cut on the True Blue album. It made me nervous as a writer, because alot of times the very first song that gets cut doesn't make it in the longrun. But the song ended up making the album, which really opened alot of door for me. As a result of the succes of "Open Your Heart," Cole was signed as an artist to Warner Brother's records and formed a writing partnership with the producer of the song, Patrick Leonard. "Open Your Heart" was the third number one single from True Blue. It followed "Live to Tell" and "Papa Don't Preach." The next single was the title track, "True Blue," which peaked at number three. Madonna followed "Open Your heart" with "La Isla Bonita," a song originally written by Patrick Leonard for Michael Jackson. When the song was turned down, Madonna completed the lyrics and recorded it. "La Isla Bonita" was the fifth consecutive top five single from True Blue, peaking at number four in May, 1987.
Who's That Girl
Writers: Madonna and Patrick leonard
Producers: madonna and Patrick leonard
August 22, 1987 (One week at Number 1)
Top 5 That Week
Previous week's number one song: "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For" - U2
When Madonna needed songs for her third motion picture, Slammer, she called Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray, who had written and produced her True Blue album. "She said she needed an uptempo song and a downtempo song," says Leonard, who produced and wrote the music for one of Madonna's other number one songs, "Live To Tell." "She came over on a Thursday and I had the chorus. She went into the backroom with a cassette of that. I worked out the rest of the parts, she finished the melody, she went back in the back room and she finished the rest of the lyrics. She came out and said, `We'll call it "Who's That Girl", and I think it's a better title for the movie than Slammer so we'll change the name of the movie too." Leonard agreed that it made a better title. The next day they wrote a second song for the film, "The Look of Love," in a similar fashion. With Bray, Madonna wrote two more songs for the film: "Causing a Commotion" (number two in October, 1987) and "Can't Stop". "Who's That Girl" was recorded in one day, according to Leonard. "She sang it once and that was it. We put guitars on it and the percussion the next day. "Who's That Girl" became madonna's sixth number one single. All her chart toppers came in the '80's, giving her more number ones in this decade than anyone else to date. Madonna's relationship with the motion picture industry wasn't limited to recording songs for soundtracks. She was also in demand as an actress. Her first starring role was in Desperately Seeking Susan, which costarred Rosanna Arquette. Director Susan Seidelman talked about Mmadonna in a People interview: "She is an incredible disciplined person. During the nine-week shoot we'd often get home at 11 or 12 o'clock at night and have to be back on the set by 6 or 7 in the morning. Half the time the driver would pick her up at her health club. She'd get up at 4:30 to work out first." Madonna might have had a number one song from the soundtrack of this film if "Into The Groove" had been released as a single. It was only available as the B side of the 12-inch single of "Angel." Sire chose not to release it so it would not compete with "Angel" which was already moving up the Hot 100. In her second film, Shanghai Surprise, Madonna played a quiet young missionary from Massachusetts who fell in love with a small-time con man. Her co-star was the actor she first met while filming the video for "Material Girl," her husband Sean Penn. "We didn't actually plan on working on the film together," Madonna told British reporters at a film press conference that was also attended by executive producer George Harrison. "Sean had just finished a film and was looking for another movie to do and I'd just finished working on my record and I was looking for a movie to do. I read the script and loved it and asked him to read it for his opinion. He also liked the male role, so we looked at each other and thought maybe maybe this would be a good one to do together." The critics were not kind to Shanghai Surprise, and the film did not do well. The critics were equally unenthusiastic to Madonna's third film, Who's That Girl. Madonna played Nikki Finn, described in the press release as "a feisty, free-spirited femme destined to take her place among the screen's great comic heroines." Madonna talked about the music she wanted for the film: "I had some very specific ideas in mind, music that would stand on its own as well as support and enhance what was happening on the screen and the only way to make that a reality was to have a hand in writing the tunes myself. The songs aren't necessarily about nikki, or written to be sung by someone like her, but there's a spirit to this music that captures both what the film and the character are about, I think."
Like A Prayer
Writer: Madonna and Patrick Leonard
Producers: Madonna and Patrick Leonard
April 22, 1989 (three weeks at Number 1)
Top 5 That Week
Madonna had been absent from the Hot 100 for a year and a half when she released the first single from her album, Like A Prayer. The title track debuted at number 38 the week of March 18, 1989, and shot to number one five weeks later, making it the fastest rising number one hit since Michael Jackson's "Bad" in 1987. Madonna wrote and produced "Like A Prayer" with Patrick Leonard. Leonard remembers "Like A Prayer" being the first tune written for the album. "Originally it had bongos and a latin percussion, and we decided to eliminate that quickly," he says. "It was written and the lead vocals were recorded within about 3 hours. Most of the songs on the album were written just like that, in a few hours. Once she came up with `Like a Prayer' we decided, `We'll do this with a church organ and we'll add a choir to it, we'll add Andrae Crouch's choir later on.' It was that simple. It wasn't something that took a few weeks; this is something that took hours." Madonna and Patrick met with Andrae Crouch to tell him what they had in mind. "He gets the choir together and they sort of wing it," says Leonard. "He knows what he is going to do and he knows what he is going to tell them, but I know he is making it up as he goes along. He's listened to it inthe car and he's thought about what he's going to do, it's very inspired." Madonna talked about her religious upbringing with Becky Johnston. "I have a great sense of guilt and sin from Catholicism that has definitely permeated my everyday life, whether I want it to or not. And when I do something wrong, or that I think is wrong, if I don't let someone know I've wronged, I'm always afraid I am going to be punished. I don't rest easy with myself. And that's something you're raised to believe as a Catholic." Madonna told Johnston how the video of the song developed. "Originally, when I recorded the song, I would play it over and over again, trying to get a visual sense of what sort of fantasy or story it evoked in me. I kept imagining this story about a girl who was madly in love with a black man, set in the South, with this forbidden interracial love affair. And the guy she is in love with sings in a choir. So she's obsessed with him and goes to church all the time. And then it tunrned into a bigger story, which was about racism and bigotry. Then Mississippi Burning came out and I thought I was hitting the nail a little too hard on the head. Then Mary Lambert got involved as the director, and she came up with a story that incorporated more of the religious symbolism I originally wrote into the song." Before "Like A Prayer" was released, Madonna signed a $5-million contract with Pepsi-Cola which would include a series of commercials and sponsorships of madonna's tour. the first commercial was scheduled to use the song "Like A Prayer." "I like the challenge of merging art and commerce." Madonna said in Rolling Stone. "The Pepsi spot is a great and different way to expose the record. The music will be playing in the background, and the can of Pepsi is positioned very subliminally." the comercial had a different storyline than the video. For Pepsi, Madonna relived a birthday party from childhood. The two-minute commercial aired March 2, 1989 for the first and last time in the United States. Pepsi cited "consumer confusion" between the commercial and video for "Like A Prayer." Fundamentalists groups threatened a boycott against the company because of what they considered to be Madonna's "blasphemous" video, but Pepsi said they arrived at their decision to pull the spot independently. Company spokesman Todd mcKenzie said, "If you've got a spot that has people confused, it's only logical to pull it." Pepsi did not ask for their money back and madonna did not offer.
Vogue
Writers: Madonna and Shep Pettibone
Producers: Madonna and Shep Pettibone
May 19, 1990 (Three weeks at Number 1)
Top 5 that Week
"Vogue" was originally planned as the B side of "Keep it Together," the fifth single from Madonna's Like A Prayer album. After the title track went to number one, "Express Yourself" and "Cherish" both peaked at number two. The fourth single was "Oh Father," which broke Madonna's string of 17 consecutive top 10 singles by stalling at number 20. "It was the best song we'd ever done so far," Patrick Leonard lamented in the Chicago Tribune. "It was a beautiful piece of music that resembles art in a big way." Madonna bounced back with "Keep It Together," which went as high as number eight.