Almost three decades after she burst into the music scene, we look back at a few of Madonna’s path breaking songs and try to analyze them from a millennial lens. A fitting tribute to an icon on her birthday, innit?
Madge, The Temptress
Like a virgin
Touched for the very first time
Right from its title, this iconic Madonna song — released in 1984 — tantalizes and titillates both men and women alike.
Right from Madge’s lustful looks at the camera, to the purely intentional focus on the lion’s flicking tongue, to her seducing the viewer in a high hemmed wedding gown, the song is high on symbolism and fem-power.
No wonder then, that it ruffled quite a few feathers back in the day; indeed, anything Madonna did invited a lot of scorn, but ultimately it was this very defiance and rebelliousness that exploded the popstar’s popularity to unimaginable heights.
‘Bad Girl’: An Unusual Cocktail of Sexuality and Guilt
Bad girl drunk by six
Kissing someone else's lips
Smoked too many cigarettes today
I'm not happy when I act this way
The lyrics of Bad Girl – a song that Rolling Stone described as a “somber, guilt-ridden ballad”– have a certain timelessness. The song, about a woman who feels guilty over too many casual sexual encounters, could be as relevant today as it was back in the 1980s.
It’s almost impossible to fathom that someone like Madonna, who so openly exhibited her sexuality, and always pushed the boundaries with her risque looks, could sing of guilt as an unwelcome bedfellow.
And yet, it is also true that even in 2017, the weight of morality bogs a woman down as she struggles to conform to societal mores. If she dares to rebel, she has to face the ferocity of rabid slut shaming that’s put in her way to silence her.
In real life too, Madonna had to battle a lot of slut shaming, but thankfully, she never gave in, and came out stronger each time.
Express Yourself, Ladies
Look at the lyrics here:
Second best is never enough
You'll do much better baby on your own
A solid feminist message, aye?
This one, from her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer (1989), was hailed for encouraging women to never compromise. And it’s not just the lyrics, the video (hunky muscular men acting subservient to a glamorous Madge who looks like she can afford them diamonds herself) is pretty delicious too, from a feminist standpoint.
Later, seen dancing in a pant suit, Madonna is seen urging women to put their “love to the test”, and not to hand out their heart as a freebie.
Explaining the song in an interview to Becky Johnston in the May 1989 issue of Interview, Madonna said,
No matter how in control you think you are about sexuality in a relationship there is always the power struggle... always a certain amount of compromise. Of being beholden, if you love them... I wrote ‘Express Yourself’ to tell women around the world that pick and choose the best for yourself, before that chain around your neck kills you instead. It’s my take on how men can express what they want, the same prerogative should be there for a woman too.Madonna
Needless to say, this song became a rallying cry for thousands of women of the decade. In a strange sense, the politics of the song has stood the test of time. When a young woman hears the song today, she too gets an insulin shot of high self worth.
From a ‘Material Girl’ to an Erotic Symbol
Even though she may have been the ‘material girl’ earlier, her later messages were high on female empowerment.
Perhaps no other female pop star from that decade has had such a cultural impact as Madonna. She is arguably one of the most powerful erotic feminine symbols of this century. Re: her stage appearances in those iconic conical bras? In all her life, her concerts, and her music videos, she has honored her own sexuality and by extension, urged us to do so ourselves. Society be damned.
Madonna has, as we say in India, always been the buri ladki, but girl, has she always owned it. That’s why she is the bad girl who makes us feel so good.
(At The Quint, we are answerable only to our audience. Play an active role in shaping our journalism by becoming a member. Because the truth is worth it.)