Establishing a certain fondness for releasing the “serious album” in the spring (as she would later do with Ray of Light in March of 1998 and American Life in April of 2003), Like A Prayer‘s birth into the world of pop music–still, at that point, being handwritten by Madonna’s own rules–announced a change in both Madonna and her audience, many fans themselves growing past the age of adolescence that made it acceptable for them to dress in the “Madonna wannabe” garb of lace crop tops and Boy Toy belts. With this in mind, Madonna was assured in her need to explore a new artistic path, one that, instead of playing into musical influences of the present, paid homage to those that affected her past. In fact, all of Like A Prayer is an exploration of the past–though Madonna’s long-standing reputation was then (and now) to constantly look forward.
Tapping into the pain of both the breakup of her marriage (the divorce being finalized in January 1989) to proclaimed “love of her life” Sean Penn and the demons that both Catholicism and the death of her mother, Madonna Sr., instilled within her at an early age, Like A Prayer took a tack that Madonna was developing from her early days spent in New York, pursuing a bottomless pit hunger for fame that she could not perhaps admit at the time pertained to her desire to be recognized if not, impossibly, by her own mother, then at least by the world. And even that would be a marginal substitute for the inimitable approval of one’s mother.
As Madonna described, “It was a real coming-of-age record for me emotionally, I had to do a lot of soul-searching, and I think it is a reflection of that. I didn’t try to candy-coat anything or make it more palatable for mass consumption, I wrote what I felt.” At a time when it was unheard of, least of all for a female in the music industry, to do so, Madonna ignored all evidence to the contrary in choosing to be upfront and honest about her emotions, to document them in the most public and immortal way possible (something Ariana Grande would blatantly take a cue from on thank u, next).
With the dedication, “For my mother, who taught me how to pray” (though one almost wishes it was spelled as “prey” for the ultimate sign of Madonna tongue-in-cheekness), Madonna instantaneously establishes the record as a means of formerly unaddressed catharsis. At the same time, Like A Prayer almost tracks as a trajectory of a relationship’s dissolution, even on the opening title track, which Madonna described as being about a girl “so in love with God that it is almost as though He were the male figure in her life.” In many senses, over the four-year period of their turbulent marriage, that is what Sean Penn was to her: a god in inevitable need of being knocked off his false pedestal. To this end, the following song, and second single from the album, “Express Yourself” (one of the few tracks that Stephen Bray eked by on producing instead of Patrick Leonard), would definitively declare Madonna’s independence as she encouraged other women to do the same, to never “go for second best, baby.” Through it all, Madonna has practiced what she preached in this regard, even if there have been a few missteps over the years (Dennis Rodman, Guy Ritchie and Alexander Rodriguez, to name a few, coming to mind). But she has never shown herself to be anything other than true to herself at the first sign of a man’s misunderstanding/maligning of her or her work.
The third and most sonically unique songs on the record, “Love Song,” also offers up one of Madonna’s old flames: Prince. In addition to lending his vocals to “Love Song,” Prince also played guitar on “Like A Prayer,” “Keep It Together” and “Act of Contrition” (which has his raucous stamp all over its brief two minute and nineteen second coda). Speaking to one of Madonna’s least favorite phenomenons–wasting time–she applies her contempt for putting in effort into something with no reward by asking her lover in a warning tone, “Are you wasting my time?/Are you just being kind? Oh no baby, my love isn’t blind/Are you wasting my time?/Are you just being kind?/Don’t go give me one of your lines,” later adding, “Mean what you say or baby I am gone, this is not a love song.” And yes, she did mean it, walking away from Penn right at the moment when her iconic status was reaching a new stratosphere.
Despite the seamless melding of their vocals, the song was written and recorded apart, for Madonna, in need of the perfect conditions in order to focus on creating what would become one of her masterpieces, commented, “We ended up writing it long distance, because I had to be in L.A. and he couldn’t leave Minneapolis, and quite frankly I couldn’t stand Minneapolis. When I went there, it was like twenty degrees below zero, and it was really desolate. I was miserable and I couldn’t write or work under those circumstances.” This was, after all, the same girl who abhorred the Midwest from the start, famously stating, “I just wanted to get the hell out of Michigan.”
Bringing the psychoanalysis of her failed first marriage to a crescendo on “Till Death Do Us Part” (originally titled “State of Matrimony”), Madonna rues, “Our luck is running out of time/You’re not in love with me anymore,” followed by a notable interweaving of the first and third person as though out of necessity dissociating from the pain of the loss of her love as she narrates from the outside looking in, “They never laugh, not like before/She takes the keys, he breaks the door/She cannot stay here anymore/He’s not in love with her anymore.”
From there, it’s a natural progression to her oldest emotional wound on “Promise to Try,” lamenting the death of her mother. A sort of resigned pep talk to herself at times (after all, there was never a mother figure around to give her one, and we certainly can’t count the family’s housekeeper-turned-stepmother, Joan), Madonna sings, “Will she see me cry when I stumble and fall? Does she hear my voice in the night when I call? Wipe away all your tears, it’s gonna be all right.” Wondering throughout if maybe her mother can see her from the great beyond (as dictated by Catholicism) and is protectively watching over her, Madonna, in the end, reconciles, “Can’t kiss her goodbye/But I promise to try.”
Harkening back to the Romeo and Juliet passions that punctuated the initial phase of her rapport with Penn, Madonna even name checks the famous Shakespeare couple on “Cherish,” a song that would become more memorable for its Herb Ritts-directed video (all awash in muscle-clad mermen and a triumphant Madonna dancing on the beach) than anything else. Loosely borrowing from The Association’s 1966 hit of the same name, Madonna again shows her knack for piecing together elements of the past and making them her contemporary own. In point of fact, Like A Prayer is a blatant offering to the influences of Sly and the Family Stone, The Beatles, The Rolling Stones (with many speculating the cover was a riff on Sticky Fingers) and Simon & Garfunkel. This much is also evident on “Dear Jessie,” inspired by Patrick Leonard’s daughter, Jessie, for it is the most tinged with the artists that Madonna was influenced by in the 60s and 70s in terms of its psychedelic lyrical tableau. What’s more, it seems to be the most overt sign of Madonna’s desire to become a mother herself, wanting to nurture a daughter of her own in the way that her matriarch was never able to.
The video itself being a kid-friendly, therefore animated (Yellow Submarine anyone?), psychedelic journey through the land of mermaids, dancing moons, fairies and pink elephants (at one point, to iterate the fantastical storybook nature of the song, it looks as though there is even that famous scene of Gulliver being pinned down), “Dear Jessie” was Madonna’s first foray into animation, a precursor to the more developed sort that would appear in the videos for “Music” and “Get Together.” The most underrated single from Like A Prayer, it was a strong indication of Madonna’s constant need to re-manifest her childhood in a more comforting manner.
On that note, “Oh Father,” is an unsettling reimagining of her dynamic with her father, Silvio “Tony” Ciccone, as it transitioned into Madonna’s abusive choice of a relationship with Sean Penn. The visual accompaniment to the song further unsettles in its themes, riddled with Catholic imagery. Once again rife with childhood emblems like the dancing mobile (featuring horse figurines) in the snow that commences the narrative, Madonna seeks to reevaluate her past through the lens of her present. A little girl playing in the snow below the mobile is oblivious to what’s going on inside as a priest makes the standard sign of the cross with a rosary in hand upon watching the wife of the little girl’s father die, her lips sewn together in preparation for burial. A grown up Madonna-inspired character reflects on the events of her little girl past in the same snow-covered tableau, complete with the graveyard where her mother was laid to rest (in the video, not in real life). Reminiscing about her father’s verbal and physical abuse (most prevalent in a scene in which she gets slapped for playing dress up in her mother’s pearls), Madonna confronts her often latent Electra complex issues as she acknowledges having picked a man to be with similar in volatile temperament to her father. This Electra flavor would be more jokingly featured in Truth or Dare in an exchange with Sandra Bernhard, that went as follows:
Madonna: “I had those dreams when my mother died. For like a five-year period after that, that’s all I dreamed about–that people were jumping on me and strangling me…and I was constantly screaming for my father…and no sound would come out.”
Bernhard: “What happened when you woke up? You were crying?”
Madonna: “I’d be sweating and afraid and have to go sleep with my father.”
Bernhard: “Was that before he got remarried? How was that when you slept with him?”
Madonna: “Fine. I went right to sleep…after he fucked me–just kidding.”
Stunningly directed by David Fincher (who also directed “Express Yourself”), the visuals of Madonna at confession here, her father kneeling and praying before a cross there all serve to coagulate the oppressive hand of a religion that ultimately glorifies machismo and the stifling of emotions. Grappling with the alcoholic husband (who not so coincidentally resembles Penn) of her current life, Madonna returns to her childhood home to confront her aged father, their shadows on the wall reenacting the castigating scenes of their interactions in Madonna’s youth. By the end, Madonna visits her mother’s grave with her father, which is likely a wish she had always secretly yearned to have fulfilled during her childhood. This scene transitions to the young Madonna dancing on her mother’s grave, arguably the most satisfying form of artistically rendered expurgation.
Succeeded somewhat ironically by “Keep It Together,” Madonna discusses that, no matter how famous she gets, she has come to find that “When I get lonely and I need to be loved for who I am/Not what they want to see/Brothers and sisters, they’ve always been there for me/We have a connection, home is where the heart should be.” Of course, this sentiment hasn’t held much water over the decades, with many of Madonna’s siblings harboring resentment against her for not “doing” or “giving” enough for them. Still, it fits in nicely with the exploration of her fraught preadolescence and its shaping of what it made her into–in most’s eyes, ruthless and calculated to the point of parody. And just as the “lamentation of fame” song would become a staple on future albums (e.g. “Drowned World/Substitute for Love” and “How High”), so, too, would the “AIDS lamentation” song, established by “Spanish Eyes,” later to reappear on 1992’s Erotica with “In This Life.” Mourning the death of yet another friend to the disease, Madonna bemoans, “How many lives will they have to take?/How much heartache?/How many suns will they have to burn, Spanish eyes?/When will they ever learn?” It is of course notable that Spanish culture is yet another (apart from Italian) that puts such a high premium on the traditions of Catholicism, Madonna capitalizing on that imagery with the lyrics, “I light this candle and watch it throw tears on my pillow/And if there is a Christ/He’ll come tonight to pray for Spanish eyes/And if I have nothing left to show but tears on my pillow/What kind of life is this?/If God exists, then help me pray for Spanish eyes.”
Seeming to put a cap on all this loss that has punctuated and driven so much of her life, Madonna concludes with “Act of Contrition,” during which she recites the Catholic prayer of forgiveness. In one sense perhaps knowing she would need to ask forgiveness in God’s eyes for having created the album at all (it would lead to her excommunication, naturally), and in another wielding the “act” as just that–one final stab at the redundant traditions that were drilled into her as a child, Madonna whispers, “Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee/And I detest all my sins because of Thy just punishment/But most of all, because I have offended Thee/Oh my God.” Seasoned Madonna fans will recognize its reappearance on the intro to 2012’s “Girl Gone Wild.” Adding her own cheeky touch to the prayer, her resolution to be good again devolves into an argument about her reservation at a restaurant not being in the computer, the notorious diva du moment eclipsing the Catholic good girl gone bad du passé.
Going all out on packaging (at least for the first pressings), the album was scented with patchouli to appeal to the olfactory sense of going into a Catholic church (particularly in the 60s). This was contrasted with the informational insert about safe sex and AIDS contained inside. This packaging, to be sure, was the perfect marketing manifestation of Madonna’s constant war within herself as a direct result of this repressive religion, one that eventually turned her so irrevocably rebellious and questioning against the status quo. Propelled by the ominous memory of the Bible and regular churchgoing, Madonna explained of the force behind Like A Prayer‘s motifs, “…in Catholicism you are a born sinner and you’re a sinner all your life. No matter how you try to get away from it, the sin is within you all the time. It was this fear that haunted me; it taunted and pained me every moment. My music was probably the only distraction I had.”
Rarely given much critical praise for her work, let alone credited for having any artistic value, Madonna was finally showered with just that upon the release of the record (though, don’t worry, they wouldn’t laud her much again until her Like A Prayer II, Ray of Light). Thirty years on, it looks as though, for once, the critics had it right.
