In time for a seasonal and mid-decade shift, “You’ll See” served as the first single from Madonna’s 1995 compilation of ballads, Something to Remember. Unleashed on October 30th, Madonna timed the track’s release for the inevitable Fall/Winter onslaught of ennui and melancholy. For some, these conditions are mere byproducts of the weather commonly associated with this time of year (save for Australians, who no one seems to consider in this regard). For others, the emotions are compounded by a recent breakup and/or great love lost (for the end of summer tends to mark the end of romance–either that, or everyone has paired off for the sake of having someone, anyone to hibernate with).
In the Michael Haussman-directed video (after all, he also directed the “prequel” for the concept, “Take A Bow”), Madonna falls into just such a category as she vows independence and revenge thriving in the wake of her relationship’s demise. While M might be reeling from her torrid affair with a visceral bullfighter, she’s also undeniably an internal wreck about losing someone she did care for with such intensity. After all, the Madonna “character” of the video is mirrored after the Madonna of real life: projecting a hard shell, but just a teddy bear on the inside. Maybe that’s why she thought she could withstand such a furious love. But even Elizabeth Taylor couldn’t survive Richard Burton twice. Love is a motherfucker, and the most iron-willed and strong-hearted cannot withstand too many burns in their lifetime, let alone one.
As a morose Madonna sits on a bench in an isolated milieu (somewhere in London, where the video was shot on October 23rd), the surrounding ground besieged by golden-brown leaves fallen from the trees, we get the immediate sense of “a certain time of year.” It is one that is filled with an indescribable and unshakeable loneliness. And though there, at times, can be a level of “coziness” to those sentiments, by and large, it is a crippling feeling to have at all hours of the day. Especially if, like Madonna, you choose to spend your mourning period outside before apparently deciding to pay loose homage to The English Patient (which would come out in film form a year later in the Fall of 1996) by taking a train and then getting on a plane. Where is she going? It doesn’t matter. Anywhere her lover–ex-lover–is not.
But–and here’s where the touch of glamor comes in (apart from M’s chic, leopard print-favoring wardrobe)–rather than letting her go, Emilio (that’s his name, Emilio Muñoz) decides to pursue her. And while this message of “true love means a man stalks you” is no longer “kosher” to deliver, it has to be said that, in this particular instance, it’s part of why “You’ll See” as a video possesses so much cinematic glamor. It is a story of lovers spurned, and yet how the toxicity of that love is part of what makes it so rife with the kind of passion that simply can’t be found in “healthy” relationships. It is a story with intrigue–and not just because train travel is involved. It is a story of the black and white tendency of how we understand ourselves. Either we are “with someone” or “totally alone” in the world. There seems, even now, to be no in between. Each of them represents the latter category, trapped in their respective “encasements.”
For Madonna, that means pressing her fingertips against the windowpane of the train, indicating a sort of self-inflicted yet necessary imprisonment. For Emilio, it’s riding in the back of a car solo as he urgently tries to trace the steps of the woman who now insists, “You think that I can’t live without your love/You’ll see.” In many regards, the lyrical themes of the track would presage Ray of Light’s “Frozen” as Madonna asserts, “You think that you are strong, but you are weak/You’ll see/It takes more strength to cry, admit defeat/I have truth on my side/You only have deceit.” A germinal form, in short, of: “You’re so consumed with how much you get/You waste your time with hate and regret/You’re broken/When your heart’s not open/If I could melt your heart, we’d never be apart.” Alas, Madonna could not melt Emilio’s heart and therefore one could make the case that the woman in “You’ll See” is the woman in the Mojave Desert of the “Frozen” video in 1998–that’s where her plane was heading all along: back to California.
Naturally, proponents of “true love” would like to posit that the man Madonna sees in the final scene of the video is Emilio. What other explanation could there be for a plane passenger sentimentally twirling a Fall leaf? But even if it is him, one would like to believe that the self-assured and resolved Madonna of the song would simply allow him to join the Mile High Club with her and then disappear from his sight again once the plane landed–slinking off into the aforementioned desert where she became a witch with the power to use a castration potion (filled with myrrh, a pig’s hoof, a virgin’s toe and all that rot) that would render Emilio incapable of ever hurting another woman again. And if that story doesn’t take you out of your own head during a bout with seasonal depression, then surely the stunning landscapes–enhanced by M’s own aesthetic–as captured by Haussman’s artful eye will.
