"Like a Virgin" is a song by American recording artist
Madonna from her second album of the same name. It was released
on November 6, 1984 by Sire Records, as the first single from
the album. The song appears on the greatest hits compilation
albums
The Immaculate Collection(1990) and
Celebration(2009). It was written by Billy Steinberg and
Tom Kelly and produced by Nile Rodgers; Steinberg said that the
song was inspired by his personal experiences of romance. It
was chosen for Madonna by Michael Ostin of Warner Bros. Records
after listening to a demo sung by Kelly. However, Rodgers
initially felt that the song did not have a good enough hook
and was not suitable for Madonna, but subsequently changed his
opinion after the hook was stuck in his mind.
Musically "Like a Virgin" is a dance-oriented song, composed
of two hooks. Madonna's voice is heard in a high register while
a continuous arrangement of drums are heard along the bassline.
The lyrics of the song is ambiguous and consists of hidden
innuendo. In sexual terms, the lyrics can be interpreted in
different ways for different people. "Like a Virgin" received
positive reviews from contemporary as well as old critics, who
frequently called it as one of the defining songs for Madonna.
It became her first number-one single on the Hot 100, while
reaching the top of the charts in Australia, Canada and Japan
and the top-ten of the other countries.
The music video portrayed Madonna sailing down the riverways
of Venice in a gondola, as well as roaming around a palace
wearing a white wedding dress. With the video, scholars noted
Madonna's portrayal of a sexually independent woman, the
symbolism of the appearance of a man with lion's mask to that
of Saint Mark, and compared the eroticism of the video to the
vitality of the city of Venice. Madonna has performed the song
in five of her concert tours, most recent being the Confessions
Tour in 2006. Majority of the time, her performances of "Like a
Virgin" has been associated with strong reaction and uproar
from the media.
"Like a Virgin" has been covered by a number of artists and
has appeared in feature films such as
Reservoir Dogs,
Moulin Rouge! and Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason.
Family groups sought to ban it as they believed that the song
promoted sex without marriage. On the other hand, Madonna's
public persona of an indomitable, sexually unashamed, supremely
confident woman was widely accepted by the younger generation
who emulated her style and fashion. Scholars have credited
"Like a Virgin" as the song, which cemented her place in the
pop music scene.
"Like a Virgin" was written by Billy Steinberg and Tom
Kelly. In an interview with the
Los Angeles Times, Steinberg explained that the song was
not only not written for Madonna, it was not even written for a
female singer but was inspired by his personal experiences.
"I wasn't just trying to get that racy word
virginin a lyric. I was saying ... that I may not really
be a virgin — I've been battered romantically and emotionally
like many people — but I'm 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's so much
deeper and more profound than anything I've ever felt."
Kelly recorded the demo, and invited Michael Ostin of Warner
Bros. Records' A&R department to his house to listen to it.
Steinberg and Kelly played four or five tunes for Ostin, and
further discussed "Like a Virgin" – they were not sure for
which artist the song would be suitable. Due to meet with
Madonna the next day to discuss her sophomore album, Ostin
intended on playing the demo to her, believing the lyrics and
the groove of the song were perfect for Madonna. "When I played
it for Madonna she went crazy, and knew instantly it was a song
for her and that she could make a great record out of it,"
Ostin recalled. In 2009,
Rolling Stoneinterviewer Austin Scaggs asked Madonna
what her first impressions were after listening to the demos of
"Like a Virgin" and "Material Girl". Madonna replied:
"I liked them both because they were ironic and provocative
at the same time but also unlike me. I am not a materialistic
person, and I certainly wasn't a virgin, and, by the way, how
can you be
like a virgin? I liked the play on words, I thought they
were clever. They're so geeky, they're cool. I never realised
they would become my signature songs, especially the second
one."
In mid-1984, Madonna met up with producer Nile Rodgers at
the then Power Station studios in New York. Rodgers initially
did not want Madonna to record "Like a Virgin", as he felt that
the lyric 'like a virgin' was not a terrific hook, according to
him it was not an all-time catch phrase. Madonna did not care
about the song either, after hearing the demo, she thought that
it sounded "really stupid and retarded". Later, Madonna had
second thoughts, "It's weird because I couldn't get it out of
my head after I played it, even though I didn't really like it.
It sounded really buble-gummy to me, but it grew on me. I
really started to like it, [...] But, my first reaction to it
was, 'This is really queer.'"
Rodgers credits Madonna with recognizing the song's
potential, he later said: "I handed my apology to Madonna and
said, 'you know... if it's so catchy that it stayed in my head
for four days, it must be something. So let's do it.'" Hence
the song was finally recorded. Steinberg reflected on the
recording process and commented that:
"When Madonna recorded it, even as our demo faded out, on
the fade you could hear Tom saying, 'When your heart beats, and
you hold me, and you love me...' That was the last thing you
heard as our demo faded. Madonna must have listened to it very,
very carefully because her record ends with the exact same
little ad-libs that our demo did. That rarely happens that
someone studies your demo so carefully that they use all that
stuff. We were sort of flattered how carefully she followed our
demo on that.", "It was the perfect union, I knew it from the
first day in the studio. The thing between us, man, it was
passionate, it was creative. [...] Madonna was sometimes
temperamental during the recording, everyone told me she was a
terrible ogre, but I thought she was great."
Jason Corsaro, the record's audio engineer, persuaded
Rodgers to use digital recording, a new technique at the time
which Corsaro believed was going to be the future of recording
because test pressings always sounded consistent. To ensure
this, Corsaro used a Sony 3324 24-track digital tape recorder
and a Sony F1 two-track for the 12-bit mix. Madonna recorded
the lead parts in a small, wooden, high-ceilinged piano room at
the back of Studio C, also known as Power Station's "R&B
room".
Corsaro then placed gobos around her while using the top
capsule of a stereo AKG C24 tube microphone, with a Schoeps
microphone preamplifier and a Pultec equalizer. Once the track
met with everybody's approval, Robert Sabino added the keyboard
parts, playing mostly a Sequential Circuits Prophet 5, as well
as some Rhodes piano and acoustic piano, while Rodgers also
played a Synclavier. Madonna, although not required, was
present every minute of the recording sessions and the mixing
process, Corsaro commented: "Nile was there most of the time,
but she was there all of the time. She never left".
Composed as a dance-oriented song, the intro of "Like a
Virgin" consists of two hooks. The song is set in common time,
with a moderately dance-groove of 118 beats per minute. It is
composed in the key of F major with Madonna's voice ranging
from the tonal nodes of high-tone G
3to low-tone C
5. According to Rikky Rooksby, the bassline on the
intro is a re-working of the three-note bass motif present in
the Four Tops' 1965 song "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey
Bunch)", where Chuck Berry provided the chord arrangement. The
bassline also has some similarity with Michael Jackson's
"Billie Jean" especially during the second verse. Madonna sings
the song in her high register while drum arrangement by Tony
Thompson is heard alongside the bassline, which is also
supported by a synthesizer arrangement, giving it a circular
progression through all the seven diatonic chords of
I–IV–VII–III–VI–II–V–I.
Regarding the lyrics, Madonna had commented: "I like
innuendo, I like irony, I like the way things can be taken on
different levels." This statement highlighted the ambiguity of
the lyrics of the song, which is hung on the word 'like'.
Rooksby interpreted the meaning of the song in different ways
to different people. He said that for women who were really
virgins, the song encouraged them to hold their compose before
they engaged in their very first sexual act. For sexually
experienced girls, the song meant that they would be able to
re-live the feelings of their first sexual encounter all over
again. For the boys, the song presented a narcissistic image of
them making the girl forget her past encounters and enjoy the
sexual act as if for the first time.
Stephen Thomas Erlewine from Allmusic said that "Like a
Virgin" was a definitive statement. He added that the song, and
"Material Girl" from the same album, made Madonna an icon. He
added that both overshadowed the rest of the record, "because
they are a perfect match of theme and sound." Debbie Miller
from
Rolling Stonecommented that Madonna's voice "doesn't
have the power or range of, say, Cyndi Lauper, but she knows
what works on the dance floor." Dave Karger from
Entertainment Weekly, while reviewing the album in 1995,
felt that the song came off a bit repetitious and immature when
compared to the present context. Jim Farber from
Entertainment Weeklyfelt that the song raised the
"madonna-whore" ante. Sal Cinquemani from Slant Magazine called
the song a classic. Tony Power from
Blenderlisted the song as a standout track from the
album. Alfred Soto from Stylus Magazine felt that the song was
chic in its style. Katie Henderson from
The Guardiancommented that the song was saucy in nature.
Michael Paoletta from
Billboardcommented that the song sustained a "fevered
dance-rock momentum."
In 2000, "Like a Virgin", was honored by
Rolling Stoneand MTV, as the fourth song on their list
of the "100 Greatest Pop Songs". It was voted ten on VH1's 100
Best Songs of the Past 25 Years. The song was listed at
ninety-five on
Billboard Hot 100 All-Time Top Songs. In 2003, Madonna
fans were asked to vote for their 'Top 20 Madonna singles of
all-time', by
Qmagazine. "Like a Virgin" was allocated the fifth spot
on the list.
"Like a Virgin" became Madonna's first of 12 number-one hits
on the Hot 100, where it debuted at number forty-eight on the
issue dated November 17, 1984. After five weeks, it reached the
top of the chart and remained there for six weeks. The song was
certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America
(RIAA) on January 10, 1985, for shipping a million copies
across United States – the requirement for a gold single prior
to 1989. The song also reached number-one on the Hot Dance
Music/Club Play chart, and was her first top-ten entry on the
Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart at position nine. In Canada,
the song debuted on the Singles Chart at seventy-one on the
RPMissue dated November 24, 1984, and reached the top of
the chart on January 19, 1985. It was present on the chart for
a total of twenty-three weeks and ranked thirty-five on the
RPMYear-end chart for 1985.
The song debuted on the UK Singles Chart on November 17,
1984 at number 51 and peaked at number three on January 12,
1985; it spent a total of 18 weeks in the chart, and was
certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) for
shipment of 400,000 copies across United Kingdom. Across
Europe, the song peaked within the top-ten of the charts of
Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands,
Norway and Switzerland. "Like a Virgin" became Madonna's first
number-one song on the Australian Kent Music Report chart and
on the Japanese International Singles Chart. It peaked at
number-two on the New Zealand Singles Chart, fifteen on the
Swedish charts and peaked the Eurochart Hot 100 Singles.
The music video, directed by Mary Lambert, was shot in
Venice, Italy and partly in New York City in July 1984. Madonna
was portrayed as a knowing virgin, a figment of the
pornographic mind, as she walked through marble rooms, wearing
a wedding gown. It alternated with scenes of a slutty-looking
Madonna on-aboard a gondola. The video started with Madonna
boarding on a boat from the Brooklyn Bridge and travels to
Venice. As she steps down into the city, she moved like a
stripper and undulated sinuously. She wore a black dress and
blue pants with a number of Christian symbol embedded jewellery
around her neck. She sang the song at full volume as she
watches a lion walking between the columns of the Piazza San
Marco of Venice and along the statute of Saint Mark. A number
of game-playing involving carnival masks, men, lions, werelions
were portrayed with allusions to eighteenth-century practices
and Saint Mark. Sheila Whiteley, author of
Women and popular music: sexuality, identity, and
subjectivity, felt that Madonna's image signified a denial
of sexual knowledge, but also portrayed her in simulated
writhing on a gondola, thus underpinning the simulation of
deceit. The intrusion of a male lion, confirmed the underlying
bestial discourse of both mythological fairytale and
pornographic sex. Whiteley observed that in the video,
Madonna's lover wears the lion's mask and while cavorting with
him, Madonna sheds the veneer of innocence and showed her
propensity for wild animal passions. Having instilled desire,
metaphorically she turned her lover into a Beast.
With the video, scholars noted the expression of Venetian
vitality in it. Margaret Plant (2002) commented: "With the lion
of Saint Mark and the virginal city to the forefront, old
sacrosanct Venice was propelled into a pop world of high-energy
gyration, and endless circulation." She also noted that Saint
Mark was a symbol of a time when sexual crime was punished
severely in Venice and acts of rape, homosexuality and
fornication incurred the loss of a nose, a hand or sometimes
life itself. Madonna appeared to challenge such brutality and
stretch the boundaries of tolerance in the video. As the
lion-man carried Madonna to the Venetian palace, it symbolized
an instance of the Saint taking the simulated Virgin, where
Madonna became a symbol for La Serenissima, the Republic
itself. Plant also noted that Madonna, in the video, restored
the energy and eroticism of Venice, which had its name taken
from Venus in familiar elision. As she exchanged her blue top
for a black one during the video, Madonna demonstrated her
mastery and bravery of the city, which had a reputation of
turning out its visitors as victims. Carol Clerk (2002)
commented that with the video, "Madonna's days as a cheap and
cheerful video star were over. She was moving into serious
spectacle."
In 1985, a live music video of "Like a Virgin" from The
Virgin Tour filmed in Detroit, was used to promote
Live - The Virgin Tourvideo release. This version was
nominated for Best Choreography at the 1985 MTV Video Music
Awards. The live performance of "Like a Virgin" from the Blond
Ambition World Tour in Paris, France was released as a music
video on May 9, 1991 to promote the documentary film
Truth or Dare. This version was nominated for two awards
at the 1991 MTV Video Music Awards in the categories of Best
Female Video and Best Choreography. This video was ranked at
position sixty-one on VH1's 100 Greatest Videos.
Madonna performed "Like a Virgin" at the first MTV Video
Music Awards in 1984, where Madonna appeared on stage atop a
giant wedding cake dressed in a wedding dress, adorned with the
infamous "Boy Toy" belt buckle, and veil. The climax of her
risqué performance found her humping and rolling around on the
stage. Still today, the performance is noted as one of the
iconic and biggest performance in MTV's history. The song has
also been included in five of Madonna's eight concert tours.
For 1985's The Virgin Tour, Madonna again donned wedding attire
and performed a straight version of the song featuring a
quotation from Michael Jackson's similar-sounding Motown-style
single, "Billie Jean". Balloons floated out towards the
audience as she rolled around the stage, carrying a wedding
bouquet in her hand. The performance was included in the VHS
release
Live – The Virgin Tourrecorded in Detroit, Michigan. In
the 1987's Who's That Girl World Tour, the song was given a
lighthearted comedic theme and included quotations from The
Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)".
Madonna took off her outfit piece by piece, until she was
standing in a black corset, and ended the performance while
flirting with an young male dancer who played her bridegroom.
Two different performances of the song on this tour can be
found on the videos:
Who's That Girl – Live in Japan, filmed in Tokyo, Japan,
on June 22, 1987, and
Ciao, Italia! – Live from Italy, filmed in Turin, Italy,
on September 4, 1987.
For the 1990 Blond Ambition World Tour, the song was
re-invented with a middle-eastern arrangement and risqué
choreography which found Madonna wearing a gold corset, while
simulating masturbation on a red silk bed, accompanied by two
male dancers who wore the infamous cone bras designed by
Jean-Paul Gaultier. The performance garnered a lot of
attention, particularly when police in Toronto, Canada,
threatened to arrest Madonna and charge her with indecency
unless she altered the performance. Madonna refused and she was
never arrested, as the show went on unaltered. Two different
performances were taped and released on video, the
Blond Ambition – Japan Tour 90, taped in Yokohama,
Japan, on April 27, 1990, and the
Live! – Blond Ambition World Tour 90, taped in Nice,
France, on August 5, 1990. During The Girlie Show World Tour in
1993, Madonna wore a tuxedo and adopted a Marlene Dietrich-like
persona, singing the song with a thick German accent. She sang
the word 'virgin' as '(w)irgin', while including a quotation
from Dietrich's signature tune, "Falling in Love Again (Can't
Help It)". The overplayed accent and three-quarter time
signature gave the performance a sense of parody. Dietrich's
look in the 1930 film
Moroccoinspired the whole performance. The performance
was included on
The Girlie Show – Live Down Underhome video release,
recorded on November 19, 1993 at Sydney, Australia.
In April 2003, while promoting her ninth studio album
American Life, an impromptu acoustic performance of the
song was done by Madonna at New York's Tower Records. Madonna's
performance of "Hollywood" at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards
recreated the 1984 performance of "Like a Virgin". The
performance started with Britney Spears emerging from a giant
cake singing the first few lines. She was joined by Christina
Aguilera and both of them writhed on the stage. Madonna
appeared on the cake dressed as a groom and sang "Hollywood"
with them ultimately kissing them both on the mouth. The
performance was met with strong reaction from media.
During the Confessions Tour in 2006, the song was given a
horse riding theme. Madonna wore a tight, black body suit, and
performed the song atop a studded leather S&M carousel
horse while X-rays of her broken bones, the result of a
horse-riding accident on her forty-seventh birthday, flashed on
the screens behind her. The performance was included on
The Confessions Tourlive album, released in 2007. In
2008's Sticky & Sweet Tour, Madonna sang the song in Rome
and dedicated the song to Pope Benedict XVI, commenting "I'd
like to dedicate this song to the Pope, I know he loves me" and
saying that she is a child of God. She asked the audience to
sing with her.
In 1985 The Lords of the New Church recorded "Like a Virgin"
for their compilation album
Killer Lords. Gary Hill from Allmusic called the
composition as "very funny and obnoxious". The same year,
"Weird Al" Yankovic parodied the song with his single "Like a
Surgeon" from the album
Dare to Be Stupid. Eugene Chadbourne from Allmusic
commented: "Turning the tacky Madonna hit inside out and upside
down, Yankovic comes up with a hilarious satire of the medical
profession." In 1991 Glaswegian band Teenage Fanclub covered
"Like a Virgin" on their debut album,
The King. The song also appears on the soundtrack of the
2001 film
Moulin Rouge!and is sung by the characters Harold
Zidler, played by Jim Broadbent, and The Duke of Monroth,
played by Richard Roxburgh.
In the opening scene of the 1992 film
Reservoir Dogs, Quentin Tarantino (as Mr. Brown) was
shown talking about the song, and has an insight that "Like a
Virgin" is a "metaphor for big dicks". When Madonna met Quentin
Tarantino at a party, after the film was released, she gave him
an autographed copy of her
Eroticaalbum, signing "Quentin: it's about love, not
dick". In the 2004 film
Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason, the title character
teaches the song to women in a Thai prison, after becoming
annoyed that they are singing the song badly. She tells them,
"Madonna is nothing if not a perfectionist!" In one of the
episodes of the TV show
Grey's Anatomy, the character of Christina Yang hums the
song during surgery to take the focus off herself. However,
when her assisting surgery, Lexie Grey starts singing along,
Christina looks venomously at her until she quiets down.
After the song and its video were released, "Like a Virgin"
attracted the attention of family organizations who complained
that the video and the song, promoted sex without marriage and
undermined family values, offering an unsavoury image of
Madonna as a whore. Outraged moralists condemned her as a sex
kitten and sought to ban the song and the video. Conservatives
were angered that Madonna dared to portray religious symbolism
and the virginal wedding attire in a sexual context. Clerk
noted the song attracted an unprecedented level of attention
from social groups compared to any female singer's song. "The
main problem was that most of them listened superficially to
the lyric of the song, imagining that it detailed or called on
an innocent's sexual initiation." While one section of the
population were outraged at the scandal, other were taking joy
at the very notion of a virginal Madonna, who retorted by
saying,
"I was surprised by how people reacted to 'Like a Virgin'
because when I did that song, to me, I was singing about how
something made me feel a certain way – brand-new and fresh –
and everyone interpreted it as I don't want to be a virgin
anymore. Fuck my brains out! That's not what I sang at all.
'Like a Virgin' was always absolutely ambiguous."
The song's influence was most profound on the younger
generation. Madonna's public persona of an indomitable,
sexually unashamed, supremely confident woman struck a chord
with them. Biographer Andrew Morton noted that most of
Madonna's admirers were females, who were born-and-brought-up
with an image of old-fashioned stereotypes of women as virginal
brides, or as whores, or with feminist values that rejected the
use of a woman's looks for her self-advancement. Author William
McKeen of
Rock and roll is here to stay: an anthologycommented
that with the song, Madonna became the last word in attitude
and fashion for young girls of that time. He compared that
image of Madonna with that of Barbie. McKeen explained that
Madonna intermixed middle-class ideas of femininity with
examples of what femininity meant to her, which was having
equal opportunity. She offered an aggressive sexuality that
implied it was acceptable for women not only to initiate
relationships, but also enjoy them. In addition, according to
Morton, at a time when eighties fashions were promoting
flat-chested, stick-thin women as ideals of beauty, the more
curvaceous Madonna made average girls feel that it was fine to
be in the shape they were. A new word called 'Madonna wannabe'
was introduced to describe the thousands of girls who tried to
emulate Madonna's style. At one point, Macy's allotted an
entire floor area to the sale of Madonna-look clothing,
including cut-off gloves, rubber bangles and lacy leggings.
University professors, gender-studies experts and feminists
earnestly started discussing her role as a post-modernist style
and cultural icon. According to author Debbi Voller, "Like a
Virgin" gave rise to the icon Madonna.