MADONNA – "True Blue"

I’m quite fond of this – it’s certainly not as good as Cherish, but if anything, the problem for me is that the song’s innocence has been stained, closer to naivete ever since Madonna’s divorce from Sean Penn… And no, I don’t entirely believe that its sentiment is separable from her personal life. The “no more sadness” bridge is pretty great though, something of a counterpoint to the lightness of the rest of the song.

Also, the video is HORRENDOUS; it takes whatever’s wrong with the song and magnifies it thousandfold.

This feels a little gratuitous by now, but my review of the single(and many others): http://iconography.tumblr.com/post/196794808/true-blue

The clear aim of the True Blue album was to coax Madonna’s profile into the realm of Proper Musical Superstar – bear in mind that even with Like A Virgin under her hopefully alluring belt 18 months previously she wasn’t yet considered a sizeable enough fish to be asked to participate in “We Are The World” – and thus its quality is divided between the modestly adventurous and the immodestly banal. The smack-jack-wake up punch of “Open Your Heart” – and to a lesser extent “Where’s The Party?” – represents the album’s clearest assimilation of influences (mostly sonic, scarcely philosophical) from Cupid & Psyche ’85, while the significantly stark midnight chimes of “Live To Tell” provided what is still one of Madonna’s finest ballads.

A pity, then, if a predictability, that after “Papa Don’t Preach,” the other two UK number one singles to be pulled from the album were probably its two most boring tracks. “True Blue,” the song, is a straightforward soda-pop ’60s girl group update with a smattering of schaffel, evidently intended as a hymn of faith and devotion to Mr Penn – and her blow-by-blow account of that story can be found on her next official album – and is almost stubbornly uninteresting other than a few stray flecks of very minor interest; the curiously British way in which she pronounces “bursting,” the harmonic (in)congruence between Madonna’s “and I’m gonna be” and the backing singers’ “like a glove” in the second and third choruses. Even in a pre-Beatles revivalist mindset it sounded wooden and polite next to something like “Walk Like An Egyptian” (which latter manages to make both the Shangri-Las and the Trashmen live again). Perhaps it’s best viewed as an early calling card for someone whose future stepmother-in-law would be the Chairwoman of the Kensington and Chelsea Conservative Association, if we’re talking “true blue.”

I LOVED True Blue and still do (but it’s still only my 3rd favourite Madge #1).

I’m not going to disagree with the majority here. I think “True Blue” works well enough as an album track, but it doesn’t really have any standout qualities as a single. Pastiches seem to be hard stunts to pull off even for the most skillful writers and performers, and even when they do work, there’s always the risk that you admire the result for successfully imitating its source material rather than just thinking “oh yeah, great song”.

It’s a pity that we won’t get “Open Your Heart”, which is clearly my favourite single from True Blue. (Not to mention the video – that thing really put ideas into my young and impressionable mind).

SwedenWatch: #18 for a single week. Better success on the Tracks chart where it entered at #2, but was held off the top by Cutting Crew’s “(I Just) Died in Your Arms”.

Yes, distinctly second rate and lacking in conviction. As pointed out upthread, she would go onto do the Brill Building pop homage thing a lot whole better on Cherish.

I would argue that by this stage Madonna was on such scintillating form that even her lesser works would be the highlight of another pop singers career. True Blue is slight but rewarding.
Certainly some of her very best didn’t reach number one – Borderline, Live to Tell,Cherish.
I promise to use a football analogy only once but when a team are in the habit of winning championships they have the occasional season where they win it by memory – Liverpool in 1982 and 1990 Man Utd in 2003 and 2009. They might not have been the best team that particular season, but they’re experienced and confident enough to drag themselves to top.
Perhaps like Hello Goodbye Super Trouper or I’m your Man this is a
number one by memory.

Far too worldly a character to pull this sort of thing off convincingly, and in addition, I must say this is an allusion to 60s pop rather than an attempt to recreate it. ‘Wall-of-tin’ is a good description of the production – it has some of the sweetness but none of the mellowness of pop from the ‘Brill Building’ era. One thing is commensurate with the period it tries to emulate though – unlike some of the hits we’ve been going through lately, it’s not a long record. And in spite of my reservations about it, it’s catchy and tuneful so all in all it’s not actually a bad pop record. A 5 from me.

80’s Electronic Motown. Got to #3 in the U.S. Not quite sure if Madonna is fond of this song. It’s not on any of her compilations released in the States (including the 2CD one that came out last fall). Oddly, this is one of my wife’s favorite Madonna song’s. I remember her buying the 45. As for me the initial 6 feels about right. I’m sure Madonna would give it a similar grade.

BTW, True Blue has always reminded me of an utterly fantastic Lesley Gore song and record, which you can hear on youtube, here.
It’s hard to believe that that wasn’t a huge hit, but Gore was going out of fashion by the mid-1960s.

I was hoping to provide a link to an even more awesome Gore record, ‘What am I gonna do with you?’ but that appears to have disappeared from youtube. (Q. Why do Gore’s records tend to sound so great? A. A young Quincy Jones was her regular producer.)

However, the best song written about Sean Penn at this time was Lloyd Cole’s ‘Sean Penn Blues’ on Mainstream, the story of an abortive poetry reading given by the troubled actor:

The Western Minnesota intercollegiate circle
Telephoned they said
Hey Sean could you mosey on down to our gala ball?
It reads “Mr Madonna kicks some beat poetry”

If I could I would I would I swear I would be better
But it seems I am just a natural no good
And what’s more I like living like that

After seven lines seventeen maybe I had to stop
These philistines were yelling “Hey Sean!”
I could not be heard for cowhand laughter
I picked up my books and headed for the door
And if I trash this TV then I know I will feel better…

I can see I’m going to have to avail myself of a Lesley Gore compilation – I always loved the 81 remake of It’s My Party, so time to investigate further I think.

As for this, well it’s a bit dull really isn’t it. A 3 or 4 would be about right.

I think Mads omitted it from The Immaculate Collection (in favour of No 4 hit “Open Your Heart”) because the lyrics were too personal to her and Sean. It’s OK but not one of her best.

Interesting that it got to number one at the same time as she was being absolutely trashed for her performance in “Shanghai Surprise” (Sean Penn reportedly made his friends pledge never to watch it). What was that saying about no such thing as bad publicity ?

I know that Madonna always had her name listed as a songwriter on her tracks but always with someone else – did she really have much input in their composition or was it just a trick done through a combination of her as the sassy businesswomen maximising the profits and an attempt to give her credibility with the rock bores with whom “its oh so important to write your tracks”?
Fake songwriting credits obviously reached the farcical in the era of the Spice Girls and other girl bands where I don’t think anyone was fooled that any of those groups had anything approaching real input in the composition of their songs.
But with Madonna however does anyone know if she had anything more than a minimal input into writing the songs – I’d be interested to know if anyone know the truth on this issue.

Well, it’s like the old Lennon/McCartney thing, it covered contributions from Mal Evans, Donovan, and whoever was in the room at the time.

People would quite often get some sort of ‘percentage point’ for songs they were not officially credited for.

Seems that there’s something of a downer on this one on Popular. I didn’t like it at the time, finding it far too cutesy, but since then I’ve come to like it a lot. As noted upthread, its non-inclusion on Madonna compilations means it hasn’t been overplayed. I certainly prefer it to the single which followed it. Open Your Heart strikes me as space filler, a flavourless, dull song with an air of ‘will this do?’ about it (it’s safe to discuss it because it didn’t get to number one).

Sorry – best thing about this for me was the YouTube comment –

“Good God. Was she BORN looking forty years old?”

As I had been thinking exactly the same thing.

I don’t get the dislike for this at all. I have to say this is one of my faves. Here’s how I see it:

Madonna doesn’t put it on her compilations because it was about Sean (Penn). “True Blue” was an expression he used. I doubt that she has any issue with it apart from the emotional connection to a declaration of love that went south.

This song (to me), is what I believe Madonna to really be. There is no deliberately provocative content, no producer-oriented ‘strings’ on the intro, no labored depth, it’s a barely-layered piece of pop dance fluff, and I think this is what Madonna sounds like when she isn’t trying to be impressive. Bear in mind Madonna often uses other people’s songs, then she ‘tweaks’ them (and gets a credit) and works with a producer to create the whole sound. If this sounds a little thin and weak, maybe that’s because Madonna herself – when not aided by producers and other people’s material – isn’t very deep / heavy. It sounds simple and honest to me.

Finally; I think that song fits perfectly with the requirements of a teen pop album. The teenage psyche – particularly that of the teenage girl – is an almost schizophrenic one, therefore there must be a song for all moods. This song, when matched with all the other tracks on the album, has a perfect emotional place. It’s the song I can most picture girls dancing and singing along with using a hairbrush in front of the mirror at a ‘sleepover’. Remember that Madonna’s core audience was primarily teenage girls (she appealed to much more than that – as a star has to – but certainly they were her biggest demographic). This song speaks to teenage girls probably more than any other on the album, lame pastiche or not. I’m willing to bet if the genders ranked the singles from True Blue in order of favourites, you’d find the girls would rank this (on average) a lot higher than the guys. This song is uptempo, catchy, and it’s about “true love”; if you’re a teenage girl with a hairbrush and a mirror, then this song would be hog heaven. If you’re a middle-aged man then this song probably doesn’t sound anywhere near as high in quality as ‘Papa Don’t Preach’. For me – this song is great, but then again I always liked pure joy in pop music.

Critic watch:

Bruce Pollock (USA) – The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944-2000 (2005)
Dave Marsh (USA) – The 1001 Greatest Singles Ever Made (1989) 258
Giannis Petridis (Greece) – 2004 of the Best Songs of the Century (2003)

I feel that there’s a charm to this, but just feels a little too slight and disposal to me. I would go with 5/10.