Like A Virgin

by

Madonna

Album: Like A Virgin      Released: 1984

US Chart: 1     UK Chart: 3

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The songwriting team of Tom Kelly and Billy Steinberg wrote this. Other songs they have written include "Eternal Flame" by The Bangles, "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston, "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper, and "Alone" by Heart. All were #1 hits in the US featuring female vocalists. Steinberg considers this their most famous song.

Steinberg: "My father was a farmer. He was a grape grower in the Coachella Valley and our vineyards were in a little town called Thermal, California. I had a Rock band called Billy Thermal and we were signed to Planet Records, Richard Perry's label. That band had just split up, so I was working out in the vineyards with my dad. I remember writing the lyrics to 'Like a Virgin' while driving in a red pickup truck that I owned around our dusty desert vineyards. I had been involved in a very emotionally difficult relationship that had finally ended and I had met somebody new. I remember writing that lyric about feeling shiny and new - I made it through the wilderness, somehow I made it through - I made it through this very difficult time. I took that lyric to Tom, he knew what I had gone through. He read those first lyrics and he sat down at the piano and tried to write a sensitive ballad to them. He'd come up with a few interesting things, but every time we got to the chorus lyric where it said, 'Like a virgin,' it just hit a brick wall - how can you write a tender ballad called 'Like a Virgin'? It just sounded ridiculous. Whereas it was him prodding me with 'True Colors' to finish the lyric, with 'Like a Virgin' I was the one prodding him, saying, 'No, no, no, let's not put this one aside because this is a very special lyric.' I didn't want to let it fall by the wayside. At that time Tom and I were writing Rock songs. Tom had this voice that was not unlike Lou Gramm (from Foreigner). Tom had that kind of voice - very high, very powerful range. Out of nothing more than utter frustration, Tom started to play the bass line to 'Like a Virgin' and sing the lyric falsetto to this bass line he was playing. I said, 'That's it!' He stopped and went, 'What?' and I said, 'That's it, that's the song.' He couldn't imagine because he had this style of singing that was usually based on that male Rock thing. I think he was trying to imagine doing a falsetto, almost Motown inspired vocal and I said, 'Yeah, that's it.' He went along with it and agreed that that's how the song was working. We did a demo where Tom sang the song falsetto and I added a few background vocal parts. Tom didn't like me to sing because he never liked my singing. He sort of indulged me and I added a few little parts that ended up being used on the Madonna record."

Steinberg: "When we were writing songs like 'Like a Virgin' and 'True Colors,' Tom lived in Los Angeles in the San Fernando Valley and he made a living primarily as a background singer, he was a session singer. He had been in a Rock band called Fool's Gold. There were a couple of guys in LA - Richard Page, who later formed the group Mr. Mister, and Bill Champlin from The Sons of Champlin. Tom, Bill and Richard were sort of the guys that producers called when they needed background vocals. We met at a party at producer Keith Olsen's house. Keith Olsen had already proved to be a successful matchmaker. If I'm not mistaken, he introduced Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks to Fleetwood Mac. He produced the first Fleetwood Mac record that included Stevie and Lindsey. It was August of 1981 that we met at a party at Keith Olsen's house."

Nile Rodgers produced this and recorded it using real musicians, rather than synthesized tracks that were characteristic of Madonna's first album. Rodgers had several hits in the '70s with his Disco group Chic, and used many of the same musicians on this album. Rodgers has also worked with Peter Gabriel, Al Jarreau, David Bowie, and Sister Sledge.

Steinberg: "Our demo, if you were to hear it, you'd notice it's influenced by a sort of Smokey Robinson style of singing. A song that would come to mind would be 'I Can't Help Myself' by the Four Tops. 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. I remember once reading a comment that Nile Rodgers made, I was amused when he said that he took this sort of unimpressive demo and made this great record because in fact, they just copied our demo. The main difference was it was Madonna singing instead of Tom and there was a great drummer on the record, Tony Thompson. I've seen Nile Rodgers being interviewed about 'Like a Virgin' on several occasions and I always think he takes too much credit because everything was in our demo." (Check out our interview with Billy Steinberg.)

The title and lyrics were very racy for a Pop song, which made it more difficult to find someone to record it. Madonna had released only one album and was known as a dance singer, so her record company didn't mind having her record a song that would generate some controversy. It became a huge hit and created a new image for Madonna that set her apart from other singers. The media has been fascinated with her ever since.

Madonna performed this for the first time on September 18, 1984 at the first MTV Video Music awards. Wearing a wedding dress and a belt buckle that said "Boy Toy," she sang a sultry version of this, ending with a simulated orgasm. The show was live. Madonna was convinced she missed a note while performing this on the show, but if she did, no one seemed to care.

This was Madonna's first #1 hit. It stayed there for 6 weeks in the US.

This was a topic of discussion in the Quentin Tarantino movie Reservoir Dogs. The character Mr. Pink starts the debate by saying, "'Like a Virgin' is all about a girl who digs a guy with a big d--k. The whole song is a metaphor for big d--ks." Mr. Blue responds, "No it's not. It's about a girl who is very vulnerable."

In their December 7, 2000 issue, Rolling Stone named this #4 on their list of the greatest Pop songs since The Beatles era. The top 3: "Yesterday," "Satisfaction" and "Smells Like Teen Spirit."

In 2003, MTV wanted to open the 20th Video Music Awards by recreating a classic moment from the first show. To start the show, Britney Spears came out of a wedding cake singing this. She was followed out of the cake by Christina Aguilera and then Madonna, who was a surprise performer. Madonna sang a song called "Hollywood," and kissed both Spears and Aguilera on the lips before joining Missy Elliott for a short version of her song "Work It."

Weird Al Yankovich did a parody of this song called "Like a Surgeon." (thanks, Ricky - Los Angeles, CA)

On December 12, 2007, 130 employees of Virgin Airlines sang this to travelers at Heathrow airport in London to raise money for the Rainbow Trust Children's Charity. The singers were all dressed like their boss, Richard Branson.

In a concert held in Rome in September during her "Sticky & Sweet" world tour Madonna dedicated this song to Pope Benedict XVI. Madonna told the 60,000 fans: "I dedicate this song to the pope, because I'm a child of God. All of you are also children of God." The "Queen of Pop" comes from a devout Italian Catholic family but throughout her career, she has upset the church with her sexually charged antics.

In a 2009 interview with Rolling Stone, Madonna spoke about hearing the demos for this song and "Material Girl." She said, "I liked them both because they were ironic and provocative at the same time but also unlike me. I'm 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."

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Comments:

I still love this song. Oh the irony!
- Theresa, Murfreesboro, TN

What Cj is refering to comes from Quinten Tarantino's "Resevoir Dogs"(1992). In the opening scene the gangsters are argueing what the song means. Heres the dialouge.
Mr. Brown: Let me tell you what 'Like a Virgin' is about. It's all about a girl who digs a guy with a big dick. The entire song. It's a metaphor for big dicks.
Mr. Blonde: No, no. It's about a girl who is very vulnerable. She's been f--ked over a few times. Then she meets some guy who's really sensitive...
Mr. Brown: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa... Time out Greenbay. Tell that f--king bulls--t to the tourists.
Joe: Toby... Who the f--k is Toby? Toby...
Mr. Brown: 'Like a Virgin' is not about this nice girl who meets a nice fella. That's what "True Blue" is about, now, granted, no argument about that.
Mr. Orange: Which one is 'True Blue'?
Nice Guy Eddie: 'True Blue' was a big ass hit for Madonna. I don't even follow this Tops In Pops s--t, and I've at least heard of "True Blue".
Mr. Orange: Look, asshole, I didn't say I ain't heard of it. All I asked was how does it go? Excuse me for not being the world's biggest Madonna fan.
Mr. Orange: Personally, I can do without her.
Mr. Blue: I like her early stuff. You know, 'Lucky Star', 'Borderline' - but once she got into her 'Papa Don't Preach' phase, I don't know, I tuned out.
Mr. Brown: Hey, you guys are making me lose my... train of thought here. I was saying something, what was it?
Joe: Oh, Toby was this Chinese girl, what was her last name?
Mr. White: What's that?
Joe: I found this old address book in a jacket I ain't worn in a coon's age. What was that name?
Mr. Brown: What the f--k was I talking about?
Mr. Pink: You said 'True Blue' was about a nice girl, a sensitive girl who meets a nice guy, and that 'Like a Virgin' was a metaphor for big dicks.
Mr. Brown: Lemme tell you what 'Like a Virgin' is about. It's all about this cooze who's a regular f--k machine, I'm talking morning, day, night, afternoon, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick, dick.
Mr. Blue: How many dicks is that?
Mr. White: A lot.
Mr. Brown: Then one day she meets this John Holmes motherf--ker and it's like, whoa baby, I mean this cat is like Charles Bronson in the 'Great Escape', he's digging tunnels. Now, she's gettin' the serious dick action and she's feeling something she ain't felt since forever. Pain. Pain.
Joe: Chew? Toby Chew?
Mr. Brown: It hurts her. It shouldn't hurt her, you know, her pussy should be Bubble Yum by now, but when this cat f--ks her it hurts. It hurts just like it did the first time. You see the pain is reminding a f--k machine what it once was like to be a virgin. Hence, 'Like a Virgin'.

- Austin, Smallsville,New England, --

How old is Madonna now? A hundred? JK. But anyways I perfer Quentin's theory seeing as thats where I first heard about the song. lol
- cj, vermont, VT

Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly didn't hear Madonna or hear the song until it was released as a single. In 1989, Billy and Tom met Madonna for the first time at Freddy DeMann's(Madonna's manager) 50th birthday party, Billy Steinberg told her with a big smile 'Madonna, I've wanted to meet you for so long.' She replied, "Well, now you did,'" and walked away. Billy and Tom says they have never met Madonna since. Source: Heart & Soul: Revealing the Craft of Songwriting by Chris Bradford. Interview with Billy Steinberg.
- David, Christchurch, New Zealand

Correction, Cheryl. Madonna was threatened with arrest in Toronto. When told of this, she said "Great. I'm not gonna change my f---ing show."
- Matthew, Dalton, PA

This is by far the best song of Madonna's career and is one of the best pop songs of all time. An 80s classic.
- Amanda, Little Rock, AR

During "Like A Virgin" album recording sessions, Nile Rodgers was unconvinced this song would fly as a single. He insisted the track was not strong enough as a dance track to be passable as the first single from Madonna's album. Rodgers preferred the peppy "Material Girl" as the album's first offering. Madonna insisted this song be released first, and eventually prevailed...and was proven the wiser. Like A Virgin was #1 for 6 weeks (the last time anyone would spend that long atop the US charts until 1991), Material Girl was #2.
- Alex, Gatineau, Canada

Jim Broadbent (in his Harold Zidler's role) sings this song in "Moulin Rouge", in one scene where Satine is sick and can't go to see the Duke. He starts singing it, because he says that the reason for her not being there is that she is praying and that she feels "Like a Virgin"
- Amelia, CastellÃ?n, Spain

In Truth Or Dare/In Bed With Madonna, the scene where she is threatened to be arrested takes place in Toronto, Canada, not Italy.
- meh, cheyenne, WY

in my opinion and in the opinions of others I know, the first single is sometimes the best and most famous. "Like A Virgin'' is a decently good example of this theory.
- claire, Oak Ridge, TN

My boyfriend thinks it's about a guy whos penis is bigger than shes used to...
- Tessa, Ottawa, Canada

Madonna actually predicted Weird Al would parody this. She said "Has Weird Al made 'Like A Surgeon' yet?"
- Alex, New Orleans, LA

Movie "In Bed with Madonna" shows her being threatened with arrest by Italian police if she performs this on her tour in Italy. She performs it anyway and isn't arrested.
- Cheryl, melbourne, Australia

Madonna, sadly, ditched her skuffy punk look because of the media reaction.
- Connor, Woodbridge, VA

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