God Control

Album: Madame X (2019)
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Songfacts®:

  • This heady track finds Madonna taking on the issue of gun control in the US, a topic she also touches on during another Madame X song, "I Rise."

    Everybody knows the damn truth
    Our nation lied, we lost respect


    Madonna is saying the easy availability of firearms in America is a result of the country deviating away from its religious roots. Now guns, rather than God, is in control.
  • The six-minute plus track features the sound of gun shots running under a swirly electric beat. Madonna co-produced the song with frequent Kanye West collaborator Mike Dean and French producer Mirwais.
  • Mirwais previously worked with Madonna on her Music and American Life albums. "A lot of the music I make with Mirwais ends up being political because we have very similar minds and we think about what's going on in the world a lot," Madonna told NME. "He's very philosophical. We get into debates about what's right and what's wrong and somehow, it just sparks things inside of us."
  • That's The Tiffin Children's Choir singing the chorus. The young singers also accompany Madonna on another Madame X track "Come Alive."
  • Directed by frequent Madonna video collaborator Jonas Åkerlund, the song's hard-hitting visual shows clubgoers getting mowed down by bullets as a gunman opens fire; among the dead is Madonna herself. We also see the singer's alter-ego, Madame X, holed up in an apartment furiously typing out the lyrics to her song.
  • Mojo magazine commented in an interview with Madonna that her vocals at the beginning of the song muster a "particular kind of contained aggression." She agreed, saying, "I wanted to sing as if someone had wired my jaw shut and l wasn't allowed to speak but I had to speak and I was coming from a very angry place."

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