DaveC wrote:
Frank Sinatra - One for My Baby (And One for the Road)
Sinatra usually sounds bored, disinterested and only in the studio on sufferance. At least here he does display a soupcon of emotion. babydoll probably pushed this over the line, although this Madonna song offers little.
I actually don't feel I pushed the song far enough. Anyway, I also disagree with the fact that you said the Madonna song offers little. I think it's one of the most important songs in her career and of the '90s. We all know about the critical success she had working with William Orbit on her now classic
Ray of Light, so she decided to work with him again on the song "Beautiful Stranger". What is offered here is one of the brightest songs of pop ever. William Orbit's electronic production works majestically with Madonna's vocals on her. In fact, I'd like to call this song a sort of cross between her three biggest peaks, "Like a Virgin", "Into the Groove", and "Ray of Light". The "Ray of Light" part is clearly audible in the vocals and the production while the production is clearly inspired by the dancemania known as "Into the Groove", and maybe Love's "She Comes in Colors" but that's a different story. The lyrics are simple and sing about an otherworldly love like "Like a Virgin" does. The way the song builds up to its majestic chorus comprising of only "da-da-dum-da-da/beautiful stranger/da-da-dum-da-da/beautiful stranger" is quite magical especially when Madonna flirts and earnestly dreams about love in the lines, "To know him is to love him" and "To love him is to be a part of him", exposing a naiveté opposite to what we obviously know about Madonna. In this sense, the song is a twist on Madonna's public persona, just like the
Ray of Light album had been. Oh, but that is not to say that this song is a naïve Madge. She clearly also flirts with the beautiful stranger, maybe treating him as a temporary Adonis in her life, adding him to the long string of lovers she already has.
Ray of Light featured themes of maternity, "Beautiful Stranger" returns to the likes of "Into the Groove" and
Erotica, tossing aside the stigma of being a mother, and be willing to live life dancing along to the rhythm of the music the DJ happens to be playing and ending up in bed with whoever. However she exposes her vulnerability inside, by revealing to be willing to devote her body to the beautiful stranger, and believes she'll uncompromisingly love him for an entire night. In this sense, we return to the theme of "Like a Virgin" where she sings of feeling "like a virgin/touched for the first time" with a certain man in a certain time in a certain position. Essentially, what the song is looking forward to her upcoming album,
Music, but also reflecting on the present where she's in touch with her feelings (
Ray of Light), and looking back to her sexual and clubbing past ("Like a Virgin", "Into the Groove").