I stayed up way past my bedtime last Wednesday. Why did I stay up so late? Well ... here's how I explained it to my wife the next morning:
"I started to listen to one Madonna song on Spotify, and then another, and then the next thing I knew I'd fallen down the Madonna song rabbit hole."
It was the midweek Madonna song rabbit hole. It's only human nature to binge Madonna music late on a Wednesday night.
I was so close to going to bed at 11. I really was. And then for some reason I thought about "4 Minutes," that Madonna-Justin Timberlake song from 10 years ago. I don't think about it often, but I do like it a lot. It's underrated, actually, when you consider it features two of the biggest pop stars of my lifetime.
I haven't the slightest clue what the song is about. I can only recite one line from memory: "We only got 4 minutes to save the world!" And it's not even a Madonna line; Timberlake sings it. For the record, it's now 2018 and Madonna and Justin Timberlake have yet to take meaningful action together toward saving the world. We gave them 10 years when they asked for 4 minutes and, so far, we've received nothing in return.
Anyway, I picked up my phone, opened Spotify, tapped on one of the approximately 22 greatest-hits collections Madonna has released, and played "4 Minutes" for 4 minutes.
And then I figured that since I was listening to Madonna, I might as well fire up my favorite song of hers, "Beautiful Stranger." Not the most obvious choice for a favorite Madonna song, I know, but it is the only one with an "Austin Powers" connection, so there's that.
So now I started getting into the groove — and falling down that rabbit hole, quicker than a ray of light. I shuffled around the tracklist: "Like a Virgin," "Vogue," "La Isla Bonita," moving from one hit to the next spanning her entire career. I was hung up on the Material Girl.
I even listened to "Take a Bow," the rare song that can bring tears to my eyes. I can count on one hand the number of songs that can affect me so deeply: "Take a Bow," Adele's "Someone Like You," the Spice Girls' "2 Become 1." (Maybe not the last one so much.)
By this point it was a little after midnight and I was bracing myself for the possibility that I might cry while listening to "Take a Bow" on my couch. Hey, I'm not afraid to open my heart and express myself — especially in the privacy of my own home, when my wife is asleep and won't see it.
I didn't cry that night. Thankfully, I pulled myself together and I was finished after that song. "Take a Bow," the night was over, I went to bed.
I've since shared this story with not only my wife, but with my Facebook friends, just for laughs. But the secret is now out: I'm a Madonna fan. Not that I've ever needed to justify my love for her.
By my count, I referenced 16 Madonna song titles in this post. Did you spot them all? If so, congrats! That's cause for celebration.
