Madonna Reaction Oh Father (1989 WASN'T READY!!!!) | Empress Reacts
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- Опубліковано 15 чер 2024
- #reaction #madonna
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First Time Hearing Madonna Reaction Oh Father (1989 WASN'T READY!!!!) | Empress Reacts
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Madonna Reaction
80s Reaction
Empress Reaction
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"Oh Father" is a song recorded by American singer Madonna for her fourth studio album Like a Prayer (1989). It was released as the fourth single from the album on October 24, 1989 by Sire Records. The song was not released as a single in most European territories until December 24, 1995, when it appeared on the 1995 ballads compilation Something to Remember. Written and produced by Madonna and Patrick Leonard, the nexus of "Oh Father" was the presence of male authoritative figures in Madonna's life, most prominently her father, Tony Ciccone. Madonna's relationship with her father had soured after her mother's death in 1963 and his remarriage two years later. While developing the Like a Prayer album, Madonna was in an emotional state of mind due to her personal problems, which is reflected in "Oh Father".
Musically, "Oh Father" is a baroque pop ballad. It was recorded at a studio in the Garment District of New York City. Leonard put together different types of chord progression and created the basic outline of a melody, which Madonna shaped and then wrote lyrics to fit the melody. She used a contrast of timbre while singing the song, which also featured instrumentation from strings, piano, violin and drums. "Oh Father" received positive reviews from critics and authors, but commercially was less successful than Madonna's previous singles. In most of the countries where it was released, the song failed to attain top-ten positions, except in Finland, where it peaked at number six. It ended Madonna's string of 16 consecutive top five singles in the United States.
The music video of the song was Madonna's attempt to embrace and accept her mother's death. Directed by David Fincher and shot in black-and-white, it shows a little girl playing in the snow, as her mother dies. A grown-up Madonna follows the child and sings the song, as the child runs away from her abusive father. Described by reviewers as "autobiographical", the video was listed by Rolling Stone as one of "The 100 Top Music Videos". Scholars noted how Madonna's persona was split into the child and adult in the video, and one writer described a scene involving the dead mother shown in her wake, with her lips sewn shut, as one of the most disturbing scenes in the history of mainstream music videos-the scene was inspired by Madonna's memory of her mother from her funeral. "Oh Father" was performed only on the Blond Ambition World Tour in 1990, where Madonna portrayed a woman trying to find her religion and her battle for it.
No female has touched ‘89-‘91 Madonna. The videos from this album are so perfectly provocative in a tasteful way. She really captured a zeitgeist with this album. Love the Citizen Kane motif. And the song is ethereal and she looked great.
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You're right, 89-91 Madonna is my favorite Era!!!! She ruled the world 🌎 during this time!!!
89' Pepsi Commercial/Controversy
Releasing Like a Prayer Album
4 Music videos 5 Singles
MTV Music Awards EY performance
90' Release of "Dick Tracy" Movie
Release "I'm Breathless" Album
2 more singles including "Vogue"
reaching #1 for 4wks
Blond Ambition World 🌎 Tour
MTV Music Awards Iconic
"Vogue" performance
Release Immaculate Collection
2 new songs including
Controversial Justify my Love
91' releasing "Rescue Me"
Releasing "Truth or Dare" Movie
Releasing Video of New
Version of "Like a Virgin"
Oscar Awards " Sooner or
Later" performance.
Plus about Hundred Magazine covers between 89-91.
Did I miss anything major??
Haunting is the best way to describe this video. And David Fincher is a master director.
I was never a big fan of the song until recently. I think the vulnerability in her vocal makes it stellar. We’re used to Madonna being so powerful and in control. In her ballads she really can convey vulnerability and emotion far better than much more technically skilled vocal divas.
Her best vocal performance hands down.
Agree💯💯💯💯❤
This video was also released when there were devastating losses in the gay community due to AIDS. It was definitely winter in the late 80s for us, and Madonna was right there with us. I always see Father in the song as her birth father, the Catholic Church, and also her abusive relationship with Sean Penn.
Oh Father is like the beginning of the prayer, it's a confession in a way. It deals with Madonna coming to terms with all the men in her life and how they had hurt her. It was directed by David Fincher, hence the cinematic feel to it. Wait until you see this performance live on tour. You will give it 10's across the board. If she had added anything more to this song, it would have seemed inauthentic, just like "Promise to try". It's an ode to her childhood. I think you hit the nail right on the head, she was seeing a therapist and the introspection on this album is very telling. I can't wait for the tour!! You can have 10's for Bops and 10"s for how the song makes you feel after the visual interpretation of the song!!
True true‼ 10s for feeling
I honestly can't remember a time when I didn't know this song/video. And I still get a lump in my throat watching it, especially when the shadow of the little girl runs out of the room at the end. I know people say EY and/or "Vogue" are her best David Fincher videos (and her best videos period), but this one is #1 for me. I do think it was too heavy for pop radio. Maybe they could have tried to promote it to alternative or modern rock radio stations or whatever it was called in 1989. It's more in line with like Tori Amos or Sinead O'Connor than what was being played on pop radio at the time. Anyway, the song is perfection for me - the lyrics, vocals, and instrumentation are all gorgeous. I don't think it's missing anything at all except a "10s across the board" from Empress. There's still time because Blond Ambition is coming up!
This came out around 1989. I was in college and kind of stunned as it was so different. A different madonna
Wow I love hearing this!
So perceptive! 30 years later too. Well done. Such a hauntingly beautiful song.
Madonnas videos were just sublime. Always lifting the tracks. We were ready. She was like the older sibling that educated and exposes you to art music philosophy etc…
People always say MJ and M changed the game when it comes to music videos and MTV, but they were so different. MJ's videos were like events - big blockbusters with special effects, etc. But he never did a video like this. It's so personal, so cinematic, so heartbreaking.
Ooo good analogy
All I want to say is that this woman who lost her mother at a very young age, her best friend when she was very young, and the love(s) of her life through the years has become the one and only "The Queen of Pop" with her amazing talent, hard work, dedication, self confidence, and brilliance, what she has accomplished is beyond most people's wildest dreams. And believe me there are very few people who can be such a good example for making dreams come true and success for people, and Madonna exactly is one of them, and with her very well deserved success I think she's a national treasure of The US. A broken little girl trying to find her way through the storms, writing her songs on a cauch in a few hours, and writing and producing them with amazing composers, singing them, performing them. She has such a proper and strong character though once I listened to an interview of hers made in The UK in 1986 she said something like these "when she sat her mind up like she is going to write 4 songs that weekend, she ended up as it is. And she has to deserve the money she earns (that's why she left Patrick Hernandez's band and Paris years ago), that was how her father raised her (them)." In the video after she sings "I never felt so good about myself..." and with the fire in her eyes turn her back to all, and then her appearance next to her father and each other looking at each other deep in the eyes is everything, forgiveness. I have learned so much from you, Madonna you are one of a kind.
you were right on the money Empress! Madonna has said although the song was about her conflicted relationship with her father; the video is about "how you marry your father." Amazing and cinematic!
Good insight.
Wow🎯
"Oh, Father" is a great work of art. But, I'm not sure it was that radio-friendly in 1989. I think it was good for it to be a single with a video because people needed to see this side of Madonna. I would say that most people probably don't remember this song. It was eclipsed by "Like A Prayer" and "Express Yourself"... also by 'Vogue" which was released only 5 months later. Because most people weren't aware that a video existed for "Dear Jessie" and there wasn't a video for "Keep it Together"... "Vogue" is the next single and video that most people would recognize. We are moving quickly into the "Dick Tracy" era. While the general public was processing the "Like A Prayer" album, singles, and videos, Madonna was working on the movie "Dick Tracy" and her accompanying album "I'm Breathless" (which you are going to LOVE).
Can't wait‼❤
I told you be prepared! It was a shock to see a fun and innocent "Cherish" video and song and then come to this. "Like A Prayer" video is 10 x 10's across the board, but this video is 10 X100's across the board! One of her best, and at least, one of her most emotional. I do remember when the world premiere of this video came out on MTV. Madonna owned that station in 1989!
Yep you did‼ And yaaas it's 🔥🔥🔥
I remember the premiere of this video, too. I had goosebumps the entire time...
It's real like life
You can feel this song & video from the beginning‼️ Haunting, Touching & Emotional. 1989 was not ready for this. Madonna knows the power of the video
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She has said that her father was very strict but not abusive, probably some creative license there.
Apparently she was in a relationship with David Fincher but they kept it on the down low. He convinced her to release it because it was his favourite song on the album and she was annoyed at him because it broke her top ten record.
This song and video helped me a lot growing up.
That's not true
@@gregoryreed4866 which part? There is loads out there about their relationship if you feel like googling it. But I said apparently because it’s never been confirmed by either of them.
🤣🤣I totally buy that's the reason this was released and I would have been annoyed too💯
Directed by David Fincher, who had also made the Express Yourself video.
This song was not originally slated to be a single, but Fincher desperately wanted to make the video and it was his creative vision that convinced Madonna to release it.
I wonder which other song on the album Madonna would rather have invested that time and money in? "Keep it Together"?
@@dtaylor939 we can always speculate but who's to say she'd rather have done anything differently? Assuming she was pleased with the final product and setting aside the relatively low chart performance. Absolutely no regrets, right? 😉
The stunning BA performance of KIT always kinda pacified my longing for a video.
I can believe that
loved Empress including the Mommie Dearest - she hit the nail on the head. Ha!
🤣🤣🤣yay someone understands my humor
My favourite Madonna song. I saw her back in 2012 in Abu Dhabi (Yas Island) on her MDNA tour. Amazing performer......
🔥🔥
Just about everybody I knew really felt this song in one way or another back then. That was especially true for those of us who were young then and came from hard relationships with our parents.. We got this song Big Time and it's still a favorite of mine.
This is without a doubt one of Madonna's BEST songs and videos EVER.
🔥🔥
David Fincher directed this video. It is beautifully shot, it is modeled after the classic film Citizen Kane
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I was 8 years old when this came out, but I felt the emotions like an adult. I really felt like I got to know her better after watching it. This video was included on The Immaculate Collection video compilation. I watched the hell out of it!!!
Wow, so cool you connected with her at such a young age
@@EmpressReacts I got to explore the world through Madonna. I will always be grateful to her.
This video was beautifully shot and so haunting. Here she is the same age her mother was when she passed away, so I feel Madonna was extra emotional. She also just came out an abusive marriage, so all of that came together in the song and video. Whether her father was physically abusive, Madonna has never said, as far as I know. But like you said, it does appear he at the least grew cold at that time. Madonna showed her softer side and you’re right the public wasn’t ready for it. They just want fun pop songs to forget about their problems but I’m glad Madonna let us in to the multi layered reality of life.
madonna's mother died at 30 years old, Madonna is 31 here.
@@sxnico You get the gist of it though, this is something Madonna talked about more than once.
Oh wow‼‼Didn't know that about her mom😭❤
The video really takes the song to the next level. Like you said, very deep, very personal. Very unusual for a mainstream artist in 1989. It peaked at #20 like you said, which is still pretty decent for a fourth single from a 4x Platinum #1 album at the time but it did end her streak of consecutive top 10 hits starting with Borderline in 1984. She was back with back to back top 10 hits with the next single though til mid 1993.
I feel emotional too watching the video. I actually did not see it until some years ago on UA-cam. It is a bit like a hidden gem that mostly the fans love and remember but the general public has forgotten about and concentrate more on the first three videos/ singles from this album aka the big hits.
It's a shame Keep It Together( peaked at #8) did not have a video. Dear Jessie was the fifth Euro single though so it has a little video ;)
So excited for Truth Or Dare tour docu, Madonna up close and personal like never before. Then you will REALLY get to know her, Nikki, Donna and all the dancers from the tour. Can't wait to watch it with you.
I can't wait either and real shame there isn't a video for keep it together
hi, this song always excites me. Madonna in a 1990 interview said that her father has never seen this video and she never felt like showing it to him. in the video of oh father there is a scene where we see the mother of madonna with her mouth sewn up. this is an image that remained impressed on madonna enough to be photographed so as to resemble her mother with her black hair hairstyle and sewn mouth for the cover of her latest album madame x 2019
Wow! Interesting
My favorite madonna video.
This song and video...wow...so powerful 💪🏻
💯💯
For those who say Madonna is not serious. This is not just pop music, this is art. And she has always been serious.
💯💯
This video and song is a masterpiece. Filmed and directed by David Fincher ( who directed Express Yourself and Vogue) 💘🔥
🔥🔥
I knew you’d appreciate this beautiful video. When the song was finally released as a single in the UK in 1995, they edited the slap on the face out for tv. So the world wasn’t ready for her to explore these topics in 1989, 1995 and even today she still gets hate for her art.
Danf 1995?! Why so long?
@@EmpressReacts The UK had Dear Jessie as a single in 1989 instead of Oh Father. (There is a video for Dear Jessie too) It was added to her Greatest Ballads album called Something to Remember in 1995 and was finally released as a single. 6 yrs too late!! 😡
Art.
a masterwork
💯💯
This video is directed by the great David Fincher who goes on to direct her Vogue video. In my opinion this is one of Madonna's best ballads, and the video is a visual and emotional masterpiece. Easily in my top 5 Madonna videos of all time. 10's across the board!!!!
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Yes a very powerful video, Also have to say what an outstanding performance from the child actor.
This track is so good
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This track was extremely underrated & the video just cements in how amazing this song is, was hoping you would pick up the “Promise to Try” reference of the little girl not kissing her (the mother) goodbye 😉
Thank you Empress for another amazing reaction & I could tell it hit you in the feelz early on 😊 💗 💫
It really did ‼ And dang that went over my head 💯
Great reaction. I always see her art and videos as instant WAKE UP CALLS to people watching them. For instance, imagine being an abusive dad to his daughters and everyone is sitting around the tv watching this video-the elephant in the room type shit must be addressed and that was madonnas message w some of her videos and songs
Wow, I can totally see that
@@EmpressReacts this goes along w/ papa don’t preach, like a prayer, oh father and many more. Always the controversial artist !
Great reaction! This music video and song is so beautiful. I love the religious double entendres in the titles of her songs. She does that concept so well.
Thank u‼And yes I'm notification that
I always get emotional while watching this video or even while hearing this song and that's what for art is. To make you feel something. To me both video and song are just masterpieces. And yes, I think people were just not ready for dark side of Madonna at that time.
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My fav Madonna video
It's a mood killer but in a good way lol! It fits perfectly on her ballads album "something to remember" where I actually grew to like this song!
🤣exactly
I sometimes watch this reaction from morbid curiosity. In 1989 (when this song came out) a kid in our school put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. A nerdy, nice little kid.. but his father made him quit the soccer team and all he wanted was to fit in. I’ll never forget that Halloween day as I was driving to his funeral and this song played on the radio.
Wow that is so sad
Cant wait till you get to her song called Rain
My favourite video along with American Life original unreleased video!
Can't wait to see that
Always a tough watch this one 😭 But an amazingly shot video. I still love the scene at the end with Madonna’s shadow being the little girl… which is confirming that this was her. I swear that’s her real Dad at the end ❤️ Bless Tony Ciccone 😊
THAT SCENE WITH THE SHADOWS!!!
A STROKE OF FILMAKING GENIUS
Oh wow ‼
The video is a masterpiece. It really is.
It was directed by David Fincher, who also did the music videos to Express Yourself and Vogue. He's just the best.
💯🔥
I’ve been waiting 😱
The song and video fits perfectly together. It's a really beautiful video and Madonna is amazing as always.
🔥🔥
Such a wonderful piece of art that is this video! David Fincher did a great job and so did Madonna. A masterpiece in my book representing the death of her mother and that little girl seeing her in that coffin was so touching. I agree Empress...they were not ready.
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Empress, Thank you for reacting. Oh Father video is beautiful, haunting, and inspiring. This video is 10 for me.
Yaas💯💯
To this day, I tell this story, I was dreaming about this song and woke up to hearing it play on radio for the first time. I didn't even know it was gonna be a single back then .....
Wow! So creepy and exciting I bet‼
EMPRESS is getting really good at predicting what the videos are going to be like. COOL!
Great song writing already lays out the plot...at least it should
I was a teen when this video came out, it was a lot to process at the time. But I did understand the emotion connected to it. Great reaction as usual.
Thank you!
Beautiful and compelling song and video.
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Empress you should def react to the Keep It Together (Single Remix) before you close out the LAP album era. It’s much different than the album version and is a precursor to Vogue sound-wise. It brought her back into the US top 10!
Will definitely do that
Beautiful story telling, beautiful video, beautiful song, and beautiful reaction.
We all search for what we feel we missed as kids especially love.
Sometimes we recreate our past experiences to have the chance to make it right.
You was totally on point.
Thanks you 💐
💯💯. Thank u‼
Wow this is deep ! Never have I heard this song of hers , and I thought I’ve heard them all before, however! it did give me a new insight on Madonna, and that of her past , that Ive never Known of before. Wow thank you for this empress!! 😊 and also do you have an Instagram account that you allow your UA-cam viewers to follow ?? 💕
Hi! Wow so glad we could experience this song together. And yes you can follow me on IG: pressure.and.empress
Ok I went and your ig and put my request for your acceptance. I have the same profile picture as this one. But under the name of Mabel p tabarez. So that will be me 😊 thank you empress! 😊❤️
@@michmex220 cool! I think I accepted already
There was no way this was gonna be a hit b/c it's too abstract.
The interesting thing is that Keep It Together (the 5th single !!! released almost a year after the album came out)
brought her back into the top 10 even w/o a video.
That just tells you how at the time Madonna was so
surefire in her hit streak that it took something this bizarre to derail it.
Amazing this even made it to #20 - just a test of her POWER back then.
5 yrs later it probably wouldn't even crack the top 40.
Totally agree 💯💯
Great drumming!
🤣💯
I love this.. I think the video, its narrative, the use of light and dark abd the shadow play...particularly the adult and echoes of the child within portrayed by the shadow being a child's.. Its absolute genius x
And I love the song.. Its arrangement, its interplay, the lyrics, melodies.. Everything.. Haha.. For me it's not missing anything.. And it's among her best work but we all like different things.. I think it was very clever and brave releasing it.. Its lacklustre performance regarding the charts might have also been that the album had already been amongst the best sellers its energy had dissappated.. The previous singles had been big hits and this, its style and subject matter, was never gonna be a hit but it is a fan favourite and loads of listeners felt a resonance privately with this song and it also secured that relevance, relatability that people felt with and to Madonna back in the day.. She was reflecting people's stories/lives. Nice reaction xx always love your insights
😊😊😊thank u!
I used to skip this on LAP.
I taped the video on vhs but I decided to get rid of it. As a 11year old it was too heavy for me.
Years later like mid 90s I rediscovered the song for what it is - a haunting gem and a little detail of Madonna's mother passing.
Can totally understand thay💯
NOPE!
1989 wasn't quite ready for this MADONNA, but Madonna does not wait around for anyone. She serves it to you, ready or not, and more often than not, fans end up admitting they've gotten EXACTLY what they didn't know they NEEDED.
Exactly. People were not ready for Erotica and Bad Girl either but they still got served. :D
Love it‼‼
Epic. This is real directing. And those transitions!
🔥🔥
Great reaction. It’s a deep song and not radio friendly. It was released as a single in the U.K. in 1995 and reached number 16. But amazing that an artist went for this as a single that wasn’t just for charting
Huh? Why sooo long? 1995? Was it re-released or something?
In this song and video, I really felt that Madonna tried to make sense of this most traumatic and life changing event in her early childhood which is the premature death of her beloved mother and her ensuing love-hate relationship with her dad. It’s only after she matured and became successful as an artist that she understood and accepted her father for who he is (a product of his own abusive upbringing) instead of what she idealized him to be growing up.
In the video, she decided to capture the haunting incident during the wake of her mother, when the 5-year old Madonna viewed her mother’s face one last time as she laid in that coffin and she noticed that her lips had been stitched together (morticians used to do this to prevent the mouth from opening as could happen when a person is in a death “sleep”). MTV didnot want to air this video unless Madonna clip this part-but she said as an artist her work should be shown as is and MTV relented after she threatened she’ll never perform at nor authorize any of her future music videos to be shown on MTV. I think Madonna internalized that “stiched lips” image as symbolic of her struggle throughout her career against censorship and attempts to “silence” her by religious and conservative groups which she considered as infringement of her freedom of artistic expression. In the cover of her 2019 Madame X album, she showed her face in ashen make-up with her lips appearing at first glance to be stitched-up but on closer look, the “stitch” was actually the letters “Madame X”. I really appreciate your sensitive and insightful reaction to this very personal Madonna video.
Again, masterpiece ⚰️ 👧🏻 ✝️ 😥 👑 🕊This video AND this song are both perfect.
The video is directed by the great David Fincher. Herb Ritts was an incredible and highly influential photographer but I doubt he’d have had the epic structural and dramatic ability as a director to collaborate on something as narratively and metaphorically complex as this video. The layers and transitions are pure visual poetry. The incredible thing about this, as compared to the way Express Yourself appropriates imagery from Metropolis, is the way Oh Father draws such vivid aesthetic inspiration from Citizen Kane and yet creates an entirely different and I’d risk saying EQUALLY cinematic vision of the arc of a woman’s life from the loss of her mother through her father’s heartbroken coldness and misdirection of grief through discipline that verges on abuse, through to yes her subconscious recreation of that relationship in those abusive aspects of her relationship with her husband. Madonna IS a big fan of therapy. I think you’re possibly recalling a comment I made in depth under your reaction to the song Oh Father, where I detailed that parallel between the paternal abuse and Penn’s alleged physical and mental abuse toward her during their marriage. Madonna has since denied any criminal abuse on Sean’s part, but admitted that they had absolutely spectacular arguments. I obviously couldn’t say either way, but it’s difficult to imagine a man with Sean’s intensity, rage and propensity for violent retaliation against photographers didn’t at least feel like a very threatening partner with whom to even have a verbal fight.
I’m not sure if anyone has mentioned the Our Father prayer (or Lords Prayer) that the title of this song is drawn from. It’s a Catholic prayer (also shared by other Christian factions) that goes Our Father who art in Heaven… and so on. I’ve always wondered if “Oh Father” might have come from a childhood mishearing of “Our Father”. The title here and especially the bridge: “Oh Father, If you never wanted to live that way, If you never wanted to hurt me, Why am I running away?” that Madonna is shown intoning in a confessional booth (the cross shaped shadows passing over her as she “prays” are the mesh between herself and the priest, who in Catholicism is both a proxy parental figure as well as a stand in for the metaphoric father of all, or God) are eloquent allusions to patriarchal religion and it’s mirrors in the micro-regime of family. The symbolism is so beautiful in this video it gets richer the more you watch it. The prison door closing as viewed through the bottle, the falling pearls rolling through the spilling alcohol that both represent dislocation and tears of grief, the metaphorical shadows of the free bird, the shadow of little girl Madonna standing up to the angry young father while the grown Madonna departs from the father mellowed by age.
One of the darkest and most moving visual metaphors is the mother’s lips sewn shut, as is the practice of embalmers to keep the face in elegant repose, that can also be read as the silence of death. The idea that the untimely death of a parent deprives us of the truths and guidance they might have given. I know this too well from the death of my own father when I was 20 and now the recent passing of my mother has proven that we always feel there was more to be heard, more to be said.
A particularly beautiful moment in the video is when child M is skipping out in front of her young father at the cemetery, just being a little girl, and he claps his hands together to stop her having fun on such a solemn visit. At the end when Madonna and her father are shown reconciling as adults, the shot transitions to child Madonna playing hopscotch on her mother’s grave as an expression of relief and release from the heaviness of grief. The deeply personal nature of that moment didn’t prevent yet another example of the press and fundamentalists hunting for negative stories about their heretical scapegoat Madonna, warping their perception into outrage at this final shot for showing Madonna “dancing on her mother’s grave”.
Of course I have to disagree again that the song isn’t a 10, because it exists in this introspective musical intention that isn’t trying to entertain as much as it’s bringing you into the inner shadows to learn something deeper about Madonna, and human experience in general. In that way it perhaps wasn’t ideal single material, but I’m glad Fincher insisted on its release so he could make this stunning and important music video for it. This is eternal and essential Madonna art. In the music, I’m forever moved by Patrick Leonard’s hauntingly dark chord progressions with that redemptive upswing in the chorus that nevertheless still feels heavy and dark, like there’s light but it’s breaking through heavy clouds… It never lets us feel released in an easy way, it never ever plays on traditional sentimentality or pop musical accents but instead goes for a more difficult and densely cinematic approach, like the score to an inner film. The reference to confessional prayer in the bridge adds another layer where the freedom from the father’s tyranny becomes about the universal father of God and patriarchy. These are huge eternal themes embedded with such understated elegance. And Madonna the songwriter showed us a new level of skill and courage. It’s musically and lyrically exquisite ⛅️
PS: A lighter tidbit about the parallels with Madonna’s first marriage… A friend of mine lives in a condo that Madonna and Sean kept in the 80s as their home away from their Malibu house. It’s at the foot of the Hollywood hills and they’d stay there to attend business meetings or do press in LA. I’ve stayed with my buddy there many times and the first time I did I was star struck by the notion that my ICON had been there with Sean, doing all the things that couples do (including the fights!) and here I was in the same rooms. Oddly the weirdest and wildest part was that the upstairs bathroom hadn’t been remodeled since at least the early 80s so in a way, to put it delicately, I’ve shared a throne with Madonna! 😅
And yet, having said all this (bravo!), Madonna has repeatedly said throughout her life and career, that whenever she returned to a ceremony in Church, she felt very moved and fond of the rituals and rites of the Catholic Church and that she's a product of it.
@@aldoditoro3139 Yes. And I understand that both because of the beauty of the theatre of Catholicism and it’s churches, as well as the sense that it’s a deep part of her formative experience of meaning. As childhood and family culture always is. If she’d been raised on a tropical island I’m sure the tropics would be a kind of church. Maybe not with the darkness, conflict and guilt that goes with the beauty of Catholicism, but sacredness is obviously very personal
You're right. Storms of darkness, conflict and guilt can be found on tropical islands as well.
🤣🤣🤣sharing the thrown with the 👸 what an accomplishment ‼Epic just like your commentary ‼So much more background on the video and song thanks😘😘
I had the album and I remember I was so shocked when she released this as a single, I thought “girl, there goes your top 10 streak!” 😅. Up to that point every single she had released going back to her first album had gone top ten, maybe even top 5? I really liked Keep it Together and was hoping she would release that next. But oh well not everything is about chart performance, I didn’t realize that back then!
You're 100% right, 1989 was NOT ready for this introspection. That said, I was like 8-9 during this time, and while I can remember hardly EVER hearing this song on the radio (not like the way the first three singles were played constantly), I DO remember MTV having the video in heavy rotation.
Wow interesting ‼
This masterpiece from David Fincher is hands down one of the best videos I have ever seen. But along with Like a prayer, Express yourself and Cherish videos she really did some of the best videos ever. There are some incredible scene which immediately hit me: the falling pearls and after the drops of alcohol mixing with pearls, the shot of her trying to open the door while the is growing up continously and the sewed lips of her mother in the coffin. And of course the shadows on the wall telling a moment of the past. This video is really amazing and I love the choice of black and white. It gives a new power to this beautiful song.
And now Empress, after the video of dear Jessie, will you react to the demos you noticed? Or will you react to the explosive VMA 1989 exhibition? And there are a couple of interesting interviews from this period. And after all these reactions, Dick Tracy era is waiting us, with the film and the fantastic retro album of I'm Breathless that I'm sure you will like. I'm really looking forward to your Madonna reactions. You're always amazing Empress. You're the best 😘😘❤️
Thank u‼😍😘🥰
Spot on Empress. This video is def showing how a lot of people fall into relationships that were indicative of their upbringing. Madonna has never said her father was physically abusive but, he did become very strict and emotionally withdrawn. He never talked about her mothers death to her then. She has said in interviews for as much as she was hurting and really needed her father after her mothers death, she did not realize or understand at the time how much he was hurting also. This song always makes me sad also. This is another one of those that just makes you see how, for as bad ass of a btch she shows she is, she also is so vulnerable and you just want to wrap your arms around her and protect her. Btw, her voice sounds really good. Can't wait for you to see her sing it live.
Madonna at this point in her career was a good predictor of the mood of the culture. This song kind of foreshadows themes that the grunge era would deal with a year or two later. Madonna wouldn’t return to themes like this until ray of light. The author of “Madonna: Like an Icon” wrote that she thinks Madonna got too deep even for herself during this era, which led to Madonna backtracking with the next album and plunging even deeper into the theme of sex. It’s hard to believe that only three years after this video … Madonna would be hitchhiking naked in the streets of Miami in her book SEX. (Have you seen the clip where Kurt Loder asks Madonna if her father ever saw this video? She said she didn’t know but she was afraid to ask.)
No I've only seen stuff up until the I'm breathless album
From wiki:
Madonna later said that the end of the video was "my attempt to embrace and accept my mother's death". The video is said to have taken stylistic inspiration from the 1941 Orson Welles film, Citizen Kane. It foregrounds Madonna's repressive Catholic upbringing and her conflicted relationship not only to her literal father in the video, but also a symbolic one-the Holy Father, the Law, and the Patriarchy.
The scene during the funeral, when the child trembled from seeing her mother's lips sewn shut was described by some as one of the most troubling shots in mainstream music videos - the scene was inspired by Madonna's memory of her mother lying in her wake. After MTV world-premiered the video on November 11, 1989, they wanted to pull it off broadcast until the scene with the lips shut was removed. Madonna disagreed and told them that she would cancel future deals with the channel, prompting MTV to air the video again.
In the 1990 MTV special hosted by Kurt Loder titled Breakfast with Madonna, Loder described the video as "amazing", then asked Madonna if her father had seen it. Madonna responded, "To tell you the truth, I don't know if he's seen it. I'm sort of afraid to ask.
Madonna's vision of reconciliation in the music videos of both "Oh Father" and her 1986 single "Papa Don't Preach" was later included in the third level of Madonna Studies, a controversial development of a field in media studies during the 1990s
It was her first video to get a Grammy nomination for Best Music Video.
Wow! So interesting
Wow I've never heard this behind the scenes before thank you for sharing 😊
I know some will call me crazy, but like anything with Madonna there is always duplicity involved. We know she had a strained relationship with her father and later her step mother. But on the flip side, in this video she is in church, in confessional booth. I don't know the exact moment Madonna flipped to Kabbala for her religion but sometimes this song to me hints at her departure from the Catholic church as well. It can hurt you, even make you cry. It has power and for sure it never made ME feel good about myself....
Great point‼‼‼
A career highlight. I’m kind of glad the GP slept on this song.; it makes it a bit more special to me because of that. 😊
I get it that 💯
Your connection between Madonna's dad, Sean Penn and the loss of her mom is all very probable. It makes me wonder the same thing.
I love this video and the song, I have a complicated relationship with my father… to out it mildly, but that line “oh father you never wanted to live that way, you never wanted to hurt me, why am I running away?” Still haunts me… I can only wish to get to that point of acceptance and understanding
Wow! I hope you do❤❤❤
@@EmpressReacts thank you, and thank you for this journey! ❤️❤️❤️
Empress you looked like you cried during this Madonna "Oh Father" video didn't you? Understandable if you did. Tears can be cleansing. Indeed. I can relate to this video and that type of childhood. Only it was my mother who pretty much tortured me physically and emotionally not my father.
Loads of people have cried watching this video, me included.
Yaas 😭😭😭
there's a new Frozen remix with 070 Shake (the female rapper from New Jersey). I think it's better than the previous tick-tock remix. It's also short and sweet like the last one.
I feel she's trying to describe her relationship with Jesus and how she was experiencing the pain of male companionship....
Directed by David Fincher, cinematography based heavily on Citizen Kane. Masterpiece of video. This is really the last video of Like a Prayer. Fans will tell you 'Dear Jessie' is but its not, it was thrown together for the UK market and madonna wasn't involved whatsoever (save yourself the time - if you value yours the way I do). Keep It Together didn't get a video because she was rehearsing for her Blond Ambition tour.
🤣posting tonight
@@EmpressReacts Ha! I'm so sorry for you loss of precious time!
@@sxnico 🤣🤣🤣dang
As a Madonna-Ballad-Superfan Oh Father will always be in the top 10. She's giving you all the feels this time around...the emotion, the drama, and the vulnerability. I'm sure I'm not the only gay kid who felt this song connected us with the feelings we felt about our emotional struggles with the relationships we had with our own Father figures.
Okay I'm here for the Madonna Ballad Superfan 😍🥰😘
Yes I agree the video and song were just too sad and dark to be accepted by the general public. This was only 5 years after Material Girl.
💯💯
At first listen I just thought this song was too short to be a hit. I thought it was just filler. But as the years have passed I realize this is a fire bop. It makes you feel something. And for Live to Tell fans, it’s much more specific lyrically. The chorus is so real it’s kind of shocking. That’s how it was taken in the 80s. From what I remember, a lot of people loved it. The video played alot. But it was a bit dark for others: and that part in the video where the lips are sewed together was too much for some. I believe I’ve seen Pink and Kelly Clarkson in separate interviews call this one out as a major influence
Oh wow! I started to call that out
i can't wait till you watch her legendary documentary truth or dare
I can't wait‼
I would love to se u react to James Blunt Monsters🤞
This is about the death of her own mother.
The same actor played the father and her boyfriend.
Please React to music video "Trapped" by Colonel Abrams.
Maybe not your usual fare, have you heard Daughters by John Mayer? It literally discusses what you said about how fathers should treat their daughters.
No I haven't
sean
I think it’s shortsighted for some to say that 1980s culture was was too rigid or conservative and wouldn’t allow a song this serious, challenging or deep to become a hit. This song came out at the exact same time as Another Day In Paradise (Phil Collins), Rhythm Nation (Janet Jackson), The End of the Innocence (Don Henley) and a year after Man In the Mirror (Michael Jackson) and Fast Car (Tracy Chapman). All songs just as deep, serious, introspective or “progressive” as this song and video and huge hits . So many Madge fans act as though she was too progressive, ahead of her time or that there was some kind of right wing agenda against something she did that wasn’t well received. I think Of Father got a colder reception and stalled on the charts because it was simply too offbeat for listeners. Had nothing to do with Reagan or religious conservatives, etc. In late 1989, there was a ton of competition in the marketplace that catered to the mainstream and this song was just too peculiar to cut through it.
Great perspective!
This video was her most personal. This video represent the lost of her mother and also the complicated relationsip with his father. This video was very personal and represent more her autobiographical side to Madonna herself. She very talk about the young Madonna herself when she lost her mother when she was five. She have a excellent job in the video. His father was strict, but not abusive.
I'm wait for ''Justify my Love'', a very sexual video and the first Madonna music video to banned to MTV and other music channels, incited Madonna to released the video in VHS.
Justify My Love
Please don't tell Empress too much about any upcoming songs and videos. It spoils the journey for her and for us.
im DYING for the Erotica period to begin. Bad Girl, Fever, Deeper and Deeper!!
I kno - soon I hope
This is one of my favorite madonna videos of all time . My other favorite is coming in the erotica era
The video is better than the song.
The music video really makes you wanna like the song because it's that evocative...but I just can't. It's too melodramatic and weird. The rhythm pattern annoys me. It's not listener-friendly at all, and I still say that vocally it's one of Madonna's all-time worse. It's one of those songs where you respect the intent more than the execution. I never heard this song played on the radio. I saw the video aired on a couple of outlets at the time, but radio didn't play it. Chart-wise, it was Madonna's first single since "Holiday" to miss the top 10. I feel like this was the first example of Madonna making haphazard single choices, just for the sake of being able to make a music video for that song. This became a repeated theme throughout the '90s.
But, yeah, despite all that, the video is terrific. It probably should have been at least nominated for something at the VMA's.
You are entitled to your wrong opinion 😂 😉
Her vocal is perfection. There's so much heart and emotion and power to it. Just listen to Sia's cover. She butchered it. And not really sure what you mean about the rhythm. If by listener friendly you mean it's not a "fire bop" or a super-catchy pop song, you're right. It's not meant to be. It's fucking art. It's on the level of Tori Amos's "Winter." It's not supposed to be "Crazy for You."
@@FindingMadonna Fans overrate this song.
She's done better emotional and somber songs about her life, family/mother/father.
I'll Remember is a perfect example. This vid is art but the song is not!
@@trev8561 I’ll Remember is a great song and one of her best ballads but if we’re being truthful, it was custom made to turn down the temperature of the SEX backlash she was going through at the time and to reignite her chart presence. It was tailored for commercial appeal, which isn’t a bad thing. What I’m saying is that despite its being a great song there was an “agenda” (for lack of a better word) behind it. Oh Father is more pure IMO. She wasn’t trying to get this played on the radio.
We're vibin 😎
This was the song where I realized I loved madonna. The song, the video... it was number one for seven weeks on my chart. Then vogue hit, and it was over for 11 year old me.
Wow! So this song is very special to you
@@EmpressReacts i guess so. yeah. it reminds me of good times. ironically.