What a body of work!:
the use of metaphor in Madonna’s lyrics
Within several songs from her Erotica, Bedtime Stories, and Ray of Light albums, Madonna builds upon a continuing theme of using Earth, its elements, and outerspace as metaphor. The usages are not unconnected or unrelated; each separate metaphor amasses into one larger one that compounds over the course of the few songs they are mentioned in. First being introduced with the forms of water and then with the forms of light, the metaphors ultimately parallel the human body and spirit with the Earth and its outer astral realm. The first song in which Madonna introduces this ongoing mantra of Earth as self is "Rain" from Erotica, thereby kicking off the metaphors for water. The chorus of the song could not be clearer in its simile of rain as love: "Your love’s coming down like / Rain." Like rain upon the Earth, love hits us from the outside, seeping into us as something vital for our growth. Rain is always a constant somewhere on Earth, as is the case with the love from people in one’s life: someone always loves you, be it a family member, lover, friend, or even a stranger who cares for all humankind. Rainstorms, in their periodical fury, stand for the passion that comes with love: "Rain is what the thunder brings / For the first time / I can hear my heart sing." In "Mer Girl" from ROL, rain once again stands as a metaphor for love: "I ran to the sky / Out to the lake / Into the rain / That matted my hair / And soaked my shoes and skin / Hid my tears, hid my fears" I tasted the rain / I tasted my tears / I cursed the angels / I tasted my fears." This time, however, rain is a love that seems to reveal something about her that she fears and finds difficult to accept. Madonna, while singing about her mother (who has always been almost like a mythological, unreal "creature," a "mer girl," to her) runs from the man that she "cannot keep" in doing so. Considering her life at the time when she wrote the song, the man she refers to must be Carlos Leon. From the start of ROL in "Drowned World / Substitute for Love", she’s insistent upon the fact that all the lovers who "settled for the thrill / Of basking in [her] spotlight" she’s had have been only attempts to find true love. Leon was one of those attempts, and it scared her to realize she went the same way with him as she had the others. In fact, "Drowned World / Substitute for Love" is a self-titled admittance to how all the love she’s asked for over the years is actually "drowning" her. Thank goodness for the savior that is "Swim," the second track off of ROL. This track tra a’s drowning into a sort of baptism or rebirth: "Let the water wash over you / Wash it all over you / Swim to the ocean floor / So that we can begin again / Wash away all our sins / crash to the other shore." Here the water, in its form of ocean, metaphorically represents one’s self-love, and how if one cannot learn to redeem oneself within oneself, one cannot truly do away with any guilt or sin at all: "I can’t carry these sins on my back / Don’t wanna carry anymore /" Gonna swim to the ocean floor / mmmmmmm / crash to the other shore." This "other shore" is the side of the fully redeemed of she who as truly washed away all her sins. Water shows up again in ROL, with the song "Frozen." "You’re frozen / When your heart’s not open," Madonna sings. Obviously, Madonna is putting metaphorically her belief that until one learns to love oneself, one can never ever love anybody else (as she sings in Bedtime Stories’ "Secret"). In this case, the cycle of rain (outside love) and ocean (self-love) has halted, and the person she is talking to is truly "frozen" when it comes to love.
The theme of light is gradually introduced along with water in Madonna’s songs. In "Rain" she declares that, "You promised me when you said goodbye / That you’d return when the storm was done / And now I’ll wait for the light / I’ll wait for the sun." In nature, the sun causes rain, so within the continued metaphor, the sun must be another entity from which someone gets love, be it another person or perhaps a kind of Christ figure. Those lyrics in "Rain" therefore suggest that Madonna will go through all the rain (love) and all the storms (passions from love) in order to see who her lover really is under it all. His spirit as bare in front of her as a sun is on a cloudless day. She even claims that the best of both worlds, either the rainy, cloudy cover of love or the bare bones of your lover’s sun spirit, comes when they meet together, forming the beauty of a rainbow. "Secret Garden" brings this issue to light: "And if I look for the rainbow / Will I see it / Or will it pass right by." It is a rare moment indeed when rainbows and a true balance of understanding someone come to existence. Madonna knows this and questions her own ability of ever recognizing it at all. "Secret Garden" further brings to fruition the idea of the land and earth as metaphors for Madonna’s own body. It includes the lyrics, "If I wait for the rain / To kiss me and undress me / Will I look like a fool / Wet and a mess / Will I still be thirsty," which reiterate the whole rain metaphor, and also it contains the lyrics, "I’m still alive / And the boots have come and trampled on me / And I’m still alive / ’Cause the sun has kissed me / And caressed me / And I’m strong," which reiterate the sun as a lover metaphor whose kisses have made her feel better. But the song brings the metaphor even further, centering into Madonna’s vagina as being the "secret garden" of her world. "You plant the seed and I’ll watch it grow / I wonder when I’ll start to show" These lyrics are clearly metaphorical about having sex and watching one’s tummy develop as a baby grows inside. Madonna even explicitly states where her secret garden is "Somewhere in Fontainbleau." She chooses that city in France, the country of romance, as the metaphorical location for her vagina on her metaphorical globe of Earth that is her body. Both places are centers of romance for her.
Seeing that Bedtime Stories was her "recovery" album after the backlash and beating she received from Erotica and Sex, Madonna was obviously in a mood for healing rain for sanctuary, as she did with the song "Sanctuary." "Who needs the sun / When the rain’s so full of life," she sings, realizing the self- healing that rain can have for one’s oceans. "Who needs the light / With the darkness in your eyes," she continues singing as she takes solace in spinning away from the sun into the darkness of healing meditation. Is all of this pain so necessary' for her to deal with? Yes. It’s the perfect explanation of where the spiritual Madonna of ROL comes from. The black sky opened up / Blinding me," she sings in "Mer Girl." She’s seen a whole new light. "Zephyr in the sky at night I wonder / Do my tears of mourning / Sink beneath the sun." It is the mo(u)rning after the darkness. Madonna has arisen from her past, reborn and feeling "like [she] just got home." The ray of light that she has seen has been one from a new "Little Star" in her life, her daughter. Now Madonna feels complete with this "little piece of heaven" that is Lourdes. When she travels down the "road" of life as she explains in "Sky Fits Heaven," she’ll know to "follow the sun." But this sun is the new star that, according to "Little Star," is "shining brighter than all the stars in the sky," a reference that the new love in her life is Lourdes. Madonna knows that by following this sun, "the earth [Madonna herself] shall be as one" as she sings, ever so sure, in "Ray of Light." Madonna finally feels complete with Lourdes in her life, and knows she always feel the same in the future as long as Lourdes is with her. She finalizes this belief one last time in "Sky Fits Heaven" with the line, "hold on to the light / That’s what our future will be."
All information compiled by Emily Dawn Ebert. Please do not reproduce this information without permission.