Birthday Number 1s: 1986 - Papa Don't Preach

Papa Don't Preach - Madonna

the second of thirteen (so far) UK Number 1s for Madonna, Number 1 for 3 weeks, replaced on 2nd August 1986 by Lady in Red, which might have been quite fun to write about. At least I can tell you that Chris de Burgh was rejected from Nick Drake's Marlborough College band the Perfumed Gardeners, but you probably already know that.

I remember Papa Don't Preach. I remember when it came out, I remember it being Number 1. I remember thinking Madonna looked pretty different in the video (dark, cropped hair). I think I thought she was, in the chorus, commending her father, in the third person, for not being preachy, and that said lack of judgmentalism meant she would be able to stay with her current paramour. I probably felt i'd reached quite a subtle, grown-up interpretation, based on my newly acquired understanding of the youthful American vernacular. Turns out it was more literal than that.

Papa Don't Preach was impressive because if the biggest pop star in the world was to release right now a song with that subject matter, it would still cause a sensation of controversy.

Madonna was probably already a guaranteed superstar by then but, like I say, it was only her 2nd UK Number 1 - lots of things have fallen, further, faster. It wasn't the first single from the album True Blue. That was Live to Tell, which is, even now I think, my favourite Madonna song. I suddenly remember Live to Tell was on those compilation tapes i was telling you about last time. They're both quite grown up songs. It might be that some people started taking Madonna seriously then, though i suspect most people that weren't already taking her seriously by then are still not taking her seriously. 

I'd always thought Madonna wrote Papa Don't Preach and it had some degree of lived experience, or its opposite, but in fact it turns out it was the only song on True Blue she didn't have a significant hand in writing. It was written by a man called Brian Elliott, inspired by teenage girl conversations he used to hear outside the recording studio.

And, yes, it did, apparently, cause a great deal of ire from various political factions.

It's basically a pretty good song. I don't love it, but it's pretty good. It sounds a bit like Luka by Suzanne Vega, or rather Luka sounds a bit like it.

In the summer of 1986 I was between schools. I definitely went on holiday to Edinburgh and North Berwick. I was, intermittently, into the charts, in terms of watching Top of the Pops, or i think Schofield would sometimes go through the Top 10 in the broom cupboard. 86 was not a bad year - Pet Shop Boys, A-ha, the Housemartins and the Final Countdown. 

Madonna was only going to get bigger, and I was only going to follow the charts more closely.