Amichai’s Top 50/26 “Like a Prayer”
“Life is a mystery
Everyone must stand alone
I hear you call my name
And it feels like home. “
Just past mid-way marking this 50 days/songs journey is a place of honor reserved for Madonna who gave me and so many others the permission to fuse sacred and sexy and everything in between and then some.
It’s 1984. I’m 16 years old, in oversize tweeds, big hair and argyle shorts, screaming at the top of my lungs: Along with my friends at the Beacon on Broadway and Madonna is on stage and the venue is only 3/4 full. She’s just getting started as the big star she’ll become. Unforgettable night.
Madonna is on her way to Israel today, amid BDS callout, to perform “Like a Prayer“ in Tel Aviv for the Eurovision on Saturday.
‘Like a Prayer’, released in 1989, became the anthem. All the words by heart. And the videoclip! It was shocking then, no wonder the Vatican got so mad, and Pepsi cancelled her contract, and still shocking and even more so today: It’s not just the stigmata. More important: calling out racial bias, burning crosses, black Jesus, police brutality, complicit religion. 30 years later she has more calling out and protesting injustice to do. Including in Israel. How much and how little has changed?
Anyway. Thank you Madge. Keep on pushing. and praying.
Amichai’s Top 50: Soundtrack of my life. 4/20-6-8 2019/Passover-Shavuot 5779
– Amichai
Amichai’s Top 50: Soundtrack of my life. 4/20-6-8 2019/Passover-Shavuot 5779
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