Borderline, Madonna (1984)

Yesterday I was cycling back from North Berwick … I know, I know, you’ve heard this before … but, this one was special, special to me at any rate. It was the first time I’ve managed the trip since that morning I decided to see what happens if you cycle into a stationary campervan and, as a consequence, broke my clavicle and 12 ribs.

That was 21 months ago, and I’ve not done much cycling since, so I was really pleased. Was probably a mistake to choose the hottest day of the year and the second day of the Scottish Open golf event at Archerfield, the latter making the roads around Gullane unusually busy. But hey, I done it. And North Berwick looked beautiful, families out enjoying the sunshine, the town living up to its moniker, the Biarritz of the North.

Anyway, I’m sat at crossroads coming back into Edinburgh, 80km done, sun unrelenting, sweat pouring off me, out of water at this stage, this car pulls up beside me, music playing unbearably loud, not that I’m bothered, to be honest I’m grateful for the distraction from the heat, sweat, and thirst. The music is real meat and potatoes, dum di dum di dum stuff, the beat sounding like it’s being pounded out on a couple of upturned kitchen pots, 1980s dance, but because the bass is turned up so much, I can hardly hear the vocals and can’t make out what the song is. But it’s clearly a favourite of the car owner’s because no sooner has it faded out, it starts up again. It’s Madonna’s dreadful True Blue.

Thankfully at this point, the lights change, the car owner accelerates into the heat haze ahead of me, startling a seagull scavenging at the roadside who then alights on a nearby telegraph pole and from there appears to mock me as I set off on the final 5km of my journey at a more sedate pace.

Written about her love for her then husband Sean Penn, it’s hard not to think that Madge might have been ahead of her time and utilised a rudimentary form of AI to write the lyrics:

I've had other guys
I've looked into their eyes
But I never knew love before
'Til you walked through my door

They’re not even the best song lyrics about doors. That accolade goes to Irish girl group B*Witched with their 1998 hit C’est La Vie ‘I got a house with windows and doors / I'll show you mine, if you show me yours.’

The album True Blue from also contained Live to Tell, Papa Don’t Preach, Open Your Heart, and La Isla Bonita and was a massive success - bestselling album of 1986, 25 million copies sold worldwide - but the high point of Madonna’s now 40+ year career was surely two years earlier when she released Borderline.

While True Blue sounds strained, Borderline is sublime, effortless, and even then - in 1984 - with the way the melody is picked out on the keyboard at the start, it sounded nostalgic. Part of song’s success (it was credited as being Madonna’s breakthrough hit) was the accompanying video. Set in Los Angeles it shows Madonna kicking about with her Hispanic boyfriend (those scenes in colour), then being tempted away by a photographer (black & white), before returning to her colourful barrio. All nonsense of course, but done with the flair and style - oversize leather jacket, massive jewellery, Pierrot costume, Greek statues - touchstones of the sort that were to become Madonna’s trademark. Still love it.

In fairness, the lyrics aren’t much better than True Blue, but singing them to myself those last 5km yesterday got me home.

Borderline
Feels like I'm going to lose my mind
You just keep on pushing my love
Over the borderline

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Clouds Across The Moon, RAH Band (1985)