Like A Prayer by Madonna

"Like A Prayer" Music video
"Like A Prayer" Live performance

My family has belongs to a Buddhist temple in Taiwan. In the main room of the temple, there are little shrines, maybe an inch tall and half an inch wide, which like tiles, cover the walls and the pillars. Inside each of these little shrines in someone’s name and in one of the shrines on a pillar is my name and every day the nuns in this temple pray for the people whose names make up the interior of the temple.

Last time, I visited the temple I walked into the temple and my mother introduced me, they went straight to the spot where I was in the wall, which they knew by heart since regularly prayed for me. Every day, when I wake up in the morning and slide on a necklace, a red string with a pendant that depicts Guan Yin, a central female Buddhist figure and I think of the nuns across the world in Taiwan who pray for me.

I’m not a religious man, in the “organized religion” sense. My parents do not belong to any church and I didn’t go to church regularly as a kid. However, I do feel that I am religious. I have delved deep into Buddhism, which acts as my spiritual center and I’ve made a strong effort to understand and know Christianity.

It is through this lens, that I hear “Like A Prayer” by Madonna. Released in 1989 on the album of the same title, “Like A Prayer” was widely criticized. The music video for “Like A Prayer” featured a field burning crosses, an attempted rape scene, police racial discrimination, religious miracles (crying statues, stigmata), a statue of a saint coming to life (which Madonna proceeds to make-out with), and murder. People criticized Madonna for the use of religious imagery (some of which including the fields burning crosses, a symbol used by the Ku Klux Klan, were understandably disturbing). Pepsi who had an endorsement deal with Madonna dropped her and the use of “Like A Prayer” from there ad campaign after Pepsi executives viewed the video. What is surprising is that the song itself did not seem to offend, which in some ways had more potential to be offensive than the music video.

“When you call my name its like a little prayer, I’m down on my knees, I want to take you there.”

This is the central line in “Like A Prayer” that Madonna repeats throughout the song. Literally, the line says that when you call my name it sounds like you are praying. This affects me in such a way that I get on my knees and want to take you “there.”

From my understanding people aren’t suppose to pray for frivolous things. Prayer is reserved for things that are beyond our materialistic wants, things that are close to the heart. Being in someone’s prayers is an honor, it means that you are one of the most important things in that persons life so Madonna’s first line “when you call my name, it’s like a little prayer” speaks to how much devotion and love she hears in her love’s voice.

If someone is speaking to you in a way that is so close to the heart that it sounds like praying, it would make you feel extremely honored. Therefore, you would logically make want to reciprocate that feeling get down on your knees as well and pray for them wanting to take that person to the same feeling.

Madonna blurs this literal meaning with the implication of comparing spiritual ecstasy with sexual ecstasy. If you interpret “there” as a state of physical euphoria than the line “when you call my name its like a little prayer, I’m down on my knees, I want to take you there” takes on a different message. Lines later in this song “your voice can take me there” enforce this layer of meaning.

Take away any thought of what this songs means and then listen to this song, because even though Madonna is playing around with religious and sexual implications the songs itself is a simply a fusion of Gospel and Pop celebrating how great someone can make you feel which may be closer to what Madonna’s intention.

The song starts with angry guitar riff, cut off with a bang like the closing of a door. Madonna has a solemn opening like a morning prayer and then the song kicks into high gear. After the first chorus, the verse fixates on the sound of “your voice” and the idea of someone can take Madonna away to a point that its like she is losing control. The second verse compares the subject to a child and a dream. The gospel choir enters which Madonna follows with a journey through darkness before a celebrative iteration of chorus.

At the least offensive, Madonna is comparing the love that she shares with someone to the feeling that she gets from being in church and singing along with a Gospel choir praising God. At it’s most offensives, Madonna is using religious allusions and musical artifacts like Gospel music to sing about sex.

Madonna wasn’t the first person to blur the lines between religion and sex in music. Ray Charles more than twenty years earlier started to take gospel melodies and sing them with sexual lyrics which caused people to be quite upset, like the couple in the trailer for the Ray (1 minute 14 seconds in).

When I listen to “Like A Prayer” it’s not about sex, it’s about the feeling that you get listening to great, joyous music. The song takes the listener from darkness to light combining the frenetic energy of 1980s music with the soul of a gospel choir. I don’t know much about religious ecstasy. I’ve never felt it or really know anyone who has, but the idea that we can find a transcendent level of joy in our lives, in each other not through sexual activities but meaningful and profound human connections is a beautiful idea and I know I’ve been lucky enough to feel these kinds of connections in my life.

“Like A Prayer” triumphant statement that begs to be questioned but cannot be helped but be enjoyed. It reminds me of great times with friends, the euphoric freedom that can only come through dancing with friends and spiritual joy that comes from knowing that somebody other there is praying for me.