Don’t get mistaken, this is not about the movie from the Disney company about an ice queen and a snowman, sorry if you aimed for that popular story. I am writing about Madonna’s song, the first single from the album Ray of Light, released in 1998. Although I have written blog entries about other cuts from that LP, (I Loved You So…and To Have And Not To Hold) I’ve never done it about this one, which is funny because it’s my favourite. Maybe I was scared to open that can. It is time to finish the trilogy with how it all started.
The first time I saw the video, on a music channel, back when I was living in Ivory Coast, I instantly fell in love with the song. The lyrics came after, I was 17, so I couldn’t really relate with them, still it went directly to my number one song. I had it on repeat for ages, and every time it was broadcast on the channel I would stop doing whatever I was doing just to watch it and soak it up. As I am writing these lines I can’t help but wonder, why have I been avoiding this song so much? Why now? Am I frozen? But most of all, will I be able to honour this song as it deserves to be?
There are moments in life when you can relate more or less to some lyrics, in this case at 17, my love life had been more or less like the song title. I was hibernating, waiting for someone to make me feel true love. I was young. I did not know. I thought I would never be like the man she talks about in the song, or even that I couldn’t get him in the end. Now I am almost 41 (just days from it) and I can say I have been there and done that, both sides of the song. I have been closed at heart, I have suffered and I have frozen my own heart to prevent it from hurting. I have tried to melt the others and failed. Almost 24 years have passed by and I still love this song.
You only see what your eyes want to see. How can life be what you want it to be, you’re frozen when your heart’s not open. You’re so consumed with how much you get, you waste your time with hate and regret, you’re broken when your heart’s not open.
We all have been there, and if you haven’t, consider yourself lucky. We have been hurt, we have suffered and we don’t want to go back to it again. So we try to protect ourselves the best way we can, most of the time by becoming the ones that hurt us in the first place, we get a narrow view of life where the only one that matters is us. Unfortunately time has made us selfish and self centered. We are frozen. It becomes more obvious when she reprises the first verse after the bridge, insisting on the fact that a narrow vision is a mistake. If only he could open his eyes and see the true love.
Now there’s no point in placing the blame, and you should know I suffer the same. If I lose you my heart would be broken. Love is a bird, she needs to fly, let all the hurt inside of you die. You’re frozen when your heart’s not open.
As I said before, we all have been hurt in our life. It becomes pointless to put the blame in past relationships, just accepting it and move on, but it is not always easy. Still we can’t be dragging exes into our new partners, otherwise we will make them suffer too. The problem is, sometimes we are responsible for neglecting the other one’s feelings, we get so self centered that we forget that the person that loves us will be in pain if we keep being the way we are. Having a closed, broken or frozen heart is something that will hurt the people around us. It becomes something that affects everyone that surrounds us. The important part is about letting the pain die and not bringing it into the new relationship. It is about moving on from the past. That is not always easy, and sometimes people would just give up on that.
Mmm if I could melt your heart, mmm we’d never be apart, mmm give yourself to me, mmm you hold the key.
The chorus has the spell, the enchantment to break the icy shell and release the heart. The video captures that idea of a witch trying to make the loved one open up and let love flow. She finds herself a place to proceed to the spell casting, she summons the elements, the winds and the clouds and also the animals like crows or a black dog. She morphs into them, becomes one with nature, and then three phases of herself. She dances and sings, she repeats the verses again and again. There is no one but her in the desert, well three of her, even the moon and the stars bleed into a dark ink and fall on the dry sandy floor to create the painting in her hands. We can see the symbol OM written in her palm which means the vibration of the universe, we are all connected. In the end she lays down, the spell is done.
We all have thought about magic, about witchcraft and how to use it to get that person we love. At some point in our lives we have become desperate to get that happy ending no matter the cost. When I believed in those things I thought music, and songs in particular, were the modern way to cast spells on what we wanted. Unfortunately you can’t force the romance and in the end the other person has the key to either open or lock the heart. It doesn’t depend on us.
This doesn’t mean we won’t be trying again and again to get the love we think we deserve, we will repeat our enchantment so that it may become real. This is why the chorus is so hypnotic, it has the drumming that mimics the heart beat, the humming that makes the song more exotic, that gives it an oriental sound, enhancing the spell, it links it with ancestral magic. We think we can call upon ancient powers to help us get the one we love.
One would wonder what happened with the lover from the song, since the end doesn’t say much of the outcome, the last words are If I could melt your heart. It sounds sad and hopeless, almost like a lament. The video does not give any more clues either. She just fades away in the dark. Maybe it wasn’t meant to be after all. We will have to wait to learn the rest of the story.
Let’s go back to Ray Of Light. The next song in the album is called The Power Of Goodbye. It is about breaking up with a person, the lyrics start with Your heart is not open so I must go. The spell has been broken, I loved you so… So I guess the story didn’t have a happy ending and the magic was not enough. Neither was the open mind philosophy. Actually the story arch in the album was a trilogy, three songs that represent the three phases of a break up. Frozen is when you fight for your love, even though it looks doomed. You suffer but you struggle. The Power of Goodbye is when you hurt but you come to terms with your relationship and have to let go, or leave and To Have And Not To Hold, is when you come at peace with your past relationships and you are now able to move on, single but OK.
Aside from the mystical vibes, the melody and the lyrics makes me think about those self improvement ideas. How to let go, how to move on, but most importantly, how to heal in order to allow others to love us. Since 1998 up to 2022 lots of things have happened and still I can listen to this song and it gives me shivers like the first time.
March 2022
El camino de Santi 