Songoftheday 12/11/13 - I made it through the wilderness somehow I made it through, didn't know how lost I was until I found you...

Madonna - "Like A Virgin"
from the album Like A Virgin (1984)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (six weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 14

Today's Song of the Day was the first single and title track from then-upcoming dance-pop singer Madonna, whose self-titled debut spun off three singles with the top-20 pop hit "Holiday" and top-ten follow-ups "Borderline" and "Lucky Star". But while her growing fanbase were starting to don her fishnets and bows, it would take a "moment" to land her in the big-time.

That moment happened in September of 1984, when she landed a spot on the first MTV Music Video Awards show. Instead of performing one of her past hits, Madonna sang a single audiences would be hearing for the (very) first time, "Like A Virgin". Dressed in a white wedding gown with a "Boy Toy" belt, she writhed over the prop cake and the floor like there was no tomorrow...

"Like A Virgin", written by the team of Billy Steinberg and Tom Kelly, was produced by the leader and guitarist of the 70s disco group Chic, and he enlisted co-members Bernard Edwards and Tony Thompson to play bass and drums. With a bassline cribbed from the Four Tops' "I Can't Help Myself" and pacing from Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean", the record sounded different than the rest of the dance-pop of the same time. With a video filmed in Venice with Madonna writhing (again) on a gondola, the video was voraciously consumed by MTV viewers...

"Like A Virgin" became Madonna's first #1 pop hit in the US in December of 1984, and stayed there for six weeks, longer than any other single that year. The song also topped the dance club play chart in Billboard, as well as going to #9 on the R&B and even #29 on the adult contemporary formats as well. Internationally, the single topped the chart in Australia and Canada, and peaked at #3 in England. It went top ten almost everywhere else in the world as well...

But most importantly, there was no turning back for Madonna after this. She would lay her claim as the biggest woman in pop music in the 80s, and no one would take that away for the rest of the decade.

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There's been a few notable cover versions and parodies of the song since then. In 1985, parody king Weird Al Yankovic co-opted the song for "Like A Surgeon", which went to #47 on the pop chart...

The same year, goth/modern rock group Lords Of The New Church recorded a cover of the song...

as did Scottish alt-rock group Teenage Fanclub in 1991...

In 2001 director Baz Luhrmann put "Like A Virgin" in his Moulin Rouge movie with Jim Broadbent singing...

On television, the song was revived for Glee's Power Of Madonna episode, and the recording of "Like A Virgin" by the cast featuring Jonathan Groff went to #87 on the US and #58 on the UK charts...