Songoftheday 8/21/19 - Say your lines but do you feel them, do you mean what you say when there's no one around...
from the album Bedtime Stories (1994)
Billboard Hot 100 peak: #1 (seven weeks)
Weeks in the Top-40: 27
Today's song of the day is from Madonna, who had rebounded after the mixed reception to her Erotica album with "Secret", the first single from her sixth studio album Bedtime Stories, which landed in the top ten in the fall of 1994. But what more proved that the star hadn't been mortally damaged by the overblown controversy of the past year or so would be the reception to her second single from the set, "Take A Bow". A gentle ballad co-written and co-produced by Babyface, who sings backup on the track, the song really is one of his best, with a softer and resigned grace that matches the emotion Madonna puts through on her vocals. Using the imagery of a bullfighter in the video with the sepia-tone camera work against the Asian-style production of the song really puts this break-up song in another plane.
"Take A Bow" became Madonna's longest-running #1 hit in the U.S. in February of 1995. The song also topped the Adult Contemporary (or "easy listening") radio chart in Billboard magazine for nine weeks (also a career high), while crossing over to their R&B genre chart at #40. Internationally, the single topped the Canadian singles chart for two weeks, and reached the top ten in Italy (#2), Finland (#3), Switzerland (#8) and New Zealand (#9). Remarkably, the song had the opposite effect in Britain, breaking a streak of top ten singles going back to "Like A Virgin" in 1984 by peaking at #16. The single also reached the top-40 in Iceland (#11), Australia (#15), Ireland (#17), Germany (#18), Sweden (#19), Belgium (#19), Austria (#22), France (#25), and the Netherlands (#39).
Despite the huge success of "Take A Bow", Madonna's next two singles from Bedtime Stories, "Bedtime Story" and "Human Nature", both missed the American pop Top-40 (both by a hair, but still). I still don't understand the failure of those two worthy singles (and upcoming "robbed hits") to at least make the same grade as "Oh Father" did. But "Take A Bow" not only righted Madonna's career (to those who thought she needed to) but also served as a (successful) audition to play Eva Peron in the eventual film adaptation of the Broadway musical Evita. And for her, that may have been fine enough.
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Madonna had not performed "Take A Bow" live in concert until the 2010s but here she is at the American Music Awards...
And finally, speaking of that, here she is bringing the song from retirement on her Rebel Heart tour in 2014...
Up tomorrow: Jangle-rock band takes you down her street.
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