My high-school teaching career began at Mission Prep, a Catholic high school, in San Luis Obispo. We older folks were hit smack in the face by the New Wave movement, and we were suitably horrified, mostly by Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone. Her stuff was not Catholic School Approved, after all. And young ladies do NOT wear rosaries as necklaces, although shattered rosaries unearthed during an archaeological dig in the Immaculate Heart Academy’s privy indicate teenaged Bolsheviks as far back in San Luis Obispo Catholicism as the 1870s.

This song, then, was a shocker to those of us from the Boomer Generation.

“Like A Virgin” made me a little uneasy, too, so it wasn’t the first Madonna song that I grudgingly liked. This one, charming, was. I bought the album because of it.

There’s a little bit of genius in what she does with this song twenty years later. Madonna grunge.

My generation, of course, grew up with Marilyn. Even though I was only ten when she died, I had a little-boy fondness for her—even little boys, given the right upbringing, can sense vulnerability in others—and so this song, a wonderful homage, resonated with me.

Yes, I know that this is a tangent, but Nicole Kidman channeled MM well, too, in the Baz Lurhmann film that, on its ending, made me realize that my jaws hurt. I’d been smiling for two hours– up until Satine’s demise.

I’ve got many Madonna songs on my MP3 player, but the incredible pace of this video production of “Ray of Light” makes that song one of my favorites.

At the opposite pole from “Borderline,” this song is heart-breaking, with elements of Irish keening. We’ve all known people like this. The Frozen govern us today.

Happy Birthday, Madonna. Thank you.