Express Yourself (Madonna Song) - Background

Background

"The message of the song is that people should always say what it is they want. The reason relationships don't work is because they are afraid. That's been my problem in all my relationships. I'm sure people see me as an outspoken person, and for the most part, if I want something I ask for it. But sometimes you feel that if you ask for too much or ask for the wrong thing from someone you care about that that person won't like you. And so you censor yourself. I've been guilty of that in every meaningful relationship I've ever had. The time I learn how not to edit myself will be the time I consider myself a complete adult."

"Express Yourself" was released as the second single from her fourth studio album, Like a Prayer, on May 9, 1989, with "The Look of Love", from the 1987 film soundtrack Who's That Girl, on its B-side. When Madonna started work on Like a Prayer, she considered many options, and thought about the musical direction for it. She had certain matters on her mind, including her troubled relationship with her ex-husband Sean Penn, her family, her lost mother and even her belief in God. Madonna thought about lyrical ideas for the songs on topics that, until then, were personal mediation never to be shared with her public so openly and pointedly. She came to the realisation that as she and her fans were growing up, and it was time for her to move away from the teen appeal to wider audiences, and en-cash on the longevity of the album market. Madonna wanted her new sound to be calculative and indicative of what was fashionable, and ride the changing trend of music.

As Madonna considered her alternatives, producers Patrick Leonard and Stephen Bray had individually began to tinker with various instrumental tracks and musical ideas to present to her for consideration. "Express Yourself" was the first song that Madonna and Bray collaborated on for Like a Prayer, co-written and co-produced as a tribute to American funk and soul band Sly and the Family Stone. The main inspiration behind the song is female empowerment, urging women never to "go for second-best" and to put their love "to the test". Madonna explained to Becky Johnston in the May 1989 issue of Interview:

"The ultimate thing behind the song is that if you don't express yourself, if you don't say what you want, then you're not going to get it. And in effect you are chained down by your inability to say what you feel or go after what you want. No matter how in control you think are about sexuality in a relationship there is always the power struggle... always a certain amount of compromise. Of being beholden, if you love them. You do it because you choose to. No one put the chain around this neck but me. I wrote 'Express Yourself' to tell women around the world that pick and choose the best for yourself, before that chain around your neck, kills you instead. It's my take on how man can express what they want, the same prerogative should be there for a woman too."