Composition
Composed as a dance-oriented song, the intro of "Like a Virgin" consists of two hooks. According to the sheet music published at Musicnotes.com by Alfred Publishing, the song is set in common time, with a moderately dance-groove tempo of 118 beats per minute. It is composed in the key of F major with Madonna's voice ranging from the tonal nodes of high-tone G3 to low-tone C5. According to Rikky Rooksby, the bassline on the intro is a re-working of the three-note bass motif present in the Four Tops' 1965 song "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)", where Chuck Berry provided the chord arrangement. The bassline also has some similarity with Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" especially during the second verse. Madonna sings the song in her high register while drum arrangement by Tony Thompson is heard alongside the bassline, which is also supported by a synthesizer arrangement, giving it a circular progression through all the seven diatonic chords of I–IV–VIIo–III–VI–II–V–I.
Regarding the lyrics, Madonna had commented: "I like innuendo, I like irony, I like the way things can be taken on different levels." This statement highlighted the ambiguity of the lyrics of the song, which is hung on the word 'like'. Rooksby interpreted the meaning of the song in different ways to different people. He said that for women who were really virgins, the song encouraged them to hold their compose before they engaged in their very first sexual act. For sexually experienced girls, the song meant that they would be able to re-live the feelings of their first sexual encounter all over again. For the boys, the song presented a narcissistic image of them making the girl forget her past encounters and enjoy the sexual act as if for the first time.
Read more about this topic: Like A Virgin (song)
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)
“Since body and soul are radically different from one another and belong to different worlds, the destruction of the body cannot mean the destruction of the soul, any more than a musical composition can be destroyed when the instrument is destroyed.”
—Oscar Cullman. Immortality of the Soul or Resurrection of the Dead? The Witness of the New Testament, ch. 1, Epworth Press (1958)
“Pushkin’s composition is first of all and above all a phenomenon of style, and it is from this flowered rim that I have surveyed its seep of Arcadian country, the serpentine gleam of its imported brooks, the miniature blizzards imprisoned in round crystal, and the many-hued levels of literary parody blending in the melting distance.”
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977)